Australia inquiry after wrong (32 week old) twin foetus terminated

[Turborama]

Source: BBC

An Australian hospital has launched an inquiry after staff treating a woman carrying twin boys accidentally terminated the wrong foetus.

Doctors had told the woman that one of her babies had a congenital heart defect that would require numerous operations, if he survived.

The woman chose to abort the 32-week foetus but staff injected the wrong twin.

The hospital in Melbourne described it as a "terrible tragedy".

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15870161

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:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[trumad]

1. Foetus

Is that how it is said down under?

[sybylla]

3. It's actually pronounced the same. We just "Americanized" the spelling.

nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. She was 8 months pregnant...it was a baby, no matter what they called it down under.

I was struck that the story kept saying " 32 weeks old" as if people cannot count months.
Strikes me as very tragic to kill a nearly full time term child.

[uppityperson]

2. What an awful situation, all the way around.

[roguevalley]

14. beyond words for everyone. I doubt that anyone involved wanted this outcome

[sybylla]

4. A terrible tragedy or a terrible fuck-up. They should be more precise.

I hope their statement said more than that.

[Turborama]

5. ""The Royal Women's Hospital can confirm a distressing clinical accident occurred on Tuesday,"

it said in a statement."

From the BBC article.

[BlueIris]

6. Dear God. How hard is it for doctors to perform these procedures?

Awful.

[kestrel91316]

7. Ultrasound-guided ANYTHING requires great skill and nerves of steel.

I wouldn't go near it with a ten-foot pole, even if I HAD the training. I'll leave that to the veterinary internists.

You might read up a bit on the practice of medicine before you go talking like it's simple or easy.

[NashVegas]

25. Obviously Not As Hard As Carrying to Term and Learning to Deal With Loss

[dipsydoodle]

8. Tragic

:(

[alp227]

9. Australia inquiry after wrong twin foetus terminated

Source: BBC

An Australian hospital has launched an inquiry after staff treating a woman carrying twin boys accidentally terminated the wrong foetus.

Doctors had told the woman that one of her babies had a congenital heart defect that would require numerous operations, if he survived.

The woman chose to abort the 32-week foetus but staff injected the wrong twin.

The hospital in Melbourne described it as a "terrible tragedy".

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15870161

[McCamy Taylor]

10. Can a viable fetus be killed in utero in Australia because it is disabled?

I can understand terminating a fetus that is 100% to die like anencephaly, but the article makes it sound as if the fetus would survive with surgery.

[Crunchy Frog]

13. I agree. I can't see aborting 32 week fetuses except in the most extreme of circumstances.

I can see delivering a baby with such a defect and choosing to forego surgery and allow it to pass away naturally, but not actively terminating it at such an advanced stage of development.

[iverglas]

19. "allow it to pass away naturally"

Yeah, that would certainly be more humane -- allowing an infant to "pass away naturally" as a result of a heart defect that would presumably cause considerable distress to the infant, who in fact (we don't know) might not have "passed away naturally" for some considerable time after birth. Possibly months or even years, for all we know.

I feel no need to second guess (or judge) a woman's choices in that situation myself.

[Bunny]

20. This.

[Crunchy Frog]

23. Thank you for sharing your opinion. I still don't agree with it.

I also don't agree that the baby would necessarily suffer much distress if allowed to pass naturally. This is something that some parents actively choose to do, and the babies generally pass fairly peacefully. If the baby is in much distress, that can be relieved with medication. If the baby were in good enough condition to live several months or years without intervention, then chances are that the necessary interventions would not be so extreme or onerous.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. I'm generally very pro-choice, but I draw my personal line at late gestation fetuses.

If this scenario had happened in my own twin pregnancy, I would not have terminated at that late stage, if for no other reason than I would have felt it to be an unacceptable risk to the healthy twin (as indeed it was in this instance). Of course, in my case I had a complete anatomical scan of both at 18 weeks, and had they found severe heart defects in one at that stage, my choice might have been different.

I have no control over what other women do with their pregnancies, but I don't feel any need to pretend that I don't have an opinion even when I do. Don't feel guilty or wrong about having opinions either.

[NashVegas]

27. Yes, It Would Be More Humane. Sorry.

Life is full of tragedies. You deal with them, you make decisions, and then you take responsibility for those decisions and whatever grief may occasionally come with them.

This woman and her doctor chose to escape the harder decision between medical bills and allowing a child to die because they can't afford them, and the emotional pain that would go with that and it backfired on their asses.

Anti-abortionists & anti-universal health care types will have a field day with this one.

[dipsydoodle]

11. Duplicate LBN

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x5069800

[uppityperson]

16. That links back to this OP.

[dipsydoodle]

17. That's because it already been moved to this one.

Was elsewhere to start with.

:hi:

[uppityperson]

22. Thank you, thought it might have been one of those DU funny things, rickrolling or something

Worst one was someone posted a link that got anyone who clicked on it to ignore someone else. I don't recall that lasted long before deletion.

[woundedkarma]

12. heart defect

if i had been aborted because i had a heart defect, i would not be 35, married with a beautiful one month old daugter. I never had costly heart surgery. I am pro-choice but anyone in such a situation should give it a lot of thought. As for the article, it's a terible tragedy.

[uppityperson]

15. I imagine they did "give it a lot of thought", and those in similar situations also do.

[iverglas]

18. "that would require numerous operations, if he survived."

You say: I never had costly heart surgery.

So this isn't about you, is it?

This is about a fetus that would have required extensive painful (the operative descriptor, not "costly") treatment and may not have survived (and we should perhaps read this as would likely not have survived).

Perhaps the woman and her partner were considering the well-being of the potential child above all else.

Yeah, I tend to think that someone who had carried a twin pregnancy to 32 weeks, who pretty obviously wanted it to end in successful delivery and children, really didn't just decide on a whim to have one of the fetuses aborted. I tend to think that the woman and her partner were trying to do what was best for all concerned, and chose not to put an infant through the very possibly pointless trauma that the defect and the treatment it required would cause. I tend to think they did actually "give it a lot of thought".

[NashVegas]

26. Someone Went Public, Making It a Matter for Public Debate

I'm think is more to this story, that hasn't made it to the news accounts. The doctor who advised this is going to have to answer why they chose to recommend to this particular patient to abort the fetus with the heart defect in the first place rather than allowing nature to take its course, and then why they went back into her uterus, AGAIN, to make sure they got that job right after killing a perfectly healthy one.

[Bunny]

21. I'm sure she gave it no thought whatsoever.

:eyes: