PRO-LIFE NEWS IN BRIEF
By Liz Townsend

Baby Survives Abortion Attempt and Premature Birth

A British baby boy survived an abortion attempt and premature birth at 24 weeks two years ago, according to a report in the January issue of the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology. The boy, whose name was not released, is doing well.

The boy's mother sought an abortion at the Blackdown clinic of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service in November 2002, according to the Daily Mail. During her 23rd week of pregnancy, she was given two drugs over a two-day period. When the clinic discovered the baby was still alive, it gave the woman a third drug. The specific abortifacients were not identified in news reports.

After an ultrasound scan, the woman was told the baby was dead and to come back in a few days to make sure the body was expelled, the Manchester Evening News reported. However, as she was traveling home that day, she felt the baby move.

Changing her mind about the abortion, the mother went to Hope Hospital in Salford and asked doctors to save the baby. Her son was born four days later, weighing 1.5 pounds, according to the Manchester Evening News.

"This mother went through extreme hardship waiting to see if her baby was going to make it," wrote report author Dr. Paul Clarke, according to the Sunday Times. "She was told to expect him to die so many times."

Clarke added, "She had guilt stemming from the fact she knew if she had not gone through with the procedure it would not have been born prematurely," the Manchester Evening News reported.

The baby remained in the neonatal intensive care unit for seven months, fighting lung disease and infections. He was on a ventilator for 7 1/2 weeks, according to the Sunday Times.

Clarke called for authorities to investigate late abortions in private clinics and their procedures if the baby is born alive. "Late abortion raises serious practical, ethical, and professional concerns," he wrote, according to the Sunday Times.

"The dilemma of being telephoned about an infant born showing signs of life following termination of pregnancy is one that many paediatricians have faced. If viable, and resuscitated, those infants who survive may suffer significant illness."

Open-Heart Surgery Saves Tiny Baby

The smallest baby ever to survive open-heart surgery to correct transposed arteries, Jerrick De Leon, was only one week old and weighed 1.5 pounds when doctors at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Stanford, California, performed the operation that saved his life.

Jerrick's mother, Los Angeles-area pediatrician Maria Lourdes, suffered a dangerous rise in blood pressure 13 weeks before she was due to give birth, according to the San Jose Mercury News. Born in an emergency Caesarean section January 30 in a southern California hospital, Jerrick was found to have a congenital heart defect in which his aorta and pulmonary arteries were connected to the wrong parts of the heart.

"The heart normally pumps blood throughout the body in a kind of figure-eight pattern, with the heart in the center," according to a Packard Children's Hospital press release. "In Jerrick's case, the two arteries routing blood out of the heart were switched during development, severing the connection between the two loops of the figure eight. Oxygenated blood cycled uselessly between the heart and the lungs while the body received only oxygen-poor blood."

Lourdes's doctors told her that Jerrick had no chance of survival, since the defect was so severe and he was so small. "I'm a mother and I'm always looking for the hopeful side of things," Lourdes said at a press conference, the Associated Press reported. "I refused to accept zero chance and I think any parent would feel the same."

Lourdes and her doctor discovered that pediatric cardiac surgeon V. Mohan Reddy at Packard Children's Hospital had experience in performing open-heart surgery on tiny newborns. Jerrick was quickly airlifted to Stanford and had the surgery February 6, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

"A lot of pediatric cardiologists and neonatologists think these kids are inoperable, but I believe that is a myth," said Reddy in the hospital press release. "We have the most experience in the world operating on these extremely low birth-weight babies. This experience, coupled with our ongoing research on fetal surgery, gives us an edge when treating children like Jerrick."

The surgery was successful. Jerrick is expected to remain in the hospital until he is about 30 weeks old, NBC News reported.

Villanova University Stirs Controversy with Memorial Plaque

Faced with criticism from members of the university community, Villanova University in Philadelphia has removed a memorial plaque dedicated to the memory of a teacher who committed suicide after killing her six-month-old daughter.

Professor Mine Ener killed her daughter Raya, who had Down syndrome, in August 2003. Ener had been diagnosed with postpartum depression and was experiencing hallucinations, according to the Associated Press (AP). She slit Raya's throat with a kitchen knife while visiting her parents in St. Paul, Minnesota. Ener later killed herself while in a Minnesota jail on charges of second-degree murder.

Before her daughter's birth, Ener was a popular teacher at Villanova. Friends and colleagues decided to honor her memory by funding a study area in the library, complete with a memorial plaque with the epitaph, "Scholar, Teacher, Mentor, Friend." The study area was dedicated January 20.

