By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — As orange blossoms just began to scent the air in neighborhoods here, a prematurely budded new human life also appeared in late February.
In about 10 months, the little white blossoms will be succeeded by fully ripe oranges. The new baby didn’t stay around for a taste.
The days are warm and the nights are cool on the desert now.
In that evening air, about 50 pro-lifers turned out for a prayer vigil on the sidewalk in front of a large hospital after learning of an alert on Facebook by “Pro-Life Arizona” that a baby who survived an abortion and reportedly breathed was transported to this location the previous afternoon.
The vigil-keepers started arriving before 8 p.m. on February 27 after word spread earlier in the day about the survival at a nearby clinic where doctors do late abortions.
The normally busy McDowell Road next to the hospital was quieter on the weekend night as dozens of small white candles flickered that had been set on the curb by pro-lifers. They prayed 15 decades of the rosary as a few held a “40 Days for Life” banner, a pro-life program that coincidentally currently is under way here.
Sheila Riely, who helped organize the vigil, told The Wanderer that two sources she declined to identify supplied information about a baby surviving and being picked up by the Phoenix Fire Department for emergency transport.
A curtain of patient confidentiality shielded most details about the case. On the sidewalk, the word was that the baby still had been alive that morning of February 27.
Riely said she requested a copy of the 911 tape of this incident, but was informed it could take four weeks to obtain.
As lighted hospital patient windows loomed above her, Riely, a longtime helper of unborn babies and their moms, told The Wanderer:
“We’re here for three reasons. To pray for the abortionist, who was confronted by the violence of abortion. And that doctor, and all the doctors, must truly be hurting, and you pray they will return to the art of healing.
“We pray for the mother and her loved ones,” Riely continued. “She could have had no idea of this possible outcome. And we pray for the healing that only God can provide. And we pray of course for the baby.”
Pro-lifers supplied their own name for the new arrival, Baby Chava, the Hebrew word for “life.”
Capt. Reda Bigler, a fire department spokeswoman, confirmed to The Wanderer on February 29 that the baby was transported from 1331 N. Seventh St. to nearby Banner University Medical Center Phoenix.
The Seventh Street address is a four-story medical building just north of the I-10 freeway to California. One of the tenants is Family Planning Associates Medical Group, which performs late abortions. Its web page shows a photo of three smiling young women.
Bigler said a 911 caller provided an estimate that the baby was 21 weeks old.
The fire department’s media office began “getting a lot of inquiries” about the case, she said.
When The Wanderer checked back later in the day for possible further developments, Bigler said “we’ve reached the limit” of information that could be released, because of patient-privacy laws.
The “AzCentral” website posted a story, photos, and a video shortly after the prayer vigil concluded on February 27. AzCentral is the website for the state’s largest daily paper, The Arizona Republic.
The story said that on February 26 the hospital wouldn’t confirm there was such a patient, but the following night issued a statement saying, “Banner-University Medical Center Phoenix is not caring for a baby that survived an abortion procedure, as cited in media reports.”
The Wanderer contacted a spokeswoman for the hospital and cited the fire department information that the baby was taken there. She replied that because of patient confidentiality, noting further could be released beyond what the statement said.
Because the February 27 nighttime statement used the present tense to say the hospital “is not caring” for the baby, that would allow for other possibilities, either that the baby died or was transferred elsewhere.
Readers’ comments online reacting to the AzCentral story mainly appeared angry that permissive abortion was being cast in a bad light, instead of being angry at what permissive abortion allows.
A representative comment said pro-lifers “are the same people who believe Santa and the tooth fairy are real, that the PP tapes are real. Here’s the fact, abortion is legal, you don’t believe in it, fine, don’t have one, but don’t go telling what any other woman can or can’t do with her own body!”
On the chance that the baby might have been transferred from the Banner facility to a nearby specialty hospital, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, The Wanderer contacted PCH spokeswoman Jane Walton. Like others, she cited patient confidentiality as sharply restricting available information.
“We don’t release any information until we have the baby’s name, and I’m sure in this case that wouldn’t be available,” Walton said.
Late on February 29, AzCentral reported, “A fetus was transported to Banner Medical Center with no fetal heart tones and was pronounced dead immediately after arrival, according to a statement from Phoenix police.”
This news report said there was to be no autopsy, adding, “Autopsies are performed only under certain conditions, such as when a death is the result of violence or had occurred in a suspicious manner.”
Phoenix’s Family Planning Associates Medical Group was one of the subjects in videos released three years ago by pro-life activist Lila Rose’s Live Action organization. Investigators in the videos exposed abortuaries where the staff didn’t provide required care for surviving infants.
Rose was among the speakers at a rally of about 250 people on June 6, 2013, in front of this abortuary. Rose told The Wanderer at that time that Live Action turned its findings over to the Phoenix Police Department.
Rose said in a news release then: “The testimony we’ve documented in this abortion facility strongly suggests that staff there are committing infanticide. The Family Planning Associates Medical Group needs to be investigated immediately, and de-licensed. Women are at risk during these brutal procedures, and this is a matter of life and death for these children.”
The story appeared on the front page of the June 20, 2013, Wanderer.
The Wanderer story said, “Pressed by a Live Action investigator as to what would happen if a baby survived at Family Planning Associates, an abortion center counselor acknowledges in a video that ‘sometimes they are’ alive, but clinic workers ‘do not resuscitate’.”
On February 27, the vigil-keepers in front of the Banner hospital also prayed, “Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of your mercy.”
One woman commented to The Wanderer about the legal schizophrenia: “The absurdity, one minute we’re killing the baby and the next minute we’re trying to resuscitate it.”
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