All About Life

 An inquest into the October 2012 death of Savita Halappanavar at Ireland’s University Hospital Galway found that staff failed to diagnose and promptly treat her condition. The jury ruled in a unanimous verdict that she died owing to “medical misadventure”.

Coroner Dr. Ciaran MacLoughlin found multiple “systems failures” at the hospital. These systems failures included: delays in following up on blood tests for results, lack of communication between staff and that the patient’s clinical signs were not monitored every four hours as they should have been. For example, the results of a blood test done when Ms. Halappanavar was first admitted to the hospital on Sunday were not followed up on until Wednesday. It showed an elevated white blood cell count which can be a sign of infection. Dr. MacLoughlin determined that staff had neither tested her blood sufficiently for signs of poisoning nor promptly examined the test results, which revealed signs of blood poisoning were present.

Signs of infection such as fever, chills and elevated pulse rate were missed as well. The coroner explained that the finding of systems failures did not mean that they necessarily contributed to her death.

The coroner also found hospital notes on Mrs. Halappanavar’s file were incomplete and unclear and had been amended after her death. Mrs. Halappanavar had advanced septicemia due to E.coli ESBL, which led to her death several days later from organ failure. Sepsis was not identified until it was too late.

Dr. MacLoughlin made recommendations on improving the hospital’s recording and sharing of patient information among staff and monitoring of patients’ risk of infection and blood poisoning. Moreover, he recommended that Ireland’s Medical Council publish guidelines defining the exact circumstances when a doctor can intervene to save a woman’s life. The Life Institute reports that the jury accepted the nine recommendations as of the Coroner but did not recommend any changes to Ireland’s abortion law.

Dr. Peter Boylan, who is on record as supporting the legalization of abortion in Ireland, was the key expert witness at the inquest.  He is clinical director of the National Maternity Hospital. The Life Institute questioned why Dr. Bolan was the only obstetrics expert called to give his opinion on Irish law at the inquest. He voiced his opinion that Mrs. Halappanavar would “on the balance of probabilities” have lived if an abortion had been performed one or two days before her unborn child died. In fact, the inquest did not find that Mrs. Halappanavar died because an abortion was not performed.

Eleven top consultants (obstetrician/gynecologists and other medical specialists) wrote to Irish newspapers concerning Dr. Boylan’s testimony. They stated:

“Sir,-The recent inquest on Savita Halappanavar has raised important issues about hospital infection in obstetrics. Much of the public attention appears to have been directed at the expert opinion of Dr Peter Boylan who suggested that Irish law prevented necessary treatment to save Ms Halappanavar’s life. We would suggest that this is a personal view, not an expert one.

Furthermore, it is impossible for Dr Boylan, or for any doctor, to predict with certainty the clinical course and outcome in the case of Savita Halappanavar where sepsis arose from the virulent and multi-drug resistant organism, E.coli ESBL. What we can say with certainty is where ruptured membranes are accompanied by any clinical or biochemical marker of infection, Irish obstetricians understand they can intervene with early delivery of the baby if necessary. Unfortunately, the inquest shows that in Galway University Hospital the diagnosis of chorioamnionitis was delayed and relevant information was not noted and acted upon.

The facts as produced at the inquest show this tragic case to be primarily about the mismanagement of sepsis, and Dr. Boylan’s opinion on the effect of Irish law did not appear to be shared by the coroner, or the jury, of the inquest.

Obstetric sepsis is unfortunately on the increase and is now the leading cause of maternal death reported in the UK Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths. Additionally, there are many well-documented fatalities from sepsis in women following termination of pregnancy. To concentrate on our legal position regarding abortion in the light of such a case as that in Galway does not assist our services to pregnant women.

It is clear that maternal mortality in developing countries is rising, in the US, Canada, Britain, Denmark, Netherlands and other European countries. The last Confidential Enquiry in Britain (which now includes Ireland) recommended a “return to basics” and stated that many maternal deaths are related to failure to observe simple clinical signs such as fever, headache and changes in pulse rate and blood pressure. May of the failings highlighted in Galway have been described before in these and other reports.

…Ireland’s maternal health record is one of the best in the world in terms of our low rate of maternal death (including Galway hospital). The case in Galway was one of the worst cases of sepsis ever experienced in that hospital, and the diagnosis of ESBL septicaemia was almost unprecedented among Irish maternity units.

