Pro-Life Nurse Fired from Christ Hospital.(Jill Stanek )(Brief Article)

Two years after publicly exposing alleged live-birth abortion procedures at Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois, nurse Jill Stanek was fired from her job August 31.

"The termination was based solely on my taking a stand against abortion," Stanek told NRL News. "It was a wrongful termination."

Stanek has been outspoken in her condemnation of Christ Hospital's abortion policy. The hospital is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ.

Stanek's most shocking accusation is that late-term babies who survive abortion attempts have been left to die without receiving treatment. In these abortions, mothers are given labor-inducing drugs, and the babies are delivered without being killed in utero, according to the Chicago Tribune. Most of these babies are stillborn, but some survive and live for several minutes to a few hours, Daily Southtown reported.

Stanek alleged that the babies were either held or placed in a soiled utility room until death and received "comfort care" rather than lifesaving medical treatment, according to the Associated Press.

Hospital spokeswoman Sue Reimbold admitted in 1999 that such abortions do occur, but said that the babies who are born alive are fed and placed in the nursery. "They are just not given aggressive artificial life support," Reimbold told NRL News in a 1999 interview.

On July 20, 2000, Stanek testified about live-birth abortions at a hearing on the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act conducted by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution. This is a proposed federal law, supported by NRLC, that would clearly establish that an infant who is entirely delivered and who shows any signs of life has full legal rights under all federal laws. (See www.nrlc.org, "Federal Legislation: Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.")