A 37-year-old mother Bernadette Mimura, belonging to Ingleby Barwick Ingleby Barwick who was diagnosed with cancer when pregnant has died of the disease. She had refused life-saving treatment as it involved making a choice between saving her own life and that of the unborn baby, by the doctors.
Being a Catholic she refused abortion on religious grounds. She was given a mild form of chemotherapy treatment with the object of suppressing the illness until the child was born. She died after her newborn son Nathan was baptized. Nathan is now a four-month-old toddler.The doctors were compelled to induce him due to a rise in the calcium levels of the mother, making the child premature by two months. Bernadette Mimura has three other children born through her first husband.