It is important that all obstetrical units in Ireland reflect on the findings of the events in Galway and learn how to improve care for pregnant women. To reduce it to a polemical argument about abortion may lead to more – not fewer- deaths in the future.”

Media articles are still circulating claiming that Mrs. Halappanavar died because she was denied an abortion. Unfortunately Savita’s tragic death following a miscarriage has been exploited for the purpose of pushing the legalization of abortion in Ireland.

“Top Irish doctors’ organization decisively rejects legal abortion,” Hilary White’s April 8^th LifeSiteNews.com article, noted that Ireland’s constitution protects all human life from conception. But after years of lobbying by pro-abortion groups, the government introduced a bill in December 2012 to clarify when abortion is allowed under Irish law, claiming that women “denied abortion” would threaten to commit suicide.

During consultations, the government committee was repeatedly advised that the pro-abortion lobby was the source of this argument, and medical professionals stated that women are at a higher risk of serious mental illness, including depression and substance abuse, after having an abortion.

At the April 2013 Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) conference, pro-abortion campaign group Doctors for Choice brought forward motions to ask the government to legalize abortion in cases involving “real and substantial risk to the mother,” “non-viable foetal abnormalities,” or pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. The IMO voted to reject the motions.

Conference attendee and consultant psychiatrist Dr. Seán Ó Domhnaill of the Life Institute felt this vote dealt a blow to the government’s proposals. He commented that, “As doctors, we are trained to save lives, and most Irish doctors want to continue with the practice of protecting both mother and baby in pregnancy.”

Dr. Ó Domhnaill noted that allowing abortion in a “limited” way, such as that proposed by the government, could lead to abortion on demand, and “that’s not a model that any doctor should wish to follow.”

Dr. Berry Kiely of the Pro Life Campaign said the motions “would have allowed for abortion in wide-ranging circumstances as there was no duty of care towards the baby mentioned.” She observed that the government needed to consider the IMO vote as well as “the expert medical and psychiatric evidence presented at the recent Oireachtas [parliamentary] hearings showing that abortion is not necessary to save women’s lives.”

Life Institute also notes that “Women are not dying in this country because of our ban on abortion. That was confirmed most recently at the Oireachtas Committee hearings on abortion, where top obstetricians clearly stated that not one woman had died in Ireland because our pro-life laws prevented them from doing their job.”

A new campaign by Life Canada. Visit the www.abortionincanada.ca website to see Darby’s story.

In an April 9th article carried in The Ottawa Citizen as “Birth defects driving stillbirth rate up—Pregnancies being terminated in serious cases,” Sharon Kirkey reported on a study published a day earlier in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).

While improvements in detecting and managing pregnancy complications have led to lower stillbirth rates, these rates have risen in Canada as well as several other countries in recent years. Canadian reporting criteria define a stillbirth as the loss of a fetus aged 20 weeks or older or with a birth weight of at least 500 grams.

The rising stillbirth rate led a team that included Dr. K. S. Joseph, professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia School of Population and Public Health, to examine data on all stillbirths at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later recorded in the B.C. Perinatal Data Registry from 2000 to 2010. The results were published in the CMAJ under the title “Determinants of increases in stillbirth rates from 2000 to 2010.”

The study’s authors found that the rate of recorded stillbirths rose from 8.08 to 10.55 per 1 000 births. They concluded this change resulted not from an increase in spontaneous stillbirths but from a rise in the number of abortions following the detection of serious birth defects. Such abortions “can result in a fetal death that satisfies the current definition of a stillbirth,” according to the study.

Pamela Fayerman’s April 9th article in The Vancouver Sun, “B.C.’s stillbirth rate up by 31 per cent—Prenatal monitoring, therapeutic abortions push numbers higher: study,” notes the number of such abortions increased from 2.4 to 5.7 per 1 000 births. Most abortions in the study were performed between the 20th and 23rd weeks of pregnancy following prenatal screening such as ultrasounds and blood tests.

The study showed a slight decline in the number of spontaneous stillbirths, as well as a decrease in the number of live-born babies with severe birth defects from 5.21 per 100 births in 2000-02 to 4.77 per 100 in 2008-10.

