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Briefing
August 30, 1999
Life Advocacy
Briefing is available by annual subscription for delivery by fax or postal or electronic
mail. Please contact the publisher, Life Advocacy Alliance, at 888/344-LIFE (toll free)
for fee and other subscription information. This excerpt reprinted by permission.
excerpted from Life Advocacy Briefing #6-34, August 30, 1999
BABIES AT A FORMERLY RESPECTED SOUTH SUBURBAN CHICAGO HOSPITAL are not so lucky [as an
Ohio baby who survived a partial-birth abortion, reported in the previous item], according
to a nurse's persistent complaints, which have shocked the largely pro-life community.
Life Advocacy Briefing has learned that certain "doctors" at Christ Hospital in
Oak Lawn, Illinois, are inducing labor for premature delivery of "defective"
babies, according to a "labor and delivery" nurse, who charges the nurses are
ordered not to provide any care beyond holding the babies while they die.
Eagle Forum of Illinois has quoted the
nurse directly in the group's CapitAlert newsletter: " 'I have personally witnessed
two babies who have been aborted alive (and this is actually not an unusual
occurrence). Neither time did the mother nor father want to hold and care for the
baby until she or he passed from this life. Department policy in this case is to provide
comfort care to the child until she or he dies.
" 'Once,' " she said in the newsletter, " 'I held the aborted baby in a
warm blanket for the 45 minutes it took for him to die. The other time a co-working
support associate did the same. Can you imagine the revulsion of this? The only situation
that could be worse was, as an RN colleague related to me,' " said the agonized
nurse, " 'a night when she did not have the time to personally care for one of these
infants. Since we have no place designated to keep these babies, this one had to be left
to die alone in the Soiled Utility Room ... .' "
The nurse raised objections with hospital administrators in April, but they insist they
have no "pregnancy termination" policy at the facility, which is operated by a
multi-hospital system owned jointly by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)
and United Church of Christ. When her pleas fell on deaf ears, the nurse sought help
from her pastor, who wrote a letter revealing the nurse's anguished report to nearly 50
area citizens of influence, precipitating community appeals to the hospital, including two
prayer vigils of 75 and more than 400 participants on July 30 and August 28, respectively.
Though other nurses in the obstetrics unit have backed up the whistleblower, hospital
administrators continue to stonewall, insisting there is no policy nor even consideration
of a policy, a claim shown to be untrue when a "confidential draft" of the
"pregnancy termination policy" surfaced this summer.
"Instead of resolving to end the practice and protect innocent unborn children,"
says CapitAlert, "their concern has turned to taking safety precautions for hospital
CEOs. They have also determined to change the [system's] mission statement [some
protesters have suggested changing the hospital's name!], and proceed in the current
direction of continuing and possibly expanding the practice of elective abortions in the
second trimester. In addition," reports Eagle Forum of Illinois, "it has been
uncovered that the whole Advocate Health Care System (of which Christ Hospital is a
member) is considering making this same policy system wide." Those wishing to
contact the courageous whistleblower may write: "Jill," c/o Eagle Forum of
Illinois, PO Box 233, Oak Forest, IL 60452.
BABIES BEING LEFT TO DIE AT CHRIST HOSPITAL are apparently not going to be rescued by the
church which owns the facility. The annual assembly of the ELCA rejected an effort earlier
this month to remove pro-abortion language from its "social statement" and
encourage membership in Lutherans for Life.
The amendment, advanced by ELCA's Southwestern Minnesota Synod, was rejected by the
assembly's resolutions committee, whose lethal action was backed by the assembly 748 to
154, according to Wisconsin Synod Lutherans for Life's Life Wire bulletin, citing an ELCA
news release as its source.
Media Coverage
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