Catholic World News News Feature
Senate hearing promotes surgery for unborn children October 01, 2003
Senator Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, held a unique hearing on Capitol Hill last Thursday for the Subcommittee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to promote awareness of advances in the field of in utero fetal surgery, surgery on unborn children. Medical and scientific progress in this field is giving hope to parents who are often pressured to abort unborn children diagnosed with birth defects.
A highlight of the hearing was the testimony of Alex and Julie Armas, parents of Samuel Armas, who underwent in utero fetal surgery at Vanderbilt University in 1999 to correct spina bifida.
Mr. Armas testified, "The doctor painted a grim picture for us and stopped just short of suggesting an abortion. ... Abortion was never an option for us ... we were particularly struck by those who ethically challenged us on risking our baby's life for [this] life-improving procedure, while we would have been supported, should we have decided to legally end his life." Mrs. Armas also mentioned that "We were told that at least half of babies with spina bifida are aborted."
Mr. Armas said, "Progress in this field is not only improving lives, but is also saving lives by representing... an alternative, a hope for parents who may otherwise choose to end their pregnancy. ... Having options in fetal surgery can turn a family's initial perception of hopelessness into an outlook of hope. ... It is our hope that further NIH [National Institutes of Health] studies will be supported so that future parents facing circumstances such as we did, will be better equipped to make educated decisions about medical alternatives for birth defects. Continued studies and increased awareness of intrauterine surgical intervention will also increase acceptance among insurance companies."
Spina bifida is a birth defect caused by incomplete formation of the spinal cord. It affects one out of every thousand newborns in the US. Potential side-effects include brain malformations, incontinence, and inability to walk. In utero surgery has been utilized to correct it early on, because physicians have noticed that neural function in babies with spina bifida seems to worsen throughout pregnancy. With Samuel, the procedure took about an hour. Today, he is a precocious 3-year-old who walks, attends preschool, and loves to "look for bugs."
Samuel has become famous because, in the midst of the surgery, he reached out of the womb and grabbed onto the finger of his surgeon. A photojournalist present at the surgery captured the moment on film, and the photo, dubbed "the hand of hope," has been widely circulated among proponents of greater funding for research into such surgery.
Although in utero surgery to correct spina bifida has some associated potential risks for both mother and baby, there have been numerous successes. There is an ongoing clinical trial funded by the NIH, designed to compare the effects of in utero surgery versus surgery immediately post-birth. Dr. James Thorp, a maternal-fetal medicine physician present at the hearing, testified that also under investigation are "repair of diaphragmatic hernia, removal of fetal tumors, and even balloon angioplasty of valves within the fetal heart. Near scar-free repair of cleft palate/lip may also be possible."
Dr. Thorp says, "Progress in this field today is unheralded. There are incredible opportunities to treat the child in the womb, fixing the fetus in utero. Theoretically, there's tremendous fetal plasticity in terms of healing and [non-]scarring. There are [also] a number of diseases that have the potential to be completely cured by injecting stem cells from umbilical cords into a fetus' system."
Senator Brownback called Mr. and Mrs. Armas heroes, saying, "You give a lot of people a lot of hope." He asked Samuel if he knew who was in the now-famous photograph. Samuel quickly responded, "Baby Samuel. They fixed my boo-boo."
