Outside the Beltway

Twin Survives Abortion, Mother Suing

James Joyner · Monday, April 25, 2005 · 2 comments

Mother sues NHS after twin survives abortion (Sunday Times of London)

A MOTHER who underwent an abortion after learning that she was pregnant with twins is suing the NHS for £250,000 after one of the babies survived. Stacy Dow, who was 16 when she found out that she was pregnant, is seeking compensation and damages for the “financial burden†of raising her daughter. Miss Dow, whose father has had to take on a second job to help to pay for his granddaughter, is claiming for “loss, injury and damage†suffered at the hands of Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The teenager, who hoped to train as a nurse, decided to have an abortion as soon as she discovered that she was six weeks pregnant. Days later the procedure was carried out at Perth Royal Infirmary, where doctors advised her that no live material was left in her uterus. When Miss Dow started to put on weight and her periods stopped, she assumed that it was because of the contraception injection she had been given. The hospital had told her that possible side-effects included weight gain and an erratic menstrual cycle. Miss Dow said: “After 33 weeks I went to the GP and he told me I was pregnant. I thought he meant I had fallen pregnant again, and I couldn’t believe it when I was told that it was one of the original pregnancies.â€

Miss Dow̢۪s daughter, Jayde, who is now a healthy three-year-old, weighed 6lb 2oz when she was delivered by Caesarean section on August 30, 2001, at the same hospital in which her mother had had the abortion seven months previously.

This could have been even more horrific, had Jayde been damaged during the failed abortion. While one sympathizes with Dow’s surprise and the strain an unplanned pregnancy put on her career plans, it’s hard to understand a mother suing because her three-year-old is not dead.

The fact that she was pregnant at 16 and just presumed she was pregnant a second time 33 weeks later does not speak well for her, either. “Fallen pregnant,” indeed.