Miami -- or Beijing? (Insider Report).

On orders from Probate Judge Arthur Rothenberg, medical personnel at Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital aborted an unborn child who came to be known as "Baby Doe." The child, killed on May 29th at 24 weeks gestational age, was apparently conceived by rape. The adult mother, referred to as "ZM," suffered from bacterial meningitis as a child, and had the mental development of a four-year-old.

Attorneys Dean DiBartolomeo and John Stemberger offered to act as Guardians ad Litem for Baby Doe. In hearings before Judge Rothenberg, physicians specializing in high-risk pregnancies testified that the unborn child was developing normally, and that there was no medical reason for an abortion. However, Judge Rothenberg claimed to have heard ZM mutter, "My baby no more," which he took as a definitive statement of the retarded woman's intent to have an abortion.

But Rothenberg also read into that ambiguous statement a desire for sterilization. Accordingly, with the approval of ZM's biological mother (who lives in Maryland and was not her daughter's legal guardian), Rothenberg ordered that the child be aborted and ZM undergo a tubal ligation.

In appealing Rothenberg's decision, the pro-life legal activist group Liberty Counsel (LC) pointed out that Florida law "requires that prior to an abortion on a person considered mentally incompetent, (1) the guardian must consent and (2) two physicians must certify that the abortion is necessary to save the life or preserve the health of the mother." Neither of these conditions were met in the Baby Doe case.

Additionally, the mode of abortion chosen in this case, a hysterotomy, "is the same procedure as a C-section," noted LC in a case summary. "The term hysterotomy is used when the intent is to ...