Two more babies live after abortions done in Madison, Wisconsin’s General Hospital. This makes four such babies born alive in Madison in the past year. Sadly, both died hours after birth. One was 21 ½, the other 26 weeks. After failing to kill these unfortunate little ones inside their mothers, both were taken to intensive care units in an attempt to save them. Mr. Dan Zeidler of Wisconsin Citizens Concerned for Life stated, “The irony of it.”
Folic acid – prevent spina bifida?
Reported earlier by Prof. Jerome Lejeune, another researcher now confirms that daily folic acid, taken from the beginning of the menstrual cycle in which she hopes to become pregnant, until the end of the first trimester, seems to prevent neural tube defects (spina bifida, etc.).
Dr. Kart Laurence, (J.R. Soc. Med. 75:723-28, 1982) contrasts the fact that in matched controls, not on Folic Acid, there were six recurrences among 79 women at risk. A major follow up randomization controlled study is being planned.
Down’s Syndrome masked by surgery
In a fascinating and heartwarming article, Maya Pines, on August 31, 1982 in The New York Times reports on the new practice of plastic surgery on the faces of Down’s Syndrome (mongoloid) children. The result of this is to reduce the characteristic facial appearance and thereby make these children both more socially acceptable and more acceptable to themselves. She reports that “the doctors have generally the size of each child’s protruding tongue (both for cosmetic reasons and because this makes it easier to speak), brought the ears closer to the head, raised hanging lower lips, altered the axis of the eyelids, raised cheekbones with small implants of silicon, raised the bridge of the nose, in some cases put implants into severely receding chins. Some of the children needed only a few of these operations. Even when all of the procedures were required however, they could be done in an hour and a half, in a single session, and left no visible scars.”
Dr. Reuven Feuerstein, a lead Israeli psychologist, commented that “it gives the children an opportunity to be seen as individuals, rather than just members of a strange and inferior group.”
