A New Low in Heartlessness

Born alive, left to die

So what do you call an abortion procedure in which the fetus is born alive, then is left to die without medical care? Infanticide? Murder?

Most people would recoil at just the thought of such a gruesome, uncaring procedure, but it is practiced at at least one Chicago suburban hospital. When I called Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn, I frankly expected a denial that it uses the procedure, but instead a spokeswoman explained it is used for "a variety of second-trimester" abortions when the fetus has not yet reached viability. That's up to 23 weeks of life, when a fetus is considered not yet developed enough to survive on its own.

Instead of medical care, the child is provided "comfort care," wrapped in a blanket and held when possible. The procedure is chosen by parents and doctors instead of another method in which the fetus is "terminated" within the womb by, for example, injection with a chemical that stops the heart. Under Christ Hospital's procedure, which the spokeswoman said is used at some other area hospitals, the abortion is induced with prostaglandin, a drug that relaxes the cervix and allows for the fetus to be born.

Pro-life advocates have reacted with incredulity, calling the procedure "live birth abortions." They wonder why, if a death certificate is required, a birth certificate isn't. They wonder how such a brutal procedure can be used at a faith-based hospital named after Christ. One hospital nurse has complained that babies are sometimes are left to struggle on their own for up six or seven hours until death frees them from their torment.

She said a newborn, with no one around to hold it, once was left to die in a soiled linen closet--a charge the hospital denies. The hospital says none of the abortions are "elective," but are done only to protect the life or health of the mother or when the fetus is nonviable due to extreme prematurity or lethal abnormalities. The nurse, Jill Stanek, says she has seen some elective abortions done on newborns whose physical or mental defects are deemed incompatible only with "quality of life."

Pro-life advocates have picketed the hospital. Karen Hayes, Illinois state director of Concerned Women for America, has asked Attorney General Jim Ryan to determine whether the practice violates the Illinois Hospital Licensing Act and the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act. Ryan in turn asked the Department of Public Health to conduct an inquiry into the practice. A Health Department spokesman said the law prohibits them from discussing the matter until a new law takes effect Jan. 1.

Frankly, I wonder whether the procedure is any more brutal than other abortion procedures, involving the cutting or poisoning of the fetus before it is born. The fetus, according to studies, can feel pain. Those who consider themselves compassionate ought to be appalled at the idea that any death - inside or outside the womb - is a suitable, civilized solution.

But the procedure itself raises deeper questions. First, there's the legality. It should be up to the attorney general and state's attorney to determine whether the procedure is infanticide. Read Roe v. Wade upside down and sideways, and I find nothing in it that legitimizes the killing of a born child. If the law is unclear, the Legislature should make it clear.

Looming larger is the moral question. Partial-birth abortions supposedly are acceptable because a small part of the child still remains in the birth canal, and thus is considered unborn when it is killed. The Christ Hospital case now makes it clear that legal rights and protections don't even begin with birth, as many pro-choice advocates have staunchly argued. That even alive, born human being has no right to life because someone else has decided its chances at life are slim. Or that its life won't be worth living.

My only question to them is: To what hell is this leading us?