“Determinants of increases in stillbirth rates from 2000 to 2010” stated that this decline happened at the same time as the increase in stillbirths, but other factors, such as the fortification of food with folic acid, may have contributed to the reduction in the incidence of birth defects.

According to Peter Baklinski’s April 10th LifeSiteNews.com article “‘Disquieting’ increase in stillbirths in B.C. due to increase in late-term abortions: study,” the study’s authors recommended that requirements for reporting baby deaths distinguish between stillbirths that occur spontaneously and those that follow abortion.

Jonathon Van Maren, communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, stated that while most Canadian doctors would not perform late-term abortions “there are nonetheless a significant number who will”. For doctors who would perform such abortions, Canadian Medical Association guidelines on abortion are just that—guidelines.

Mr. Van Maren said that, “Once you devalue human life, and say that it’s not worth anything at some arbitrary point, it’s eventually not going to be worth anything at all, ever.”

Kelly McParland, in his April 11^th National Post article “Stillbirth study shows abortion has lost the terminology war,” wrote that believing it is acceptable to abort a child likely to face severe health problems or die within days of birth fuels the argument that it is acceptable to have an abortion based on the child’s health issues or gender, the number of children in the family or any other reason.

How sad that eliminating the unborn child with birth defects is seen as a solution rather than allowing the child to be born and loved no matter how short his life might be.

Brian Lilley, host of Byline on the Sun News Network interviewed Lila Rose Of Live Action about Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who is charged with several offences including counts of murder for killing babies born alive following abortion procedures.

Click here to Watch the interview .

Protesters chanted and yelled to keep Stephen Woodworth, MP for Kitchener Centre, from being heard at a March 13th event organized by Waterloo Students for Life.

The National Campus Life Network (NCLN), an organization supporting pro-life students, reported on the incident at the campus in Waterloo, Ontario, in the March 14th press release “Protesters disrupt presentation by MP Stephen Woodworth at the University of Waterloo.”

In 2012, Mr. Woodworth brought forward Motion 312 to have Parliament study the Criminal Code definition of a human being. Protesters prevented Mr. Woodworth from continuing with his presentation on this topic and a Q & A session. Campus security guards, when asked to intervene, stated they could do so only if the protesters became violent.
Hannah Bailey, President of Waterloo Students for Life, granted that people had strong opinions about abortion but felt the protesters’ behaviour was embarrassing to the university community.

The March 14th NCLN press release “Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms asks University of Waterloo to safeguard free speech on Campus” reported that JCCF President John Carpay sent a letter to Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University, questioning campus security guards’ refusal to intervene so the event could continue. The letter asked the University to apologize to Mr. Woodworth for the incident and demonstrate its commitment to free speech on campus by scheduling another opportunity for him to speak, with proper security in place to ensure no disruption by protesters.

“The deplorable hollowness of our campus ‘progressives,’” an opinion piece by broadcaster and writer Rex Murphy published on the National Post website, described the protesters’ behaviour as “anti-intellectual, anti-dialogue, anti-exchange and debate.”

In response to a statement by Ellen Rethore, Associate Vice-President of Communications and Public Affairs at the University, that “police were at the event Wednesday to guard the safety of everyone, not enforce rules of academic debate,” Mr. Murphy argued that “‘Rules of academic debate’ reach to the absolutely central idea of a university, and should be protected before all else.”

“UFV club protests decision on pro-life presentation,” Vikki Hopes’ April 8th Abbotsford News article, also concerned the free speech of a campus pro-life group.

The article reported that the Life Link club at University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) in Abbotsford, British Columbia, was protesting the cancellation of its April 10th pro-life presentation featuring a speech by Mike Schouten, Campaign Director of weneedaLAW.ca, about the legal status of abortion in Canada.

Leslie Courchesne, UFV’s Director, Marketing and Communications, said Life Link advised UFV one week in advance that the presentation involved an outside speaker and advertising and the administration, notified about a protest of the speech, “did not have enough time to do a fulsome risk assessment to ensure the safety and security of our campus community and external visitors.” Ms. Courchesne added that UFV was working with Life Link to hold the event on campus at a later date or off campus on the original date.

