More than four years after a 32-week-old fetus diagnosed with a form of dwarfism was aborted in a Melbourne hospital the case remains a lightening rod. Doctors said the ailment would have resulted in stunted growth but not any loss of capacity for independent and productive living, the Australian reported Friday. Nevertheless, the mother was a psychiatric patient acutely tormented by her baby’s handicap and demanding an abortion. Staff at the Royal Women’s Hospital got permission from an administrator and aborted the 32-week-old fetus. But soon afterwards, the hospital’s associate director of women’s services, filed a formal complaint about the late-term abortion. Eventually her protest reached the hospital head who fired various participants, only to reinstate them when the staff passed a no-confidence vote against him. Meanwhile, two critical documents went missing, the file note confirming the administrator’s OK for the abortion and the letter documenting the potassium chloride injection that ensures a fetus is stillborn. The hospital now faces a Medical Practioners Board complaint, filed by anti-abortion National Party Sen. Julian McGauran, and a possible Supreme Court hearing on the matter. © Copyright 2005 by United Press International

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