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Chicago Sun-Times
Abortion policy in question

September 29, 1999

BY MOLLY SULLIVAN SUBURBAN REPORTER

The Illinois Department of Public Health has launched an investigation to determine whether therapeutic abortions are being handled properly at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn.

The move comes after a labor and delivery nurse at Christ objected to the procedure and scores of abortion opponents sent letters to the Illinois attorney general's office and the Department of Public Health asking for an investigation.

A health department spokesman said he could not comment about the matter, but a hospital spokeswoman confirmed that health department officials visited Christ last Thursday to review policies and interview staff.

While hospital officials are certain they will get a clean bill of health, anti-abortion activists are planning a prayer vigil outside Christ on Saturday--the third in the last six weeks--to protest the procedure.

"We want them to stop this," said Karen Hayes of south suburban Palos Heights who is state director of Concerned Women for America, an anti-abortion women's organization.

"We're asking our community hospital in a very pro-life community to reconsider their position."

The therapeutic abortions, called "medically indicated pregnancy terminations" at Christ, are done between 10 and 20 times a year, hospital spokeswoman Sue Reimbold said. They are performed between the 16th and 23rd weeks of pregnancy.

During the procedure, labor is induced and the fetus is delivered, sometimes still alive. It is given "comfort care," Reimbold said, and held by the mother or a nurse until it dies.

Medical experts said most of the fetuses delivered this way die during delivery, but the others usually live no more than a few hours.

Reimbold said these are not elective abortions and are performed only "when the patient and her physician have determined that complex and critical maternal or fetal conditions threaten the life or health of the mother or developing fetus."

That usually means fetuses with genetic anomalies so severe that they would not be viable outside the womb.

A survey of several of the city's major medical centers found they also perform the procedure. Some perform far fewer than Christ, but others, such as Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center, do about 100 each year, according to Dr. John Weitzner, a Rush obstetrician and gynecologist who performs the procedure.

State health officials said the procedure is included in the yearly tally of all abortions performed in Illinois.

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