Fifteen year old Kristy was born with cerebral palsy. She is confined to a wheelchair and cannot speak. Kirsty's family sued her mother's obstetrician, Dr. Alan Kaye, for negligence.
- Her mother's uterus ruptured as labour began, and Kristy's brain was starved of oxygen.
- The uterus ruptured as labour began, probably because it was perforated during an abortion a year earlier, about which she had not told her obstetrician.
- Justice Grove rejected the claim, noting that the after-effect of the mother's abortion was a more likely cause for Kristy's injuries.
- Abortion has been linked with cervical and uterine damage which can increase the risk of premature delivery, labour complications, and abnormal development of the placenta in subsequent pregnancies.
Abortion - Safe?
AustraliaJune 2004
In the New South Wales Supreme Court on 8 April 2004 Justice Michael Grove ruled that the brain damage of a Sydney girl, Kirsty Bruce, a result of her mother's uterine rupture - was probably caused by a previous abortion.
Consequently the girl lost her claim against her mother's obstetrician, Dr. Alan Kaye, for negligence.
Kristy, who is now 15, was born with cerebral palsy. She is confined to a wheelchair and cannot speak. Kristy's mother, Sharon Chevelle, gave birth to the girl at the Royal Hospital for Women, in Sydney's east, on March 21, 1989.
Her family sued Dr. Kaye for more than $750,000 for malpractice, claiming he miscalculated her mother's expected due date. As a result, the family claimed, Kristy was born between two-and-a-half and six weeks overdue, causing the placenta to deteriorate, a condition known as "placental insufficiency."
However, Justice Grove rejected the claim, noting that the after-effect of the mother's abortion was a more likely cause for Kristy's injuries.
In his judgment Grove said, "...As Dr. Lyneham (an expert witness) pointed out, the weakness [in the uterine wall] could have been a consequencs of a complication in one of Ms Chevelle's previous abortions or a procedure by dilation and curettage to remove an interuterine contraceptive device [such as had been implanted after the birth of a previous child].
"As Dr. Lyneham comments, it is entirely feasible that at one of these procedures there was an inadvertent perforation of the uterine wall, which at the time did not result in any clinical manifestation. As a matter of hindsight, considerable suspicion must be directed to the very recent termination which Ms Chevelle underwent just prior to becoming pregnant with the plaintiff...
"As stated, a conclusion cannot be reached other than that there was nothing to suggest that there was any relevant matter of which the defendant ought to have been aware and reacted to..."
In Kristy's case, her mother's uterus ruptured as labour began, probably because it was perforated during an abortion a year earlier, about which she had not told her obstetrician. Kristy's brain was starved of oxygen and, when she was born by emergency caesarean she had an APGAR score - a measure of a newborn's health - of zero.
According to the Elliot Institute, USA, an organisation that studies complications from abortion, the procedure has been linked with cervical and uterine damage which can increase the risk of premature delivery, labour complications, and abnormal development of the placenta in subsequent pregnancies. Such complications are the leading cause of handicaps in newborns.
Endeavour Forum Inc., Newsletter No. 115, June 2004