A British woman tried twice to abort one of the twins she was carrying because doctors presumed it would die in the womb.  They were wrong.

When doctors found that Gabriel was weaker than his brother, with an enlarged heart,and believed he was going to die in the womb, his mother Rebecca Jones had to make a heartbreaking decision.

Doctors told her his death could cause his twin brother to die too before they were born, and that it would be better to end Gabriel’s suffering sooner rather than later.

Mrs Jones decided to let doctors operate to terminate Gabriel’s life.

Firstly they tried to sever his umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply, but the cord was too strong.

They then cut Mrs Jones’s placenta in half so that when Gabriel died, it would not affect his twin brother.

But after the operation which was meant to end his life, tiny Gabriel had other ideas.

Although he weighed less than a pound, he put up such a fight for survival that doctors called him Rocky.

Astonishingly, he managed to carry on living in his mother’s womb for another five weeks - until the babies were delivered by caesarean section.

Now he and Ieuan are back at home in Stoke - and are so close they are always holding each other’s hand.

“The baby might die so lets go ahead and kill it” argument really does ring hollow.  Life - in and out of the womb - is all about challenging and overcoming long odds, not yielding all hope of eventual success.

I wonder what kind of complex that kid is going to have when he learns that his mother did everything in her power to kill him before he was born.  The mother is clearly in denial over her decision based on her misleading characterization of the situation.  She said, “Doctors carried out an operation to let Gabriel die.”  No, what actually happened is that doctors, with her express consent, tried twice to carry out an operation to prevent Gabriel from living.  There is a big difference.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Saturday, November 3rd, 2007 at 8:53 pm and is filed under International, Social Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.