Such a sad story in the news - baby mistakenly terminated.

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www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/royal-womens-hospital-investigates-accidental-termination-of-wrong-twin-in-surgery-error/story-e6frg6nf-1226204303788

Sorry for my spelling mistakes. Emotive issue.

I see deemented yes I understand now.

I am sorry about your baby.

Oh just seen deementeds post. But surely (sorry this is not nice) the dead twin would start to decompose if not removed putting remaining twin and mother at risk?

Someone I know terminated one of a twin pregnancy - slightly later I think from memory at around 34 weeks. It was a hard hard decision for them, I don't know the ins and outs of the advice they were given, it wasn't my business. I do know the aborted twin had a condition incompatible with life. The mother carried both babies for a further two weeks to allow the surviving twin to mature further and then she was induced and delivered both babies.

People have no idea what advice this couple have been given, what risks they faced etc. Please don't judge them too harshly. I've never seen someone so upset as my ex-colleague when they were trying to decide what to do and after, I still remember how dead his voice sounded when he was explaining it to me.

I'm so sorry for your loss dee. You obviously understand the position these poor people must have been in more than most .

Dee I'm sorry for your loss, I cross posted with your explanation.

Sorry. My last post seems a bit crass now. It's obviously something that is standard practice in this situation.

Sorry for your loss Dee.

And sorry also for the couple in this case and the medical staff involved. What a tragedy.

the whole euthanasia, minimise suffering, termination thing just confuses me so much,

i am pro-choice. Every woman has the right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy or not. but i still think it is morally and ethically wrong. and i cannot get my head around terminating a pregnancy for medical reasons or know disability.

and i also strongly believe people have the right to choose to die with dignity when they want to. but i couldn't do it, or be involved with it. but i want that option to be available for me and my family. but even deciding to have a cat PTS was hard enough.

but i have also never had to make those decisions and hope and pray i never have to.

Im shocked

So sad all round

but, couldnt the baby with the bad heart have been given the chance to live, operated on post birth, even adopted out if the family were unable to care for its possible extensive medical needs? 32 week abortion for that sounds crazy to me, youve come that far why not let nature take its course and see how the baby does post birth?

just read the thread lol, everything I asked has been answered more or less, sorry!

What I dont get - and Ive been working this morning and cant stop thinking about it - is what happened AFTER the injection.

They did a C section to "kill" sorry wrong word but cant think what it should be the sick baby?

If it had been a single pregnancy would they have induced it early knowing it would die at birth?

Did they have a duty of care to try to revive it at the C section or not? Im confused. Im sure when DD2 was born by C section at 32 weeks if Id said no dont treat her Id have been immediately dismissed and probably charged/ had both children removed from my care etc. How did that differ once the baby was born??? will there be a coroners case for the "sick" baby who presumably from the article died at or shortly after birth?

bemybebe so sorry to hear about your dd. My dd was born at 28 weeks, was very healthy but died unexpectedly at 7 weeks old. We have a support thread here if you would like to join us.

I agree with sevenfold. If a disabled baby can be terminated up to birth then the same rule should apply for a non disabled baby.

Yes, some conditions are not detected until the 20 week scan.

There is another twenty weeks between that scan until the baby is born. It does not take another twenty weeks to determine the extent of a condition - usually conditions that are incompatible with life are abundantly clear, but the point here is that it is not just conditions that are incompatible with life that are eligible for termination up to birth - any disability is. Let's look at it in another way:

Let's say that a baby is diagnosed with downs following the amnio, but the twenty week scan shows there are no heart defects or other associated health problems. The mother is offered a termination but decides not to go through with one.

At 30 weeks she is again offered a termination but decides not to go through with it. Bearing in mind here that because the baby is said to have a severe disability, albeit it is not incompatible with life.

Then at 39 weeks the mother has a change of heart and decides she can't face the possibility of bringing a baby with downs into the world, So she goes to see her consultant and says that she has changed her mind and that she would in fact like a termination. And because the baby is severely disabled the consultant agrees and she is booked into hospital the next day.

Except that night she goes into labour at home, and it's a quick labour, and the baby is delivered at home before she can get to hospital. A healthy baby, albeit it has Downs.

Now, that baby was due to be killed the next day under the agreement that a baby with a disability can be terminated up to term.

so - who thinks the baby should be killed anyway due to the fact it has a severe disability? And if not, why not, given it was already viable at the point it was scheduled to be killed in utero?

this report says what happened to the sick baby

doesn't seem like the sick baby's problems were incompatible with life

wannaBe good post, how it can be a termination up to birth imo is sick

Look, whatever the right or wrongs of it, a mother has lost her twin boys. She has to live with that for the rest of her life, not just until the media interest has dwindled.

Please, show some compassion.

Dee is right. I can only think that, they took into account they were having twins, and the impact of the other ones illness on the life the healthy baby would have, as well as the sck baby, and having made the best decision they could, whether we think its right or wrong, this has happened.

It must feel like they are being punished.

Its a horrible horrible thing for all involved.

Hi. We're going to move this to 'In the News', as we think it's the best place for it.

dee, I have no doubt that this couple were pressured into terminating this pregnancy. I do also agree that it is tragic for all concerned, for none more so than for the two babies that were never given a chance to live.

But I don't believe that not talking about it is the right thing to do. It is precicely because people "don't talk about it" that so many people are unaware that a disabled baby can be terminated up to term, regardless of the disability. and this is IMO a stance that needs challenging. It shouldn't be seen acceptable to terminate a pregnancy at 32 weeks, or 37 weeks, or 40 weeks purely because the baby has a disability. It wouldn't be deamed acceptable to terminate a healthy pregnancy at 32 weeks, in fact this story is a case in point - the horrir expressed is not so much at the sick baby being terminated at 32 weeks, this is seen as acceptable, whereas the loss of the healthy baby is seen as the tradgedy.

We can only change these attitudes by talking about it.

Of course it is tragic for the parents going through it. But this is not about individuals - it is about a wider attitude that puts the lives of the disabled beneath those of the non disabled - even before they are born. And it is an attitude that needs challenging.

Yes this couple are going through heartbreak. And unfortunately they have been thrust into the public eye. But only by challenging the idea that it is acceptable at all to terminate such late-term babies can other couples be prevented from going through the same in future.

wannabe, yet again good post, you put it so well.

How can you have no doubt that the couple were pressurised?

wannabe is it you who thinks that if a woman is not prepared to have a disabled child she shouldn't have children?

I was strongly pressurised advised to abort my DD2 at 31 weeks here in the UK. She had a very poor prognosis and they did not know how long she would survive after birth it at all. I was put under an enormous amount of pressure by the Fetal Medicine Unit at the UCH by being told that it would be cruel to give birth to her and she would be in pain, so I can see how some women (at a very vulnerable time in their life) could agree to this procedure. They would have injected her heart with potassium while watching on a scan until her heart had stopped.

I had to very firmly insist that my DD would die naturally and not at my hands or anyone elses. In the end she died as soon as the cord was cut.

It is a terrible situation to be in and not something that should anyone should be judged for.

wannabe I agree with every heartfelt word you have written on this subject.
The way society deems disabled babies worthy of destruction up until birth and talk of the " wrong" baby is truly dreadful.

BlessYou I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you for posting, I didn't realise that medical staff would put so much pressure on the parents to terminate, that's very grim.