When Prenatal Tests Reveal Baby Has No Brain: The Sad Story of Miss D and Her Anencephalic Baby

Photo of Miss D and Her Boyfriend

In 2007, a pregnant Irish teenager, known in the press as "Miss D," learned through a routine ultrasound that her baby had a devastating and fatal birth defect: anencephaly.

Her baby basically had no brain and would probably die within a few hours of birth.

Anencephaly is a defect in brain development resulting in small or missing brain hemispheres. A congenital absence of the brain and cranial vault, with the cerebral hemispheres completely missing or greatly reduced in size. It is thought to be caused by a deficiency of folic acid and/or vitamin b12, and is related to neural tube defects such as spina bifida.

Anencephaly occurs in about one in a thousand pregnancies, and almost always results in an abortion.

Anencephaly.net is a website for everyone seeking support and information about this condition. Some women decide to carry their anencephalic babies to term in order to spare them abortions and also in order to be able to see and hold their babies at birth, and gain closure.

Seventeen-year old Miss D decided to have an abortion, but since she lived in Ireland with its strict abortion laws, she would need to go to England for the procedure. She faced an additional complication since at that time she was also a ward of the state, and a judge ruled that she could not travel abroad for the abortion.

After much legal wrangling, the court granted permission and had an 'induced labor abortion' in England. She was 19 weeks into her pregnancy.

Miss D said, “I feel this is just a normal human being, I want it to have its own (burial) plot.”

A week after winning a court decision allowing her to travel to Britain for an abortion, the pregnant mother has announced that she will give birth by medical inducement of labour and intends to bring the body of her child home for burial.

She explained. “I'll bury my child here. I have clothes bought for my baby. I'll be pregnant next year”. In an interview, Miss D said she will always see the baby as her first child and has chosen the name Jasmin for the baby. She said that she will buy doll’s clothes for the child’s burial.

The news media emphasized repeatedly that an anencephalic child can live only a short time outside the womb. Miss D has responded, “I think most people think that I must be very silly and that this baby is not much. But this baby means the world to me.”

Miss D credits pro-life websites for her change of heart. “There were pictures of babies who had been aborted,” she said. “I didn’t want that, my baby deserved to live, it deserved more than that.”

She announced in an interview with the Independent that she had opted for “medical inducement” rather than “surgical abortion” and had developed a relationship with her disabled child.

She said that the diagnosis of anencephaly had prompted her to do an internet search on the condition. She found pro-life websites and decided that her child deserved to live. “There were pictures of babies who had been aborted and I didn‘t want that, my baby deserved to live, it deserved more than that,” she told Independent reporter Dearbhail McDonald.

“It was then,” wrote McDonald, “she decided to have the baby medically induced.” But McDonald, in his interview with Miss D, declined to mention that “medically induced” in cases of anencephaly is in fact abortion.

It is unclear if the girl was accurately informed that a premature medical inducement of labour, carried out in order to end the life of her child, is also an abortion.

Now the Independent reporter openly describes “the procedure” Miss D underwent in Britain earlier this month as a “medically induced abortion.” The Independent describes the procedure as the administering of drugs to “to render the foetus non viable,” – dead – and to then induce labour contractions for a still birth of the dead child.

“Induced labour relieves the mother of the psychological trauma of having to carry a non-viable foetus throughout the full term of her pregnancy,” writes McDonald. A child who could survive throughout the full term of pregnancy, however, is not usually considered “non-viable” until natural death, and experts on anencephalic children say that there is no medical danger to a mother in carrying such a child to full term and no medical reason to induce labour early.

“It [the induced labour] was very emotional, but I feel I have got closure now,” Miss D told the Independent.

UPDATE:

Miss D is pregnant again:

Miss D is adamant that the child, whom she considers to be her second, will never replace Jasmin, who suffered from a fatal brain condition.

"Jasmin was my first child, this is my second and I'm not doing this to replace Jasmin and I don't want people to think that I am."

Miss D found out she was pregnant just weeks ago after taking a pregnancy test with her friend. And although she is nervous about the health of the baby, she is confident that it will be "okay''. She has been taking folic acid since May, and has been reassured by doctors that the previous condition was a "fluke''.

She said she was also distressed at reports that she aborted her first child, pointing out that Jasmin had been induced.

"It really hurt me that it was said that Miss D went through with the abortion," she said. "But I didn't have any abortion, it was an induced labour."

And she still maintains the view that abortion should only be considered if the child is severely ill.

Although remarkably mature for her young years, she also displayed her vulnerable side when speaking of the letters which pro-lifers sent after she won her High Court battle.

"Some sick woman sent me a card from a child, with a child's handwriting asking me not to go ahead with it, saying 'we'll pray for you'," she said, shaking her head.

The letters were sent to her social worker, who would not allow her to read them alone. She read them with her counsellor after returning from England and she then burned them .

For more information, check out these websites:

Anencephaly.net

Anencephaly Wire

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'My Second Child Will Never Replace Jasmin'