Our Sunday Visitor

An unbreakable faith

She was smart, popular, pretty and faithful. Then a car crash left her in a coma. Now she's pregnant, the victim of a rape in the nursing home where she's lain helpless for the last 10 years. Her child will be born in a few months . . .

By Colleen Smith

A 29-year-old Catholic woman who has been nearly comatose for the last 10 years is expected to give birth to a baby in roughly 10 weeks. Her pregnancy defies medical precedent. Although a few cases exist in which an already pregnant woman delivered a child while in a coma, bioethicists cannot cite a single previous case of a woman impregnated while comatose.

The case is made even more dramatic by the choice of the woman's parents to allow the pregnancy to continue despite the mother's comatose condition, and the fact that the pregnancy resulted from a rape that occurred while she lay helpless at the Westfall Health Care Center in Brighton, N.Y.

As a rape victim, the woman's identity is protected. But she is becoming more and more well-known as the news of her circumstances circulates, stirring ethical and legal debates locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

Her senior portrait depicts a smiling, blond, blue-eyed beauty wearing a dainty crucifix. At the all-girls Catholic high school she attended in Rochester, N.Y., she was a diver and a gymnast. She participated in theater and was active in a youth-missionary group. Intellectually gifted, she graduated in the top three of her class of approximately 180 students.

As a 19-year-old freshman at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., she and her boyfriend were in a automobile accident when their car swerved to avoid hitting a deer.

Ten years later, the woman remains a quadriplegic, completely uncommunicative but able to follow a visitor with her eyes. She is fed through tubes, but breathes unassisted and responds to some stimuli.

After workers at the Westfall Health Care Facility noticed the comatose woman's stomach bulging, doctors conducted tests and diagnosed the woman as nearly five months pregnant. A high-risk pregnancy team at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester now cares for the woman and her unborn child.

Dr. Katherine Lammers, a Catholic, is a member of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Feminists for Life. Lammers, who has delivered about 1,500 babies since 1991, says the pregnancy does not jeopardize the comatose woman's life.

"Medically, there's no reason to think this woman, in a persistive vegetative state, is at increased risk," she said. "The main factor is immobility. Obviously, if she went into spontaneous labor, she couldn't assist the birth with pushing."

Lammers said that the natural forces of labor could possibly be in tact in the woman, but without voluntary cooperation in pushing, the delivery would require forceps or a vacuum. "If she were my patient, a Caesarean birth would make the most sense," she said.

Meanwhile, an abortion would pose a real risk that has been overlooked, Lammers said.

"Nobody has even addressed that should a second-trimester abortion be done, risk is a consideration," she said. "I've seen a woman die after an 18-week abortion. And to take a baby that at this point could possibly live outside the womb and to tear it limb from limb is against what we know about the patient's wishes and her parents' wishes."

Some criticize the parents wanting their daughter to carry the baby to term because the child might suffer emotionally. But Lammers believes that a loving environment would counter any possible emotional trauma or stigma.

"The patient and her parents are of a pro-life bent, and if the grandparents decide to keep the child, they'll be loving grandparents," Lammers said. "If not, no child needs to be an unwanted child. In our area, there are waiting lists of people who would gladly love and cherish this child."

And, given all the reproductive assistance technology used today, the child need not be considered a pariah, Lammers said.

"With all the babies conceived in test tubes and all the surrogate mothers -- this child would not be the only one whose conception and birth were unusual. And while this is a conception through a terrible, reprehensible act -- and I don't want to minimize that -- this child wouldn't be the only baby conceived by rape, either, sad to say."

"There's a lot we don't know about the persistive vegetative state," she said. "There are rare cases of persons who have spontaneously awoke; they may be exceptions, but then how many would have awakened if life support hadn't been withdrawn? Even if the chance is rare, to deprive even one in 1,000 from life is wrong."

"As Christians, suffering is not meaningless," she continued. "For that comatose woman and her family, there may be some meaning or hope; some would say that this child is a blessing in this terrible thing. And even were there no meaning in suffering, acts like abortion and assisted suicide are seeking to make ourselves God, and God's perfect timing becomes irrelevant."