Students and others immediately criticized the memorial. "It was a sad and tragic situation. She was depressed, but she did murder her daughter," Villanova senior Jeanne Marie Hoffman told the AP. "It isn't the kind of thing you want to remember on a Catholic campus."

Hoffman, the editor of a campus newspaper, organized a small protest on the day the study area was dedicated, and others contacted school officials to express their opposition.

The university removed the plaque January 31, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We understand the strong sentiments expressed by members of our extended community," the university said in a statement. "At no time did the university nor anyone associated with the university intend to devalue the sanctity of life."

Instead of the plaque, Villanova will memorialize Ener through a symposium on mental illness, "specifically postpartum depression and psychosis, led by the College of Nursing," according to the statement.

German Nurse's Death Toll Raised to 29

A German nurse charged last July with killing 16 elderly patients will be tried for 13 more deaths. Known as "Stefan L.," the nurse is now charged with 6 counts of murder, 22 counts of manslaughter, and 1 count of assisted suicide, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Investigators found the additional cases after exhuming the bodies and conducting autopsies on 42 former patients from the hospital in Sonthofen where Stefan L. worked. Most of the victims were elderly, and died between March 2003 and July 2004 from a combination of the sedative midazolam, the anesthetic etomidate, and the muscle relaxant lysthenon, according to the AP.

However, six of the patients were found not to be seriously ill, and the nurse was charged with murder in these deaths. Prosecutor Herbert Pollert told the AP that some of the manslaughter charges might be upgraded to murder after further investigation.

The trial date has not yet been set.

New Hampshire Brings Parental Notification Law to Supreme Court

The New Hampshire Attorney General's Office filed a brief February 22 asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the parental notification law that was struck down before it went into effect.

If the High Court agrees to hear the case, New Hampshire attorneys will ask the justices to determine whether the law must have an "explicit health exception," according to the Manchester Union-Leader.

"Abortion providers seek to broaden the medical emergency exception to such an extent that every single abortion would be considered a 'health' abortion," Roger Stenson, executive director of New Hampshire Citizens for Life, told NRL News. "This makes any parental notice law ineffective."

The law, which would have required girls under 18 to notify one parent at least 48 hours before having an abortion, was struck down December 29, 2003, by U.S. District Judge Joseph DiClerico, two days before it was scheduled to go into effect.

Although the law included a judicial bypass, which would allow a girl to get a judge's permission to have the abortion without her parent's knowledge, DiClerico ruled that it must have a specific exception for "health."

The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the judge's ruling November 23, 2004. "The New Hampshire Act contains no explicit health exception, and no health exception is implied by other provisions of New Hampshire law or by the Act's judicial bypass procedure," the appeals court wrote. "Thus, the Act is facially unconstitutional."

Pro-lifers were hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the law. "The appeals court in Boston failed to apply the Supreme Court's established parental notice standard to the New Hampshire parental notice law," said Stenson. "Six of the current Supreme Court Justices are on record in support of virtually the same language in the New Hampshire statute. We should win this 6-3 unless somebody on the Court changes her mind again."

Tiniest Baby Released from Hospital

Rumaisa Tahman, weighing only 8.6 ounces when she was born last September at Loyola University Medical Center near Chicago, went home with her family February 8. She gained five pounds during her five months in the hospital, according to the Associated Press.

Rumaisa was reunited with her twin sister Hiba, who went home in December. The twins were born in an emergency Caesarean section at 26 weeks gestation, after their mother, Mahajabeen Shaik, developed high blood pressure. Hiba weighed one pound, four ounces at birth.

Dr. Jonathan Muraskas of Loyola told the Today show that Rumaisa is remarkably healthy, and experienced no severe complications during her hospital stay. "She had a very smooth course," Muraskas said. "She had no bleeding in the brain. She had no major infections. I think we were blessed to have such a smooth course with them, without - - she never really had any real major problems. She needed some eye surgery, which is very common for babies that are that small and premature."

Rumaisa will need some additional oxygen while she continues to develop, but Muraskas told Today host Katie Couric that although Rumaisa will face some difficulties that are typical for all premature babies, he does not foresee any major problems. "I don't see any red flags, Katie, that would suggest that she will have any kind of significant handicap like cerebral palsy," Muraskas said. "It's too early to tell. We just have to follow her, especially these first two to three years are critical, to follow her development and the milestones."