Unborn Baby Aborted After Ultrasound Misdiagnosed Disability

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   May 17, 2012   |   1:30PM   |   Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

A faulty ultrasound diagnosis at two medical clinics led to the killing of a seven-month-old unborn child in Vietnam who was perfectly healthy.

Dr Pham Ba My, director of the Gia Lai Province General Hospital, told a Vietnamese news service that the baby died Sunday afternoon following an abortion after testing at the hospital earlier in the day.

The bay’s mother, Nguyen Thi Thu T, previously had  an ultrasound diagnosis at a health center in Chu Se, where doctors told her the baby’s body was deformed. They advised her to travel to Ho Chi Minh City for further testing, where she had another ultrasound scan showing the same result. Doctors advised her to have an abortion.

The Tuoitrenews news agency provides the rest of the story:

At 4 am on May 13, T. went to a private health center in Chu Se for an abortion that was carried out by a doctor named Hung, said Nguyen Thi Trinh, a relative of T’s.

In a bizarre twist, two hours later, when T’s relatives were about to bury the aborted fetus, they surprisingly found that it was still alive and had no congenital anomaly. The dangerously premature baby was immediately taken to the Gia Lai Province General Hospital at 9:30 am, but it was too late to save the unfortunate girl.

Dr Pham Vuong Quan, at the Pediatrics Emergency and Intensive Care Unit of the hospital, said the baby weighed 2.2 kg and had a normal body for that stage of gestation. When it was hospitalized, the baby was in poor condition, with pale skin, labored breathing, poor reflexes, and a body temperature below 35 degrees Celsius, the doctor said.

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Vietnam has long had one of the highest abortion rates in both Asia and the world and the United Nations recently said sex-selection abortions are causing significant gender gaps.

A few years ago, the UN issued a new report praising the population control efforts in Vietnam but acknowledged the devastating effects the program has had there.

The nreport from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) praises Vietnam for lowering its fertility rate to 2.09 children per woman, which is just below the level of replacement. However, the pro-abortion agency warns that the sex ratio is becoming skewed in the Asian nation just as it is in India and China.

According to UNFPA, the sex ratio at birth (the number of boys born to every 100 girls) is becoming imbalanced. Part of the reason for this is the cultural preference for boys and the nation’s limit of only two children per family.