Life Link was also protesting the fact that UFV had restricted the distribution of materials on sex-selective abortions to a closed room. NCLN developed the “‘It’s a girl’ should not be a death sentence” resources, and Anastasia Pearse, NCLN’s Western Campus Coordinator, said no other Canadian campus had restricted distribution to a closed room.

Ms. Courchesne stated that UFV did not oppose the display and distribution of the “It’s a girl” items on campus but that Life Link did not respond to its question about what other materials might be displayed. She noted the club was advised that, for materials of a “graphic nature that could be upsetting or offensive” to some people, other arrangements are made for display in a marked classroom space.

A letter to UFV from JCCF lawyer Mr. Carpay on behalf of Life Link asked the university to reverse these decisions and stated that a failure to do so would result in Life Link’s taking legal action against UFV.
According to the April 8th NCLN press release “University of the Fraser Valley shuts down event and censors anti-gendercide resources,” Life Link President Ashley Bulthuis said that the club had distributed resources, held a debate, organized other presentations on abortion, and even screened a documentary on gendercide at UFV this year. Ms. Bulthuis questioned why UFV had “suddenly disregarded its commitment to free speech in regards to the gendercide and abortion issues.”

Quoting a recent study that found “87% of Canadians oppose sex-selective abortion and 25% say it is occurring in their own communities,” Ms. Pearse asked, “Why won’t the university allow students to raise awareness about this horrific practice?”

Peter Baklinski, in the April 11th LifeSiteNews.com article “Life Link holds private meeting after University of Fraser Valley shuts down pro-life event,” reported that UFV did not allow the pro-life event to take place on campus but provided Life Link with a room in the student services building for a private meeting.

Mr. Schouten of weneedaLAW.ca said he had seen a significant number of security guards on patrol but no signs of a protest before he spoke at the by-invitation-only meeting. He talked about gendercide and late-term abortion in Canada and the need for legal protection for unborn children. Mr. Schouten encouraged those in attendance not to give up when faced with opposition to the pro-life message.

Ms. Bulthuis said that Life Link would not pursue legal action if UFV allowed the event rescheduled for the fall semester to proceed.

In a January debate between Stephanie Gray, a pro-life activist with CCBR (Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform) and Dr. Fraser Fellows, an obstetrician/gynaecologist (from London, ON), Dr. Fellows gave shocking and frank responses to questions posed to him about performing abortions.

He said he “is not proud to carry out abortions. Nobody likes to see it, but it’s a necessary service… It’s about the woman… No doubt women have sadness at having an abortion… Abortion is the lesser of two evils.”

He acknowledged that the information brought forward by Stephanie Gray was true: that at the moment of fertilization a living, unique human being comes into existence; that the terms ‘fetus’ and ‘embryo’ are simply used to describe age; that since 1988 Canada has had no laws regarding abortion; that women who undergo abortion cite poverty, career, no support, age, health of baby, ‘unwantedness’, and very rarely, rape, as reasons for their decision. Ms. Gray pointed out that these circumstances are not altered by abortion.

During this debate held at Brock University, Dr. Fellows said that he does late term abortions, and that although he will not do ‘sex-selective’ abortions, he does agree to abort babies who have Down syndrome. In fact, his response to abortion because of Down syndrome was “Yes, absolutely.”According to a report in the St. Catharines Right to Life newsletter, he said that in a perfect world, there would be no abortion, but that he does it for the woman who asks for it, and because society condones it. He admitted that he has seen women who had their uterus perforated by abortion, and that women have died as a result of abortion.

It is often said in the media and by abortion advocates that late abortions (after 20 weeks gestation) are rare and difficult to obtain, yet Dr. Fellows admitted that he will perform abortions until 23weeks and six days.

 Kermit Gosnell, an abortion provider in West Philadelphia, is on trial for first-degree murder in the deaths of seven babies and third-degree murder in the 2009 death of Karnamaya Mongar, a patient at his Women’s Medical Society abortion clinic. If convicted of first-degree murder charges,  Gosnell could face the death penalty.

 Dave Andrusko has been covering the release of the grand jury report and the trial for National Right to Life News, with a series of articles appearing in the site’s “News Today” section. He reported that Gosnell is alleged to have delivered alive seven late-term babies and severed their spinal cords with surgical scissors. Gosnell is also being prosecuted for the death of Mrs. Mongar, who was allegedly given a lethal amount of anesthetics and painkillers by clinic staff members while she awaited an abortion.

