Kate Cox and her unborn baby, who reportedly has been diagnosed with Trisomy 18, has become the center of national attention after she unsuccessfully sued to be allowed to end her baby’s life in an abortion.
During the last week as her case has received so much focus, people defending her decision to have an abortion point to the low survival rates of people with Trisomy 18. No doubt, the rates are low – as many babies either die before birth, shortly after birth, or unfortunately live with shortened lifespans.
But one doctor in Michigan, who has treated so many patients he has become one of the world’s leading experts on treating the condition, reports that 90% of his patients are surviving.
Dr. Glenn Green is an ENT at the University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital.
In a recent article about a little girl named Faith, who has Trisomy 18, Faith’s parents say Dr. Green proactively treated their daughter in a way many other physicians do not.
Dr. Green was the first doctor to tell us that Faith had a short jaw. He immediately suggested she needed a jaw distraction. In fact, he referred to her as “an old lady” for this procedure because he usually performed it on infants. The procedure was very successful for Faith and changed her life because it ended the near-death situations from the breathing issues, and it even led to her taking her first steps shortly afterward because she could breathe.
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What we learned is that it comes down to the individual doctors and whether they view Faith as a valuable human being. It is appalling that we need to convince doctors that our daughter has as much value and worth as any other patient, especially since we are paying them to treat her.
Dr. Green loves these children with Trisomy 18 and other disabilities, which fosters a desire to help them to the best of his ability. We see the same in other doctors who value life beginning in the womb. The doctors who do not value disabled children in the womb are the same doctors who will not treat them after they are born.
Faith’s parents made it clear that many childrne with Trisomy 18 don’t survive because doctors don’t go the extra mile to care for them.
Most doctors offered no hope and said that she would not survive even after she was born. In fact, our family pediatrician dropped us without even telling us personally, and we had to learn this news from a cardiologist who was shocked by this unethical behavior.
We experienced doctors who lied to us and withheld diagnoses from us. One example of this was Faith’s short jaw, which was noted throughout her medical records but never mentioned to us. This can be a life-threatening issue, and it was for Faith.
We also had doctors who would not provide treatment options like providing us with a C-pap machine to help Faith breath at night. In fact, the head of the PICU told us, “No one does this for children like Faith.”
We learned the hard way that most doctors are taught that treating Trisomy 18 children is “a waste of scarce medical resources,” regardless of how plentiful the resources are in our nation. These children are dehumanized in the womb and the bigotry continues after they are born.
It’s little shock that doctors who actively care for and treat their patients see better outcomes. That’s why Dr. Green’s Trisomy 18 patients have such high survival rates.
Dr. Green and several other Michigan Medicine doctors have treated so many Trisomy 18 children sent their way that we now have a U of M study. Typically, only 10% of children with Trisomy 18 who are born alive will reach their first birthday. Even worse, when you consider the number of children killed through abortion and lethal neglect by doctors, only 1% survive to age one. However, the study by Dr. Green shows a very different story.
“When parents engage with full interventions, we have a 90% survival rate at the University of Michigan,” he says.
In the case of Kate Cox and her baby boy or girl who has Trisomy 18, most people are like these doctors. They’re quick to just give up and condemn a child to death rather than take the extra time and effort to show a kid with disabilities love and support and work overtime to ensure they get the medical care they deserve.
