Published
Testimony of Jill L. Stanek, RN
Hearing on H.R. 4292, the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2000"
July 20, 2000
I am a Registered Nurse who has worked in the Labor & Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, for the past five years. Christ Hospital performs abortions on women in their second or even third trimesters of pregnancy. Sometimes the babies being aborted are healthy, and sometimes they are not.
The method of abortion that Christ Hospital uses is called "induced labor abortion," also now known as "live birth abortion." This type of abortion can be performed different ways, but the goal always is to cause a pregnant woman's cervix to open so that she will deliver a premature baby who dies during the birth process or soon afterward. The way that induced abortion is most often executed at my hospital is by the physician inserting a medication called Cytotec into the birth canal close to the cervix. Cytotec irritates the cervix and stimulates it to open. When this occurs, the small, preterm baby drops out of the uterus, oftentimes alive. It is not uncommon for one of these live aborted babies to linger for an hour or two or even longer. One of them once lived for almost eight hours.
In the event that a baby is aborted alive, he or she receives no medical assessments or care but is only given what my hospital calls "comfort care." "Comfort care" is defined as keeping the baby warm in a blanket until he or she dies, although even this minimal compassion is not always provided. It is not required that these babies be held during their short lives.
One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's Syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 to 22 weeks old, weighed about ½ pound, and was about 10 inches long. He was too weak to move very much, expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end he was so quiet that I couldn't tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall. After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead patients are taken.
Other co-workers have told me many upsetting stories about live aborted babies whom they have cared for. I was told about an aborted baby who was supposed to have Spina bifida but was delivered with an intact spine. Another nurse is haunted by the memory of an aborted baby who came out weighing much more than expected ~ almost two pounds. She is haunted because she doesn't know if she made a mistake by not getting that baby medical help. A Support Associate told me about a live aborted baby who was left to die on the counter of the Soiled Utility Room wrapped in a disposable towel. This baby was accidentally thrown into the garbage, and when they later were going through the trash to find the baby, the baby fell out of the towel and on to the floor.
I was recently told about a situation by a nurse who said, "I can't stop thinking about it." She had a patient who was 23+ weeks pregnant, and it did not look as if her baby would be able to continue to live inside of her. The baby was healthy and had up to a 39% chance of survival, according to national statistics. But the patient chose to abort. The baby was born alive. If the mother had wanted everything done for her baby, there would have been a neonatologist, pediatric resident, neonatal nurse, and respiratory therapist present for the delivery, and the baby would have been taken to our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for specialized care. Instead, the only personnel present for this delivery were an obstetrical resident and my co-worker. After delivery the baby, who showed early signs of thriving, was merely wrapped in a blanket and kept in the Labor & Delivery Department until she died 2-1/2 hours later.
Something is very wrong with a legal system that says doctors are mandated to pronounce babies dead but are not mandated to assess babies for life and chances of survival. In other words, our laws currently say that babies have no rights to medical oversight until they are dead. We look the other way and pretend that these babies aren't human while they're alive but human only after they are dead. We issue these babies both birth and death certificates, but it is really only the death certificate that matters. No other children in America are medically abandoned like this.
Abortion is a cancer that is literally killing America. It is killing our children while it is killing our consciences. It began when we took God out of our decision-making and proclaimed that the little beings growing inside of women were "products of conception" and not little girls and little boys. Who should be surprised that we keep pushing the envelope so that now we are aborting these "products of conception" alive? I even work at a hospital named "Christ" that does this very thing! It is beyond me to comprehend that we're doing what we're doing now, and so I can't even imagine what horrible ways we will think of next to torture our children. Please help put an end to this by proclaiming infants as American human being homo sapiens with the same legal and medical rights that you and I big people have. Thank you.
I beleive that our government(authority) made abortion an OK thing, in order for population control. In the meantime, 1.5 million babies are aborted every year for the past 30 years. All because of one atheist, Roe vs Wade, who became a born again christian later in her life. The problem with the government OK'ing abortion is that for a person who has no knowledge of God, the government ruling overrides their conscience .........that is wrong......and it is very wrong for a government to dehumanize their people to animals, their woman to mere sex objects, and motherhood to a choice. Woman have become "duped" by male domination of our society, in probably the most hurtful way a man could do , by killing his off spring. It makes no sense . While those same males and duped woman detest the killing of Whales and raise their flags and wear their pins"Save the Whales"....and in this country of USA.....its $1000.00 fine for destroying an eagles egg. It makes no sense. .I have a judgement day coming and I don't want to be a part of what my conscience says is wrong. I voice my opinion now that I"m older.......because I do not want to be an accomplise to their atrocities.........there is a doctor who has written a book about the fact that he performed over 60,000 abortions in his practice. They started video taping the fetus while a suction abortion was taking place and the fetus was trying to avoid the suction tip and pulling away.....and had its mouth open as though he were screaming with pain as his arm got removed , his leg, and finally his head.....once that doctor saw on film what the fetus goes through....he could never perform another abortion again........He also, became a born-again Christian and weeps with sorrow over what he did for money , to 60,000l little babies lives.......he said before he asked for forgiveness .......that , he couldn't sleep.....he would have terrible nightmares. The sad thing about abortion too...is that it not only effects the babies life......but the mothers and the fathers conscience for the rest of their lives............Do you ever watch James Robeson on christian TV......he was conceived during his mother being raped....she tried to abort him , but it didn't happen.......he is now a awesome minister and a wonderful man.
