Pro-Life News in Brief
Liz Townsend

Fetal Surgery Saves Baby’s Life

In a remarkable medical procedure, doctors at the Texas Center for Fetal Surgery removed a large tumor from an unborn baby’s chest while he was still connected to his mother by his umbilical cord. After the tumor was removed, allowing his lungs to expand, Garrett Jorgensen was separated from his mother and was able to breathe on his own.

Ellen and Christopher Jorgensen discovered during a routine ultrasound in July that their unborn baby, due to be born in only a few weeks, had a life-threatening tumor growing in his chest cavity, according to the Houston Chronicle. Their doctor referred them to the Texas Children’s Hospital, whose fetal surgery center has experience in such risky operations.

“The effect it was having on Garrett is that this tumor had grown so big, that it was pushing on the heart and both lungs,” lead surgeon Oluyinka Olutoye told Saturday Today, “and we felt that Garrett would not be able to breathe at all even with the assistance of ventilators when born. So it was really important that we remove this mass that was occupying about two-thirds of his chest, to deliver that mass out of the chest before we could make any attempts to breathe for him.”

On July 29, only four days after the diagnosis was made, Dr. Olutoye led a tem in a two-and-a-half-hour operation to save Garrett’s life, the Chronicle reported. In a procedure known as EXIT—ex utero intrapartum treatment—Garrett was partially removed from his mother’s womb while doctors lifted the tumor out of his body. They then cut the umbilical cord and brought the baby to another room, where they were able to detach the entire tumor.

This was the first time such a tumor, called an immature mesenchymal neoplasm, was removed in an EXIT operation, Dr. Olutoye told Saturday Today.

Tests on the tumor determined that it was not malignant. Dr. Olutoye told the Chronicle that Garrett will be monitored to make sure another tumor doesn’t grow back, but he is currently doing very well.

Garrett remained in the hospital for three weeks, and his parents took him home August 19. “It was very emotional, but a true blessing,” Mrs. Jorgensen told the Associated Press. “And now he has got all of his tubes out and we get to hold him every day and spoil him rotten and cuddle with him—the whole deal.”
British Court Approves Nontreatment Order for Infant

Over the objections of her parents, 22-month-old Charlotte Wyatt may be denied medical treatment in an emergency based on an October 2004 court order granting a British hospital’s request. The order was upheld August 25 by the Court of Appeal.

Charlotte was born on October 2003 three months premature, according to the Birmingham Post. She has brain, lung, and kidney damage and has remained in St. Mary’s Hospital in Portsmouth since her birth.

Citing her severe disabilities and contending that she has “no feeling other than continuing pain,” the hospital wanted to impose do not resuscitate order that would allow doctors to deny her needed medical treatment, the Liverpool Daily Post reported.

When her parents, Darren and Debbie Wyatt, objected, the hospital asked the court to decide. In October 2004, Mr. Justice Hedley ruled in the hospital’s favor, stating that he did not believe “any further aggressive treatment, even if necessary to prolong her life, is in her best interests,” according to the Daily Post.

Although doctors doubted she would live through the winter, her parents say that Charlotte has since shown “remarkable progress,” the Sunday Times reported.

“Charlotte is doing really well,” Darren Wyatt told the Times. “She can stay outside for up to 40 minutes. We have now had tests carried out which provide evidence that Charlotte can see and hear.

“Perhaps the doctors think that resuscitating Charlotte could set her back, but her lungs are less fragile now. Charlotte needs this order lifted.”

However, the Court of Appeal declined to overturn Headley’s decision, ruling that he “made no error of law.”

The court did ask for Headley to “accelerate” a planned rehearing of the case later this year, according to the Daily Post.

“Debbie and Darren say that the time has come to lift the threat that has hung over Charlotte and her family for a year,” their lawyer David Wolfe told the Daily Post. “They say that, given the improvements in Charlotte’s situation and given her continuing improvement, the doctors should not have in their back pockets an open consent from the court to let Charlotte die regardless of the circumstances at the time and regardless of the views of her parents.”

Baby Survives Abdominal Pregnancy

In what doctors call a “miracle,” a baby who grew in her mother’s abdomen rather than her uterus was delivered healthy in a Caesarean section at 33 weeks.

Dr. Victor Han of St. Joseph’s Health Care in London, Ontario, told Maclean’s that Emylea Miller’s safe delivery was almost unprecedented. “We won’t see another case like this in my lifetime,” Han said. “A case like this won’t happen in the lifetime of my colleagues either. Probably not even in Canada. It is so rare.”
Emylea’s mother, Liz Tharby, had complained of abdominal pain throughout her pregnancy, according to Maclean’s. Although she had several ultrasounds and other tests, doctors never realized that Tharby’s baby was growing in the wrong place.

When the fertilized egg implants anywhere other than the uterus, for instance, in the fallopian tube, it is called an ectopic pregnancy and is extremely dangerous to the mother’s life.

In this rare case, doctors only discovered the problem during the 33rd week of pregnancy when the baby’s heartbeat slowed, Maclean’s reported. Emylea was quickly delivered in an emergency Caesarean.

Doctors discovered that Emylea’s umbilical cord and placenta were attached to the outside of her mother’s uterus, according to Maclean’s. Tharby’s uterus had to be removed during the surgery because detaching the placenta may have caused severe bleeding.

Emylea will need surgery for a dislocated hip and leg braces, since she was twisted in an odd position during the pregnancy. Because her head was under her mother’s liver, she also has a flattened skull that is expected to correct itself, Maclean’s reported.

