Pro-Life News in Brief

By Liz Townsend

Pennsylvania Abortion Clinic Evicted

After a five-year battle, pro-lifers in State College, Pennsylvania, celebrated when a judge ordered an abortion clinic to close its doors because it violated its lease. However, clinic staff said that they would look for a new location in the area and plan to reopen later this year.

On July 18, Centre County Judge Charles C. Brown refused to reverse an earlier decision that ordered State College Medical Services to vacate the building, Centre Daily Times reported. HFL Corp., the building's owner, asked the clinic to leave because it was not told when the lease was signed that abortions would be performed there.

Judge Brown had previously ordered the abortion clinic to close in November 2000, and a Superior Court judge upheld his decision in April 2002, the Times reported.

The abortion clinic, partially owned by abortionist Steven Chase Brigham, opened in 1997 despite tremendous community opposition. Centre County Citizens Concerned for Human Life, the local NRLC affiliate chapter, joined with other pro-lifers in circulating petitions and organizing events to protest the introduction of abortion into their community.

Brigham is no stranger to controversy. He has been the subject of investigations for botched abortions and other violations in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, and California. He served time in jail in 2000 for failing to file tax returns.

A spokeswoman for the clinic tried to put a positive spin on the eviction order. "State College Medical Services is happy to be relocating and resuming our services this fall," she told the Times.

Lawsuit Filed over Loss of Premature Baby's Body

Jason Matthew Liscio died in his mother's womb at only 14 weeks of pregnancy. Doctors could no longer detect his heartbeat, and they advised his parents to have an abortion. Insisting that Jason was a person and should be given respect and dignity, they refused to have an abortion and insisted on delivering their son naturally and seeing him for the first and last time.

But in the two years since Jason's death, Leonard Liscio and Kim Zilinskas have been unable to give their son the "proper Christian burial" he deserves, according to the New Haven Register. Yale-New Haven Hospital cannot find Jason's body nor any records that he ever existed.

Liscio and Zilinskas have filed a lawsuit against the hospital, claiming negligence and infliction of emotional distress, the Register reported. They said they are devastated that the only evidence they have that Jason was delivered is Zilinskas's wrist identification bracelet and a snapshot of Jason that was taken by a nurse.

The couple holds the hospital responsible for the loss of Jason's body and medical records, not for the unknown cause of his death. "This child never had a life, and that's not Yale-New Haven's fault," their attorney Richard Altschuler told the Register. "This child never had a death - - he just disappeared."

After Jason was delivered, the family spent some time with their tiny son, who was so small he could fit in his father's hand. "From here to here," Liscio said, pointing from his palm to his fingertip, the Register reported. "He had all the fingers, toes, everything."

Jason's body was then taken to the pathology department. When Liscio and Zilinskas asked for his body so they could bury their son, the hospital could not find him. Zilinskas told the Register that staff members have even denied she was a patient and never filed a death certificate for Jason. When she asked for her medical file, she was notified they were "unable to locate" it.

Since the body disappeared, it was never determined why Jason died. Liscio and Zilinskas said they are afraid to conceive another child, since they have no idea whether Jason's death was caused by a genetic disorder or another reason, according to the Register.

"I want to know what happened," Zilinskas told the Register. "I want closure."

Hospital spokesman Mark D'Antonio declined to comment on the lawsuit until attorneys have had a chance to review the case.

Nitschke to Offer Suicide Bags in Australia

Philip Nitschke, Australia's "Dr. Death," has devised a new method for "helping" people in his country commit suicide: he plans to distribute thick plastic bags so they can suffocate themselves. According to AAP, the so-called "Aussie Bags" would be placed on a person's head and tightened at the neck by a drawstring to make an airtight seal, which would cause death by lack of oxygen.

"The bags will be free to Exit Australia members, those who make a donation, or to hardship cases not in a position to make a donation," Nitschke told the Melbourne Herald-Sun. "People must attend an Exit Australia workshop in capital cities before they can get the bag.

"All aspects of the bag's use will be discussed ... legal, psychological, and technical. It will be explained how to use the bag by yourself."

According to AAP, the bags will include a printed warning: "DO NOT put this bag over your head. It could kill you." This warning is one way that Exit Australia will use to try to avoid prosecution under the country's law against assisting suicide.

Nitschke said that Exit Australia will continue to investigate other ways to prevent prosecution before the bags are officially unveiled August 20. "They have been produced but we are still trying to get some legal issues sorted out about what will happen as far as their distribution," he told AAP.

Pro-life groups were quick to call for Australian lawmakers to specifically ban the suicide bags. "If there is no legislation to cover it, well then they should be passing legislation to cover it," Right to Life Australia president Margaret Tighe told AAP. "I'm quite sure such legislation would sail through the Parliament."

Study Investigating New In Utero Treatment

Vanderbilt University Medical Center doctors, who have made great strides in fetal surgery research, are conducting a research study to treat unborn babies for gastroschisis, an intestinal disorder that usually leads to several operations after birth.

According to Vanderbilt's online research journal, Exploration, gastroschisis is a "developmental abnormality that cause[s] the intestines to poke through a weakness in the abdominal wall and into the mother's uterus, where the amniotic fluid [becomes] increasingly concentrated with urine and toxic to the delicate internal organs turned outward."

When a baby with gastroschisis is born, surgery is needed to place the intestines back inside the body and fix the abdominal wall. Since the organs were exposed to the amniotic fluid and the baby's waste, there are often dangerous complications.

Although gastroschisis is not usually fatal, "it definitely injures the baby," study leader Dr. Joseph Bruner told the Nashville Tennessean. "[I]f the bowel is in bad condition, sometimes it's not even possible to take the baby to the operating room for a couple of days. And then when you go, sometimes it's not possible to get [the bowel] all back in."

Instead of waiting to treat the babies after birth, the Vanderbilt doctors have been replacing contaminated amniotic fluid with sterile saline solution several times throughout the pregnancy.

The goal of the treatment is to lessen the severity of the gastroschisis by reducing the inflammation of the intestines. "This is a whole new area never addressed before - - altering the amniotic constitution to protect vulnerable fetal body parts from amniotic fluid to treat fetal disorders," Bruner told Exploration.

The procedure was first performed in France, where at one hospital 20 patients who were treated in utero experienced 30 to 50 percent improvement, according to Exploration.

The Vanderbilt study began last year, and Bruner is hopeful that the final results will show that the procedure is effective. "There's no doubt in my mind that once we publish the results of this study the management of gastroschisis will change overnight," Bruner told Exploration.