As a nurse........I don't think we should be a part of it in our workplace......as a woman I don't either. There are so many woman in this country who have had abortions and I"m sure it breaks God's heart. My heart goes out to them in prayer.
God is taking care of their babies and they will see them again,
in heaven.........but , I believe , only if they will ask for forgiveness can they be joined with them for an eternity....that's what Jesus died on the cross for ........all those 10 commandments, so we can live a forgiven past and have hope for a spiritual future.
This post has nothing to do with whether abortion is right or wrong. I was interested in people's thoughts on the bill that this nurse was testifying about.
If you read through the committee hearing (someone posted the link way back there somewhere) the basic gist of the bill seemed to be a mere matter of semantics. Any infant expelled from the birth canal at any gestation who shows certain clinical signs is alive and thus is a human being with rights.
Soooo, it didn't mandate medical intervention that I can tell. And isn't that left up to the parent's in a non-elective premature delivery? So you would do the same for an induced abortion delivery since there aren't (yet) any laws to mandate otherwise. Basically you would be forcing the parents to choose twice, once to elect the procedure and once to decline medical care for the fetus if born alive. The interesting question being posed in the testimony was whether the right of abortion entitled the woman to a termination of pregnancy, or to a dead fetus. Obviously they aren't one and the same on every occasion.
I can see that it is a tactic towards eroding current abortion law, but it seems a pretty poor and roundabout way to do it. And couldn't it have the adverse effect of limiting parental choice in spontaneous premature deliveries? Or causing problems for parents who choose abortion for severe fetal anomalies?
I wouldn't like to see 1st trimester abortions outlawed. I also wouldn't like to see infants born to parents who didn't want them managed agressively and winding up in foster care with multiple developmental problems related to prematurity (not to mention the cost of care and who pays- because who can put a price on human life), or parents of an anencephalic baby having to carry the baby to term when that would not have been their choice. I don't think this particular bill would have done any of that directly(I don't think it did anything at all actually, and no one else must have thought so because It doesn't appear to have ever gotten out of committee?), but that is definitely the direction it was meant to push things in.
Anybody else get a different interpretation? That stuff was hard to read. Glad I'm not a member of Congress, I thought my Med Surg textbook was dense...
kim
OK, I won't tiptoe around it either:) I am 100% prochoice and think if you're against abortions, you shouldn't have one. I respect other people's point of view about this topic, I just wish they actually respected my right to believe something different.
If I did rupture at 20 week, I would choose to be induced immediately rather than wait for the infection to come or try to hold out to 24 weeks in the hopes of torturing my child for months in the NICU. That's me, and no one would have to live with the decision but me and my partner.
I do think this bill is more about limiting other abortions than anything else. If you can outrage people about a very rarely performed procedure, you can get your message about all abortions to them as well.
Originally posted by fergus51If I did rupture at 20 week, I would choose to be induced immediately rather than wait for the infection to come or try to hold out to 24 weeks in the hopes of torturing my child for months in the NICU. That's me, and no one would have to live with the decision but me and my partner.
Just curious why not hold out for a full term delivery after the fluid has sealed over????? I am sure that I am not the only nurse who has taken care of a patient who ruptured early and then stopped leaking and reacumulated fluid to a normal AFI...it does happen.
Originally posted by tamrnmomof4Just curious why not hold out for a full term delivery after the fluid has sealed over????? I am sure that I am not the only nurse who has taken care of a patient who ruptured early and then stopped leaking and reacumulated fluid to a normal AFI...it does happen.
![]()
I haven't yet. But I have had two septic AB's in the last month due to PPROM. I did watch a show about Miracle babies or something like that. There was a woman on there with PPROM who did deliver a healthy baby but it was after they did some sort of patch over the opening in the amniotic sac. It didn't sound like a common procedure.
Originally posted by L&D_RN_OHI haven't yet. But I have had two septic AB's in the last month due to PPROM. I did watch a show about Miracle babies or something like that. There was a woman on there with PPROM who did deliver a healthy baby but it was after they did some sort of patch over the opening in the amniotic sac. It didn't sound like a common procedure.
This is a great web sit on PPROM....please check it out!! http://www.kanalen.org/prom/
nursecompassion
139 Posts
What can I say on this topic? Alot, but I'll try not too. Abortion has touched members of my family. I am pro-life 100% and don't understand a Hospital with Christs name performing abortions.
However, I am not going to tip-toe around and keep my opinions to myself and be fearful or retaliation.
I think abortion is wrong. I think however that it will always be legal. Therefore, there must be stricter laws to not make it so convienant.
Women/girls under the age of 18 should have consent of their parents or guardians. If the father of the unborn baby is known his written consent should also be needed. An ultrasound should be mandatory. The mother should have to look at it, their should be counseling before/after.
This is a very serious issue and it should not seem like a drive thru at a mcdonalds.
I am not going to sit here and hide my morals and values out of fear of anger or hurt feelings. It is sick that people should have too. It is sick that we cannot stand up for injustice to the innocent. To the injustice of these mothers who are not always mentally prepared for what they are throwing away.
I would have had a younger brother and a bi-racial neice, but thanks to convenience, I don't. Thanks to ignorance and lack of knowledge and faith, I don't. My sister regrets her decision to this day. I begged ( i was 12) for my sister not to have one, my stepdad and mom talked her into it. My sister was far enough along to know that she was having a girl. She would have been our family's first granddaughter.
If people would only believe in God and have faith and not rely on the system and take the easy way out, the world would look a whole lot brighter.
sincerely, jules