-- The State of Illinois is investigating allegations of improper medical care provided to survivors of live birth abortions at a hospital in suburban Chicago.
The live birth abortion method essentially causes premature birth, with the expectation that the baby will be born dead, or die soon thereafter.
Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois has been charged with allowing some survivors of live birth abortions to die without administering adequate medical treatment.
Labor/Delivery nurse Jill Stanek says live birth abortion infants are simply provided comfort care. "If a baby was born alive, a premature baby was born alive, an aborted baby was born alive, and we stuck it in a bucket of water to kill it, we would say that's murder. What is really the difference between that and just setting the baby on a counter or even holding the baby until it dies?"
In a live birth abortion, doctors induce labor and the mother actually gives birth, sometimes to a living, breathing child. Since the procedure takes place in the second trimester, the baby cannot survive without medical assistance.
Stanek alleges the "comfort care" does nothing to help the child survive. In one case, she says she held a little boy 45 minutes before he died. "He weighed about a half pound as I recall. [He had] all fingers, all toes. [He was] just skinny, not ready to be born, very weak, didn't cry. [He] just spent his 45 minutes just...gasping."
When no nurse is available, Stanek says the infant is wrapped in a blanket and left in what is referred to as the "Soiled Utility Room."
The Illinois Department of Public Health is investigating the charges. CBN News has learned the federal Health Care Financing Administration, which runs Medicare, is interested in the results.
Spokesmen for Christ Hospital and its parent company, Advocate Health Care, declined to grant CBN News a taped interview. Off camera, they denied allegations that children are left alone to die and claimed the procedure is only performed in cases where the mother's life is in jeopardy or the fetus has a fatal disorder.
But that may not be exactly true. CBN News has obtained a copy of the hospital's confidential draft policy on abortion--which means it isn't formal policy...yet. It says abortions may be performed on fetuses with cystic fibrosis, spina bifida, Down's syndrome and mental retardation -- not necessarily fatal ailments.
Pastor Tim Harlow of nearby Parkview Christian Church led an interdenominational prayer vigil outside the hospital Saturday morning.
"This is nothing more than infanticide," he says. "This is clearly murder, as these babies are being born in a hospital that is charged with protecting them and caring for them and this baby is left to die there."
Several hundred people gathered in a cold rain to sing hymns and pray for an end to the practice of live birth abortions. Some hospital personnel looked on from inside the hospital.
Harlow prayed, "I am so sad that there are babies that come to this hospital that are forced to be born early and then spend their birthday in the "soiled utility room" to die. Please Lord, change it."
One hospital official who attended the vigil was State Senator Peter O'malley, who also sits on the hospital's governing council. "It may appear on the surface to be more humane than, say, partial birth abortion, and yet, it is probably more insidious because the child is actually born alive and then just allowed to lose its life."
O'Malley hopes to use his influence in Springfield, as well as Christ Hospital, to end the practice of live birth abortion.
Source: www.cbn.com