Word: fetus
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Waddill, 42, had been asked in March 1977 to perform an abortion on Mary Weaver, a high school student who claimed to be about 22 weeks pregnant. He injected a salt solution into her uterus, expecting a dead fetus to be expelled some 36 hours later, and left the hospital. That night, Waddill was summoned back by a nurse who said a fetus approximately 31 weeks old had emerged and was showing signs of life. He told the nurse not to care for it and to await his arrival. The hospital's chief pediatrician, Dr. Ronald Cornelsen, said...
...using a common method of feeling its pulse. But his key defense was that the baby was never really alive outside the uterus and that no doctor could have saved it. After hearing 13 weeks of conflicting testimony, the jury had to decide whether "Baby Girl Weaver," as the fetus was known, was ever legally alive outside her mother's womb, and whether the actions (or inactions) of Dr. Waddill led to her death...
Foreman Thomas says the jurors agreed early that the fetus was alive when it was born. They were using a definition of death jointly formulated by the judge, prosecutors and defenders, along the lines of one used by the World Health Organization: "The permanent disappearance of all vital signs." By this definition, the fetus had been alive, since the nurses testified that it had gasped for breath and had a heartbeat. But the jury split widely on the question of Waddill's culpability, with two strongly for acquittal, two strongly for conviction, and the rest unsure. Then...
...equipment of modern obstetrics. Explains Dr. John Barton, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Chicago's Illinois Masonic Hospital, where Mickey's baby was born: "We have to listen to what the home-delivery advocates are saying. But there are also the wants and needs of the fetus and the newborn to consider...
Scattered around the U.S. are scores of biomedical research facilities that use rhesuses for testing the effects of diet, drugs and other chemicals in relation to a wide variety of human diseases, notably cardiovascular disorders and cancer. Two important studies involve examination of the rhesus fetus while it is still in the womb, letting the pregnancy continue and checking hemoglobin changes that occur about the time of birth, which may be significant in relation to sickle-cell anemia...