“There is no question Emylea is a real miracle,” said Han.

Baby's Father Charged in Killing of Mother and Unborn Child

After one month of searching for missing La'Toyia Figueroa, who was five months pregnant with a baby girl she wanted to name Nyla, Philadelphia police following a suspect captured him August 20 while he was trying to move the bodies from a shallow grave. The suspect was the baby's father.

Stephen Poaches, 25, has been charged with two counts of murder. Police told the Associated Press (AP) that Poaches strangled Figueroa, 24, when they got into an argument after a July 18 prenatal doctor's appointment.

Figueroa's family reported her missing July 21, sparking an intense month-long search that made national news. Police questioned Poaches several times during the month, according to the AP.

They were able to make an arrest when an informant told them that Poaches asked him to help find a body bag and a van, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Police equipped a van with a global positioning device and followed the informant as he met with Poaches and they drove to a wooded area about 10 miles away from where Figueroa was last seen. Poaches was arrested at the scene as he began to exhume the bodies.

Police were able to charge Poaches with homicide in the death of the baby because of the Crimes Against the Unborn Child Act, enacted in 1997 at the instigation of the state NRLC affiliate.

Thirty-one other states now also have laws that recognize an unborn child as a homicide victim during all or some of the period of pre-natal development.

British Woman Ends Starvation Attempt

A 28-year-old British woman who tried to commit voluntary euthanasia by starving herself to death began to eat after 19 days because she experienced “intense pain,” according to the Daily Telegraph.

“It has become too uncomfortable and I would not wish what I have been going through on my worst enemy,” Kelly Taylor told the Bristol Evening Post. “I regret that I have to stop what I am doing because I still want to die. But starvation, as it turns out, is very undignified.”

Taylor has a degenerative heart condition known as Grown-up Congenital Heart, according to the Press Association. The condition makes it hard to breathe and affects mobility.

Taylor told the Telegraph that she wants to kill herself because her health will only get worse. She had been on a waiting list for a heart and lung transplant, but doctors now say it would be too risky. “I do not contribute at all to society,” Taylor said. “That has been my biggest burden. I have never been able to work.”

She decided to kill herself by starvation so she wouldn’t implicate her husband, Richard, by asking him to actively participate in her death, the Telegraph reported. Taylor stopped eating in late July. However, after 19 days she began to eat again.

Taylor has called for Britain to change its laws to allow legal euthanasia. Pro-life groups, however, argued that the problem is not with the law but with the need for society to value people with disabilities and help them live with dignity.

“Euthanasia is a despairing option to the challenges of disability, and making it legal would militate against positive approaches which can help people with disabling conditions to make the most of their lives, said Alison Davis of No Less Human, a disability rights group within the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. “What Mrs. Taylor actually needs is help to re-establish a sense of the value of her own life.”

Australian Abortionist Charged with Manslaughter

Australian abortionist Suman Sood has been charged with manslaughter in the death of a 23-week-old unborn baby boy who was delivered in a toilet after Sood gave his mother an abortifacient and sent her home, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The unidentified mother, then 20 years old, went to Australian Women’s Health clinic in Fairfield, New South Wales, in May 2002. Testifying at a hearing August 10, the woman said that Sood only discussed costs and potential health risks, but did not inquire about her reasons for the abortion, according to the Daily Telegraph. Abortion is legal in New South Wales if the abortionist has a reasonable belief that the pregnancy will endanger the mother’s health.

Charging her $1,500, Sood gave the woman both an oral and vaginal pill intended to induce labor and told her to return to the clinic the next day, the Daily Telegraph reported. When she had stomach pains that night, she called Sood and was told to take a pain reliever.

However, at 3:30 a.m. the woman delivered the very premature baby into the toilet. She called an ambulance, and the paramedics removed the tiny baby from the toilet and discovered he was struggling to breathe, according to The Australian. They rushed him to a hospital, but the baby died at 8 a.m.

Sood is charged with manslaughter and with administering a drug intended to cause a miscarriage. It is the first prosecution of an abortionist in New South Wales since the early 1970s, The Australian reported. Hearings in the case will resume in November.

New Zealand Medical Association Keeps Anti-Euthanasia Policy

Although the New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA) announced in July that it would review its opposition to euthanasia, the board ultimately decided at its July 30 meeting not to make any changes.
“The NZMA Board has voted to retain its current position which is to oppose euthanasia which it views as unethical,” NZMA Chairman Dr Ross Boswell said in a press release.

The NZMA Board made its opposition clear in a formal policy statement issued after its meeting: “The NZMA is opposed to both the concept and practice of euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. Euthanasia, that is the act of deliberately ending the life of a patient, even at the patient’s request or at the request of close relatives, is unethical.”

Euthanasia activists, including Lesley Martin, who spent 7 1/2 months in prison for attempting to kill her mother, met with Boswell recently and encouraged him to review the NZMA’s position. Boswell told the Associated Press that he was also influenced by the British Medical Association (BMA), which recently issued a statement changing its opposition to euthanasia to a neutral position.

According to the BBC, the new BMA policy states, “The BMA should not oppose legislation which alters the criminal law but should press for robust safeguards both for patients and for doctors who not wish to be involved in such procedures.”

Right to Life New Zealand urged the NZMA to continue to oppose euthanasia. “The NZMA has a serious duty to uphold the sanctity of life ethic and the inalienable God given right to life of every human being from conception to natural death,” spokesperson Ken Orr said in a press release. “Euthanasia is part of a culture of death and should be strongly opposed.”