The young woman's parents declined commenting on the case, and John Parrinello, their Rochester attorney, did not return several phone calls from Our Sunday Visitor.

But Vicki Hansen of Lansingburgh, N.Y., attended Catholic schools with the woman from fifth through 12th grade, and she has spoken out about her former classmate.

"She was a very good friend," Hansen said. "She was very outgoing, very smart, very caring. She was interested in biology and physics, but she also was a good writer. She wrote a lot of poetry. She could have done anything she wanted."

Hansen said that during their senior year at their Catholic high school, several students were carrying babies.

"She knew it was a trial for them," Hansen said, "She had a lot of respect for them."

Hansen lost track of her friend when they attended different colleges, and learned only recently that her friend had not died in the car crash. Although they have been out of touch for years, Hansen unequivocally states her belief that her friend would carry this baby to term.

"If she woke up and discovered she was four months pregnant, she would keep the child," Hansen said of her friend. "She would never abort a child four months along."

Suzanne Schnittman, who coordinates the pro-life efforts of the Diocese of Rochester, said the woman's parents' decision against abortion didn't surprise her.

"I thought they would continue the life because of what they'd been doing with their daughter," she said.

But Schnittman views the case as more than a religious matter.

"Too often people dismiss it because they think it's a religious issue, a Catholic issue. It's broader," she said. "It's a woman's issue. A woman violated once through rape doesn't need to be violated again through abortion."

Noting the recent case of the Tennessee man who recently woke up from an eight-year coma, Schnittman said: "We really don't know as much about life as we thought we did. We can't define what life means. It really is a mystery, which is why we shouldn't be playing around with it. The biggest problem with life issues is our preconceived notion of what we think life should be. That becomes so dominant that we feel we can control life."

Moreover, the family has been a great example for those suffering. "They've accepted God's plan for 10 years, and I don't fear they can't accept this design for their faith," Schnittman said.

"Maybe this is all the good coming from the daughter being in a coma for 10 years. This family seems to be saying, 'We'll find the best thing there is from this.' And that's a great lesson."

Not everybody has been so accepting of the situation. Some have called for a court to decide whether the pregnancy should continue or be terminated.

And the parents' decision against abortion has drawn venomous attacks from abortion advocates. One even told a local newspaper that the comatose woman is "a symbol of what the conservatives want all women to become: flat-on-their-back baby-making machines."

Such comments are "the exact opposite of pro-choice," remarked Kathleen Gallagher, associate director of the New York State Catholic Conference, the policy arm of the state's bishops.

"This family has made their choice," Gallagher said. "If you're really pro-choice, you respect the choice."

Gallagher said the parents' choice for life would also stand up in court, even under the state's strict requirement that surrogates provide "clear and convincing evidence" that their medical decisions reflect the wishes of the incapacitated person they speak in behalf of.

"Based on her friend's statement about the woman's pro-life stance and that of her parents, it seems to me, at least at first blush, that in this case there is clear and convincing evidence that this woman would not want an abortion," she said.

Meanwhile, the criminal investigation of the case remains unsolved.

Since the Westfall Health Care Center accepts Medicaid patients, New York State Attorney General Dennis C. Vacco has some jurisdiction.

Despite what Vacco's spokesman described as an "intensive ongoing investigation," no suspect has been identified. "I'm told we have some very good leads," he said.

"It's a tragic case, and it's regarded as an extremely high priority case," he added. "We're working very hard to go after a perpetrator and bring this to closure."

Acknowledging that this is "a one-in-a-million" case, Gallagher, of the Catholic Conference, said it does present starkly the issues involved in the question of whether abortion should be permitted in cases of rape and incest.

"Pollsters are always asking the question," she said. "I always try to put myself in the position of the child in the womb. If there were a little phone in there, I think the baby would say, `Wait a minute. I didn't commit the crime. I'm as innocent as my mother.' "

The point to remember, she said, is that there are two lives involved in the case, and both deserve recognition.

"Certainly, the Catholic Church always believes rape is a horror. And abortion is a horror. Both are acts of violence, and one doesn't right the other one," Gallagher said. "I think everything under the law should be done to go after this rapist." q

Smith writes from Denver, Colo.

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