http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1482142,00.html

            February 13, 2005

            Boy is aborted 3 times and lives
            Lois Rogers and Sarah-Kate Templeton



            A BABY survived at least three attempts to abort it from the
womb and was born alive at 24 weeks old.
            The boy was delivered in hospital after his 24- year-old mother
changed her mind about wanting the child after feeling it move on the way
home from an abortion clinic.



            Although the clinic had told her an ultrasound scan had
confirmed the child was dead, she went into labour that afternoon and the
boy was born alive.

            Now two years old and healthy, he is the first long-term
abortion survivor to have been born so prematurely. His remarkable entrance
into the world is documented in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

            The mother had not realised she was going to have a baby until
22 weeks into the pregnancy and felt that she could not cope with a second
child. She was given a series of abortion drugs over four days at a private
clinic.

            After birth the child was rushed to the hospital's neonatal
intensive care unit where he was on a ventilator for 7Å weeks. He fought off
several life-threatening infections and suffered from severe lung disease
for his first six months. He was allowed home after seven months of
treatment.

            Dr Paul Clarke, one of the report's authors and the baby's
doctor at Hope hospital in Salford, Greater Manchester, said: "This mother
went through extreme hardship waiting to see if her baby was going to make
it. She was told to expect him to die so many times. I am full of admiration
for her."

            The attempted abortions had been carried out at the British
Pregnancy Advisory Service's Blackdown clinic in Leamington Spa,
Warwickshire.

            Clarke reveals that paediatricians often intervene to save
babies who have survived abortions.

            He writes: "Late abortion raises serious practical, ethical and
professional concerns. The dilemma of being telephoned about an infant born
showing signs of life following termination of pregnancy is one that many
paediatricians have faced. If viable, and resuscitated, those infants who
survive may suffer significant illness."

            The paper calls for a review of late abortions at private
clinics where there are no staff qualified to give emergency treatment if
babies are born alive.

            Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory
Service, said: "It sounds highly unusual. Usually we would keep a woman at
the clinic until she delivered the foetus. When women are having a late
medical abortion they are normally attended in the clinic by nursing staff
with specialist midwifery training.

            "It would never be the case that a woman would be discharged
with the expectation that she would deliver at home."




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