ENDEAVOUR FORUM NEWSLETTER No. 115, JUNE 2004

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In the NSW Supreme Court on 8 April 2004   Justice Michael Grove  ruled that the brain damage of  a Sydney girl, Kristy 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, the 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 judgement  Grove said " .....As Dr. Lyneham (an expert witness)  pointed out, the weakness [in the uterine wall] could have been a consequence of a complication in one of Ms. Chevelle's previous abortions or a procedure by dilatation and curettage to remove an intrautrine contraceptive device [such as had been implanted by Dr. Munro 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 posterior 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 becomeing pregnant with the plaintiff..... As stated a conclusion cannot be reached othr than that there was nothing to suggest that thre 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 organization that studies complications from abortion, the procedure has been linked with cervical and uterine damage which can increase the risk of premature delivery, labor complications, and abnormal development of the placenta in subsequent pregnancies. Such complications are the leading causes of handicaps in newborns.

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