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Jewish World Review May 24, 1999 /9 Sivan, 5759

Mona Charen

Mona Charen
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Econophone

Baby Hope continued

(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
THE BARE FACTS of the Baby Hope case would seem to suggest that Connie Boyles, the nurse who attempted to care for the premature infant, and Shelly Lowe, the medical technician who rocked the baby for three hours until she died, were heroines. That isn't the way their employer saw it. Both women have now been forced from their jobs.

The Baby Hope case began when a woman said to be 22 weeks pregnant underwent the first stage of a partial-birth abortion in Ohio. The abortionist had completed only the first phase of the procedure -- dilating the cervix -- when the woman, complaining of severe abdominal pain, checked into the emergency room of her local hospital. She gave birth as she was being examined.

The doctor who attended her placed the baby in a specimen dish and handed it to Shelly Lowe, a medical technician. "Take this to the lab," she instructed. (Anything taken from the human body is sent to the pathology lab.) Lowe looked at the perfectly formed little girl in the dish and saw her breathing. "I don't think I can do that," she told the doctor. "This baby is alive."

The doctor, still busy with the mother, said, "Well, I'll be there in a minute. Take it to the utility room." Shelly didn't. With the help of Connie Boyles and other nurses, she instead took the baby to the resuscitation unit, where she was weighed, warmed and assessed by a neonatology team.

Baby Hope was judged too premature to live, and when Lowe asked if she could hold her until she died, she was permitted to do so. Lowe rocked and sang to Hope, who breathed room air for three hours and then, denied the benefit of incubation and other intensive care, died.

When the emergency-room nurses discussed the case among themselves, Boyles was struck by their ignorance. One said, "I didn't know they performed abortions at 22 weeks." Another offered that the baby was probably brain damaged anyway from the saline. (Saline is not used in partial-birth abortio ns.)

The following day, Boyles contacted a friend in the pro-life movement and asked for literature to distribute to her colleagues, and the story thus became public.

With the hospital in an uproar, Boyles and Lowe consulted with their superiors and with "corporate communications." They were told that the hospital did not impose a gag order on its staff and "we don't want our employees to be afraid of their employer."

But when Boyles returned to work for her next shift, not a single doctor or nurse would speak to her. Her offense, she was given to understand in a tense meeting with her boss, was compromising patient confidentiality. Yet Boyles had never revealed the name of the mother in the case and points out that since she never saw the woman, she does not know her name, age, race or any other identifying information to this day.

"It's the abortion issue," she concludes sadly. "When Cincinnati was hit with a tornado, all kinds of stories about patients (names excepted) were given to the press, and no one thought anything about it."

The Baby Hope case plunged Bethesda North Hospital into the center of our society's moral confusion about prenatal life. Bowles knew that the ER doctors believed Baby Hope to be more than 22 weeks old. If true, that would explain a great deal. It would explain how Hope was able to breathe room air for three hours.

And it would explain why the hospital was so worried about publicity.

The weeks between 22 and 25 are critical for viability. Almost no 22-week-old babies survive. But according to figures from Johns Hopkins Medical Center, 15 percent survive at 23 weeks, 56 percent survive at 24 weeks, and 79 percent survive at 25 weeks.

Certain that she would be fired if she did not quit, Boyles tendered her resignation -- bitterly. She was an advocate for a patient, albeit an extremely inconvenient one, and for that, she was found wanting as a nurse. Lowe, who was suspended, plans to appeal.

No one at Bethesda Hospital would comment -- though its answering tape advertises positions available for those seeking to work in an environment of "compassion and care."


JWR contributor Mona Charen reads all of her mail. Let her know what you think by clicking here.


Up

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05/17/99:Baby Hope
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©1999, Creators Syndicate