A pregnant cancer patient who refused to have an abortion a year ago despite her diagnosis has now been told she has weeks to live.
Tasha Kann, 30, was 20 weeks pregnant with her second child when she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer called grade III anaplastic astrocytoma.
Despite her doctor’s advice to terminate the pregnancy so she could receive chemotherapy and radiation, Kann refused.
“I told them absolutely not,” Kann told Fox News Digital. “I was a little scared, but I never gave up hope,” Kann said of his diagnosis. “I knew I had to be strong for my baby.”
Initially with only eight months to live, she defied all odds and welcomed a healthy baby girl into the world.
Today, even though she only has a few weeks left to live, she maintains her decision and savors every moment spent with her two children.
Tasha Kann, 30, was 20 weeks pregnant with her second child when she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer called grade III anaplastic astrocytoma.
Kann, pictured here with her husband, refused doctor’s advice to terminate her pregnancy so she could receive chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Kann gave birth to a healthy daughter named Gracey (pictured) in October 2022, joining her 2-year-old son, Deklan. Even though she only has a few weeks to live, she remains faithful to her decision and savors every moment spent with her two children.
Kann gave birth to a healthy daughter named Gracey in October 2022, joining her 2-year-old son, Deklan.
The doctor predicted she only had eight months to live after her baby was born, but miraculously, Kann is still here almost a year later.
“Every day I look at my beautiful baby and think about how easy it was for them to tell me to abort — like she was nothing,” Kann said. Fox News Digital.
“If I had listened — as most patients do, because they trust their doctors and don’t do their own research — my baby wouldn’t be here,” she said. “It’s a miracle from God that we’re both here.”
Kann faced major drama this summer when she received the devastating news that her cancer had spread and available treatment options were now limited.
Its diagnosis is called gliomatosis cerebri, a very aggressive tumor that affects the central nervous system and lobes of the brain.
Doctors predict he only has a few weeks left to live.
But Kann continues to stick to his decision to refuse radiation and chemotherapy treatments and instead uses alternative immunotherapy at the Burzynski Clinic in Houston, Texas.
She remains proud of her decision to defy the doctor’s recommendations and considers her faith in Jesus the most important factor that gave her the strength to do so.
She still remembers being “disgusted” by the doctors who, according to her, “defied the will of God”.
“Aborting my baby was never an option for me because it went against God’s will,” she told Fox.
“I had many deep conversations with Jesus that week in the hospital and I knew that if I clung to the Lord and His promises, He would keep my baby safe.”
“If cancer was already as bad as people make it out to be, killing my baby wouldn’t have saved me anyway,” she noted.
Kann worked in a hospice and witnessed first-hand the detrimental effects of chemotherapy and radiation on many patients, she told the outlet, saying, “It doesn’t always work.”
Kann’s only hope is to stay alive and be a mother to her two young children. Her family is the reason she keeps fighting
“I knew it would be a ‘no’ for me,” she said. “I decided to go home, do my own research and find a solution, all while keeping my baby alive.”
Kann’s only hope is to stay alive and be a mother to her two young children. Her family is the reason she continues to fight.
“The one thing I ever wanted to be in life was a mom,” she said.
“My husband is my main support,” she told Fox. “He is amazing and I wouldn’t be able to heal the way I do without him. And my children’s smiles and laughter help me stay strong and remind me to keep going.
After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, oncologists have expressed concern that restrictions on abortions in Republican-led states could force pregnant cancer patients to delay critical treatments, such as various chemotherapies.
“This decision is going to impact many aspects of women’s health and healthcare – but specifically for cancer patients, it could be a death sentence for some of them,” said Dr. Shikha Jain, an oncologist at the University of Illinois. Center, said ABC News.
There have been cases where young pregnant women have died due to a delay in chemotherapy treatment, often due to abortion laws.
In 2012, a pregnant 16-year-old died from leukemia after her mother said the hospital delayed her chemotherapy treatment because of the Caribbean country’s strict anti-abortion laws.
Doctors at Santo Domingo’s Semma Hospital were reluctant to administer chemotherapy to Rosa Hernández’s teenage daughter because it could end the pregnancy, which is against the law in this island nation where the Catholic Church remains a powerful force.