Since the trial began, Gosnell’s defence has argued that none of the babies in question were born alive, contrary to testimony in the grand jury report, and that Mrs. Mongar died from complications unrelated to the abortion.

According to their report, members of the grand jury believed that Gosnell snipped the spinal cords of hundreds of infants born alive and that he was responsible for the deaths of two women. Gosnell faces only eight charges because, as the report concluded, the records have been destroyed. He will be tried separately in September on charges stemming from the drug probe that led to the clinic raid.

For months before law enforcement officers raided the clinic on February 18, 2010, Gosnell and the clinic had been under investigation by the federal and local authorities because of reports he was illegally dispensing prescriptions. The suspicious nature of Mrs. Mongar’s death and the conditions at the clinic came to light during the investigation, and so officials from the Pennsylvania Department of State and the Pennsylvania Department of Health were invited to accompany the officers on the raid.

No one from these departments had visited the clinic since 1993, even after the Department of Health had been informed of Mrs. Mongar’s death months earlier and even though the Department’s records on Gosnell’s dangerous practices date back to the 1980s.

The raid revealed the building, furniture and washroom facilities were filthy and foul-smelling; instruments were not properly sterilized; many medications were past the expiration date; equipment was in poor condition and outdated; and medical waste and fetal remains were stored throughout the building rather than collected by a licensed medical waste disposal company. The Philadelphia medical examiner confirmed that, of the 45 fetuses whose remains were found at the clinic, at least two—and probably three—had been viable.

The Pennsylvania Board of Medicine suspended Gosnell’s medical licence on February 22, 2010, and the state Department of Health filed papers to begin shutting down the clinic on March 12, 2010. On May 4 of that year, the Philadelphia District Attorney submitted the case to the grand jury. The trial began this month.

According to Pennsylvania’s abortion regulations, abortion facilities are required to have at least one doctor certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology on staff or as a consultant, and physicians must provide counselling about the abortion procedure. Minors require the consent of their parents or a judge; all women must wait 24 hours after their first visit to a clinic before having an abortion. Abortions cannot be performed after 24 weeks’ gestation. Second- and third-trimester abortions must be reported to the state Department of Health, and tissue from late-term abortions must be sent to a pathologist to confirm fetuses were not viable or born alive.

As well, women in the recovery room must be under constant supervision by a registered nurse or a licensed practical nurse under the direction of a registered nurse or a physician. Resuscitation equipment and drugs must be ready for use and clinics must have doors, elevators and passages that enable patients to be carried on stretchers to street level.

According to the grand jury report, Gosnell ignored all these requirements.

Moreover, although Gosnell was not a certified obstetrician or gynecologist, he was the only licensed physician at the clinic and generally came to work hours after patients began to arrive. He did not determine accurate gestational ages and falsified gestational ages. Gosnell had a reputation for being a doctor who would perform abortions at any stage and charged more for an abortion the further along a woman’s pregnancy was. He also performed abortions forced on patients by a partner or parents.

Gosnell’s untrained, unlicensed and unsupervised staff members performed ultrasounds and administered drugs—with no regard to patients’ weight, health or risk factors—to induce labour and keep patients sedated. Patients were generally left unattended and often delivered their babies hours before Gosnell arrived. Gosnell ensured “fetal demise” by snipping the infants’ spinal cords. His staff regularly discharged patients before they were fully alert or able to walk.

Gosnell had a bad reputation in Philadelphia; community organizations providing referrals and information on sexual health services would not recommend his clinic to women seeking abortions. And in January 2010, Gosnell’s request for admission to the National Abortion Federation (NAF) was denied because an evaluator deemed that his clinic could not be brought into compliance with NAF standards. The grand jury noted that, even though the NAF’s “stated mission is to ensure safe, legal, and acceptable abortion care, and to promote health and justice for women,” the NAF did not report Gosnell to the authorities.

In “Abortion ‘House of Horrors’ reflected pro-Choice views on ending life,” an article published by the National Post, reporter Barbara Kay noted that conditions at Gosnell’s clinic were no secret but that, partly owing to pressure from pro-choice lobby group NARAL, the Pennsylvania Department of Health had stopped inspecting abortion clinics because “officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women seeking abortions.’”