Last week in Oklahoma, Ray Phillips fulfilled a promise to his sister Stacy, taking home from the hospital 5-pound Dottie Phillips, born prematurely in September, to become the newest member of his family.  Stacy died last month of brain cancer, just three days after holding her infant daughter for the first and only time. Dottie was able to come into the world only because Stacy, 41, had made the choice to reject chemotherapy for her rapidly spreading cancer that was diagnosed after she learned that she was pregnant.

When life places one of us in a “Sophie’s Choice” dilemma like Stacy’s, no one has standing to question or challenge whether the ultimate choice is “right.” There is no right choice. Stacy was faced with deciding whether to sacrifice the unborn child she had never met, a child whom many in America choose to regard as a neither a life or a being with any individual rights, but rather only as an ephemeral potentiality made of cells, similar to a pay-off at the races or a stock dividend. Even those who take the opposite view, that Dottie was a human life even at the earliest stages of her development in the womb, would never assert that a mother would be wrong to choose life-saving cancer treatments for herself at the risk of the unborn child. In such a case the right to choose is nearly unanimously accepted, and it is the hardest choice of all.

Thus it is not in any way a criticism of women who would choose differently to say that Stacy’s choice was remarkable and inspiring in its courage and selflessness. There are ethicists and psychologists who argue that human beings are incapable of truly altruistic conduct, that at some level even our most noble acts are inspired by self-interest. One of the many reasons Stacy’s act is important is that it presents a daunting challenge to these cynics who would deny the  best of humanity. This mother consciously and rationally chose to give her daughter a life, knowing that she, Stacy, would never be able to enjoy it or be part of it. Indeed, she made this choice in a situation where the life of her daughter was more speculative than usual, because there was a real chance that Stacy’s cancer might kill both mother and daughter, rendering her sacrifice futile.

In the end, Stacy accomplished her goal: she gave a new human being a chance at life and a life too. Her story is testimony to the power of love and the worthiness of sacrifice, and remarkably, support for both sides of the deep chasm in our nation that call themselves “pro choice” and “pro life.” Stacy Crim took the choice that the law assures her, and used it to bestow existence, at the cost of her own. While mourning Stacy’s death, we should also honor that choice by rejoicing in its consequences. Dottie lives.

And that is what mattered to Stacy Crim—mother, human being, hero—most of all.