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October 1, 1999
World Net Daily

'New definition for "therapeutic" abortions?
Hospital delivers "problem" babies, then lets them die'

By Jon E. Dougherty
©1999 WorldNetDaily.com

An Illinois registered nurse has blown the whistle on a Chicago-area hospital where, she claims, abortions are being performed in which "problem" infants are born -- and then just left to die.

Jill Stanek is a labor and delivery nurse at Christ Hospital, located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn. She says the "therapeutic abortion" procedure, as it is called, goes beyond what is permitted under the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, since once a child is actually born it is granted all the legal rights of personhood.

The Illinois Attorney General's Office is investigating the claims made by Stanek, but so far no charges have been filed against the hospital or staff.

According to Concerned Women for America, an advocacy group monitoring the story and the investigation, the attorney general's office has requested an investigation of the Oak Lawn hospital for allegedly inducing premature births of babies in order for the child to die. In contrast to partial-birth abortions, CWA said, "the babies are fully delivered, often resulting in live births, and then die outside the mother's body. Attending medical personnel do not provide life support, and the babies oftentimes die in the arms of nurses."

"When a nurse or parent isn't holding one of these babies, often they're put in a soiled utility room," Stanek told WorldNetDaily. "They're left there to die alone."

"These babies have been diagnosed with handicaps such as Down Syndrome and spina bifida, along with sometimes fatal anomalies," she said. Nevertheless, she added, the procedure amounted to a decision that an infant with problems wasn't worth saving.

The procedures -- officially called "medically indicated pregnancy terminations" -- are done at Christ between 10 and 20 times a year, hospitalspokeswoman 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, claiming that the infants are held by the mother or a nurse until they die.

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.

However, Stanek denied that, saying she has personally witnessed "elective therapeutic abortions whose physical or mental defects are deemed incompatible only with quality of life."

The Illinois Attorney General's office confirmed last week that it has asked health officials to open an inquiry surrounding "pregnancy terminations" at Christ Hospital. A spokesman with the Illinois Department of Public Health said state law prohibited him from speaking about the case.

According to records, Christ previously limited the procedure only to those who were "very, very sick fetuses that would not be able to sustain life outside the womb," said Reimbold. But draft guidelines on "pregnancy termination" dated June 1, 1998, however, propose expanding the practice to include Down Syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and even the mother's mental health as suitable reasons.

Keith Scherer, an attorney with the Chicago-based Pro-Life Law Center, said he is exploring various legal responses to the practice, including murder charges. He added that the situation could be a good test case for dealing with the procedure in other states.

"If hospitals elsewhere are doing what they are here -- a reasonable assumption -- then we've taken another step down the slippery slope from abortion to infanticide," he said.


Jon E. Dougherty is a contributing editor to WorldNetDaily.

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