The attention and focus is lost on Ximena Renaerts. She has no comprehension of the stir caused over her birth, and the subsequent legal battle that ensued.

For Ximena’s parents, some form of justice has been done – and, more importantly, Ximena’s needs will be taken care of for the rest of her life.

It all started in December 1985. Ximena’s birth mother had traveled to Bellingham, Wash. for a late-term abortion. Not aware that the abortion was incomplete, she returned to the Vancouver area; three days later she showed up at Vancouver General Hospital and was scheduled for a “D&C” the next morning. At 3:00 a.m. she gave birth to Ximena.

Records indicate that Ximena was born in a bedpan, then put in a “closet” where the bodies of other dead children were stored.

Staff ignored signs of life coming from the newly born infant.

This lack of care and treatment meant that Ximena suffered irreparable brain damage – but it was the compassion of a supervisory nurse that ordered a Code Blue and saved Ximena’s life.

Interim readers will remember the heroic tale of this little fighter, and the love and compassion given to her by her adoptive parents. Surprisingly, the story hasn’t been censored by the typically pro-abortion Vancouver media.

Canadians were informed in late July that the hospital that fought legal redress for Ximena every step of the way, agreed to an out-of-court settlement of $8.7 million – perhaps the largest in Canadian history, and certainly the largest for an abortion survivor.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Williamson unsealed the judgment and settlement, even though the hospital fought to keep it under wraps.

Williamson even rebuked VGH for the “less-than-forthcoming attitude of the hospital.”

Records indicate that Ximena’s birth was not the first time a baby has survived an abortion at VGH – although the abortion performed on Ximena’s birth mother was at another facility, there is evidence that other children have been born alive at VGH and left to die.

Indeed, it is expected that as news of the record settlement is spread, other cases of infants born alive at other medical facilities in B.C. will use this precedent-setting settlement to launch their own legal actions.

Vancouver Sun articles in the 1970s and 1980s document alleged cases of other infants born alive. Sources indicate that attempts are being made to contact some of the families involved, and that a police investigation could be warranted.

Pro-lifers remain skeptical, though. Joanne Hatton of Alberta Pro-Life stated that given the perfunctory investigation by police of late-term abortions at Foothills Hospital in Calgary, she expects the issue of abortion survivors will once again be swept under the rug despite clear indications that portions of the Criminal Code have been violated.