Alia Beard Rau

The Republic | azcentral.com

A proposal from an Arizona lawmaker to require doctors to do everything possible to save the life of a baby born alive during an abortion could have far broader implications.

Senate Bill 1367 would require hospitals and clinics providing abortions at 20 weeks or beyond to have medical equipment on site to care for a fetus delivered alive. If the delivered baby is breathing, has a heartbeat and is moving, doctors must use all available means and medical skills to save its life.

But there are concerns that it also would require doctors to perform fruitless medical procedures on a fetus born early due to fatal abnormalities.

Bill supporters cite two Arizona cases in which an aborted fetus may have been alive but quickly died.

Last year, an abortion clinic worker called 911 after she believed she may have seen a fetus move or breathe. The fetus was taken to the hospital with no vital signs and pronounced dead. The incident was investigated by the Arizona Attorney General's Office, which found no wrongdoing.

A woman was convicted in Phoenix of using state Medicaid funds in 2010 to pay for an abortion after lying about having cancer. According to legislative testimony from bill sponsor Sen. Steve Smith, law-enforcement documents reported the woman's 22-week-old fetus was born alive, may have survived for about 20 minutes and didn't receive lifesaving measures.

"It's unfortunate that you need a law like this," Smith, R-Maricopa, said. "But if ever there is common ground somewhere, I would sure hope this is it. We're not talking about the legality of abortion. We're talking about if the baby survives and is moving and breathing on its own."

Causing additional trauma?

But some medical experts and lawmakers said the bill goes far beyond planned abortions to instances where a wanted pregnancy ends tragically early, such as an induced delivery to save a mother's life. Current law gives doctors more flexibility, requiring them to do everything possible to save the life of the fetus only if they believe it has a chance of surviving outside the uterus.

In cases where a baby is born and a doctor determines there is no chance of survival, the baby often is bathed, wrapped in a blanket and placed in the arms of the parents. Sometimes, families take photos or make small handprint or footprint molds, creating the only memories they will ever have with their child.

If the bill passes, doctors would instead have to intubate the babies, perform CPR or search for tiny veins in which to insert IVs, said Dr. Kelley Saunders, representing the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

"The chance of a live born fetus is exceedingly small, less than 1 percent," Saunders said. "And there are unintended consequences here. Parents of these infants just want to hold these babies and be peacefully with them until they pass."

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She said requiring such measures could create significant additional trauma for a grieving family.

"Expending the time that family has to grieve with that baby as opposed to providing measures that, quite frankly, might be cruel and painful to the baby, I just think is a very difficult thing to mandate," she said.

'A chance of life'

Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, in tears, told Saunders she didn't understand her argument.

"If a baby is lying there and is alive...," she said. "No matter if you are pro life or not pro life, letting a baby die just doesn't seem acceptable to me."

Smith said even if the new law is applied to all births, he supports it.

"My only intent is to save any baby that might be dying," he said.

Abortions are legal in Arizona up to about 24 weeks. Dr. Paul Liu, a critical-care physician at Phoenix Children's Hospital who supports the bill, said medical advances have reached the point where babies born at that point can often be saved and live healthy lives.

"Kids at 22 to 26 weeks, a remarkable percentage of them do very well," he said.

And just because a baby may be unwanted is not a reason not to try to save its life, he said.

"We work very, very hard in trying to keep children alive," he said. "Some children aren't wanted, maybe they've been abused. But just because they aren't wanted doesn't mean we stop trying."

The conservative Center for Arizona Policy, which was behind many bills restricting abortions in Arizona over the past several years, supports the proposal. Organization President Cathi Herrod said the bill is focused on instances of abortion.

But during the Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing, she said even in cases where a pre-term baby is born with a fetal anomaly or serious health condition, "It still goes to the point where they are delivered alive. You call in the neonatologist and you give appropriate care.

"Let's give them every appropriate means to give them a chance of life," she said.

The Center for Arizona Policy successfully pushed a bill in 2012 that would have banned all abortions after 20 weeks despite arguments that it would affect families who discover, often after that point, that their child has a fatal fetal defect. The federal court struck down the law as unconstitutional.

Sen. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, said she believes the bill will save lives.

"I think of the mom who maybe has chosen to terminate and her baby is born alive and she sees there's a heartbeat and there's a change in her heart to want to see that baby live," she said. "I think there are many circumstances where that might happen. Why should we stand in the way?"

The bill passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and now advances to a vote of the full Senate.