Erin, Thank you so much for reading this and commenting. I am glad that you, as a parent yourself of a child with anencephaly, resonated with my analysis of the situation. I am saddened--but certainly understand--that the comments of some here who demonstrate the very point of the article preclude you from posting this in your group. I hope it can help you and other families who have been touched by this and other diseases in some way anyway. Thank you again for posting. Blessings. Karen

I glad to hear that FB reconsidered although I do think that we should all be careful how widely we share extremely personal information--including photos. Do the naysayers here and on FB not know how to use it though? If something disturbs you or is from someone that you don't know personally then simply hiding it from your news feed is a highly effective way to not have to look at it. I have to do it occasionally for personally offensive or profane material. No need to report it as a violation of FB's posting guidelines--which it isn't.

Thank you for your comments "Shocked". I wish there were a way to flag some of these other comments as "inappropriate". Remember - Grayson is the real boy of a real parents with a real family who are grieving his loss. Please be kind people.

Thank you for writing this Karen! I am in an online support group with Heather. My firstborn had anencephaly also. I think you said this well. Our culture is afraid of death. I know well the way people treat it & Heather knows that well, also. I was going to post this article for our group to read because I think many would be blessed. But I am afraid many will be discouraged by some of these insensitive comments. The point of Karen's article here is not to call Facebook out as awful. The Walker family gratefully & graciously accepted their apology for the misunderstanding. The point still is true that people are afraid of death. And I have had friends, who are completely aware that my baby died, speak with disgust & laughter at the "grossness" of photographing dying babies. And these are kind, good people. But do not want to "face up" to death. I know it is hard. But it is reality. Many of us want to honor the life that was by remembering. We don't want to forget. God bless Heather & her family & dear Grayson!

In the 1800's here in America there was a trend of post mortem photography. Many children died in infancy and a way to remember and show love to that child was to take a photo of him/her as if they were sleeping. Sometimes the photo was taken of the child alone, sometimes with their living sibling(s) and/or parent(s) around them in the photo. This was normal and people weren't creeped out by it because people knew death was a part of life. Also it was not an odd thing at the time since death was a big part of everyone's lives since medical care wasn't as good,or advanced, as it is now. People watch movies filled with graphic murder, rape and other violence and don't bat an eyelash. But death in reality? That hits too close to home for many. Also look at the daily news! Dead bodies aplenty! I think in this case though, after looking at the picture, it was the way the child looked that made people upset. The child's left eye is obviously enlarged and it looks frightening. Facebook though shouldn't have had issues though as there's nothing wrong with showing the picture.

I'm against killing the unborn because I've seen pictures of their being killed by burning to death from chemicals, brains torn out, etc. but after they're dead, not dying. People with disabilities aren't the same as those who "were" normal and than physically tortured and killed by some rat in a rat culture or some psycho who enjoys torturing and killing. At the point of dying it should be done in privacy for the person dying simply out of respect for the dying person. Pictures of how they died to convict a murderer are a necessity but not pictures of a victim actually dying, etc. There is a fine line between suffering from deliberate torture, murder, starvation for political purposes of an undesireable culture and a person during their moment of dying. Because I support two kids until they're 18 in some ugly cultures, I know about suffering and death brought on by cultures and every day normal dying from an illness or simply old age. One you can maybe do something about, one only medical research can help. The one thing we can do with the dying is give them some respect at least during their "moment". This has been the accepted mode of respecting the dying forever except when an enemy in someway displayed the victim in various ways showing true hate, you know, like the killing and dying of Jesus.

My daughter, Ruth, had disabilities that often caused people to turn away in discomfort. I had the same reaction myself when seeing a photo of a woman in India who had been burned with acid by her family for becoming a Christian. My first reaction was to put the magazine with this picture directly in recyling and then to hide it from my children, but I thought "We cannot turn away from suffering." And so I read her story and wept. After that I looked on her face with compassion instead of fear or horror. We must be willing to see suffering or we'll never have the compassion to stop it.

Well, a picture of a dying baby while dying is indeed disturbing. I think kindness to the baby as the baby is dying and unable to protect himself from prying eyes should be considered. Dying is a private time for individuals and nurses and doctors who handle it on a daily basis are better able to cope as compared to people who haven't seen or been with the dying other than their own immediate family members or loved ones. A little courtesy for the dying as they die should be considered. Than you can have all the pictures of the dead you want to show the world. Pictures of the dead were commonly sent to far a way relatives because distance made it impossible for attendance at the funeral. Now a days, it isn't done so much. Pictures of the dead are also used for doctors and researchers to help cure or fix what killed a person for the future. That is for medical purposes and is done routinely. I don't know, putting on Facebook, I don't think so. It's like putting it on a community board in the middle of town. I wouldn't want my dying picture put there.

Actually, I don't particularly care if it's a deformed dying child, a casket, or a perfectly healthy baby: These are images for family and friends, not the general public. You might have pictures up at work - but you know your coworkers. I would assume that with rare exceptions, you wouldn't put a picture of your child in a newspaper or other totally public site (excepting maybe their birth pictures... maybe). (Note that I'm commenting on posts flagged public, not friends only. If it's friends only and someone complains, the person posting it needs to get better friends.)

I'm trying to come up with words to describe my impression of how Karen wrote this: sensitive, caring, intelligent; but my first thought was "classy".