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1970 Baltimore, Maryland: Parents allow Down's Syndrome child to die by starvation and dehydration afer refusing to correct of an intestinal obstruction. Oct. 1971 Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation shows docudrama film about Down's Syndrome baby who was starved to death in Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1970, because parents refused consent for surgery to remove an intestinal obstruction. The doctor in charge of the case says that in the previous five years at Johns Hopkins, at least four Down's Syndrome children have died after parents refused consent for surgery. May 1973 In an interview in Prism magazine (published by the American Medical Association), Nobel laureate James Watson suggests that children not be declared alive until three days after birth so that doctors may allow severely deformed children to die if their parents so choose. Oct. 25, 1973 In the New England Journal of Medicine, two doctors report that from January 1970 through June 1972 at Yale-New Haven Hospital, 43 handicapped babies died after treatment was withheld or withdrawn. They indicate that some of the children would have died even if treated but that others would have lived. Oct. 18, 1976 C. Everett Koop, a world famous pediatric surgeon, warns the American Academy of Pediatrics against withholding treatment, suggesting that it involves a "slide to Auschwitz." July 1979 C. Everett Koop: "Infanticide is a matter totally in the responsibility of the medical profession and were it not for their encouragement of parents to decide against the worth of the life of their children, infanticide would not exist." 1979 1979-1991 Conservative estimates by Chinese sources say one million babies were killed in this 12-year period. Mar. 31, 1980 U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal on behalf of Phillip Becker, a 13-year-old Californian with Down's Syndrome, whose parents refuse consent for heart surgery. On September 23, 1983, he finally receives heart surgery after a protracted court battle. Legal custody is given to the Heaths, volunteers who have loved and cared for him as their own. May 13, 1981 An Illinois state agency takes custody of Jeff and Scott Mueller, newborn Siamese twins, joined at the waist and missing a leg, after reports that the twins are being starved to death. (Their parents and a doctor later are charged with attempted murder, but the judge dismisses the charges. Although doctors say the twins can not survive a separation operation, in July 1982 they are separated and survive. Scott Mueller dies in 1985, at age three.) April 9, 1982 Baby Doe is born in Bloomington, Indiana. The parents refuse to allow a doctor to correct a defect in the esophagus that prevents eating because the child was born with Down's Syndrome. The Indiana Supreme Court upholds the parents' right to make this decision. With willing couples to adopt on hand and an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court being pursued, Baby Doe dies of starvation on April 15, 1982. Feb. 28 "Death in the Nursery," a four-part series with Carlton Sherwood, chronicles the Mar. 3, 1983 widespread practice of infanticide in America. The series first plays on CBS's Boston television station, but soon reaches many through the disability rights and pro-life communities. Oct. 1983 Pediatrics publishes an article describing in detail a program of selective euthanasia of spina-bifida patients in Oklahoma hospital (Vol. 72, No. 4). In this program a quality-of-life formula was applied which resulted in the deaths of nearly half of their spina-bifida patients. Oct. 11, 1983 Baby Jane Doe is born at University Hospital at Stony Brook, New York. HHS receives a hotline complaint that Baby Jane Doe may be a victim of denial of medically beneficial care for her spina-bifida (an opening in the spinal column). Nov. 29, 1983 The American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Hospitals and Related Institutions, the Association for Retarded Citizens, and six other disability rights organizations sign a statement of "Principles of Treatment of Disabled Infants." It states, in part, that "when medical care is clearly beneficial, it should always be provided," "that the individual's medical condition should be the sole focus of the decision," and that "the federal government has a legitimate role in protecting the rights of its citizens...including those afforded by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act." Feb. 2, 1984 The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984 which extend the definition of child abuse, for purposes of the Federal Child Abuse Act, to include the denial of care or treatment to handicapped newborns, and requiring state agencies to set up procedures for reporting and investigating such medical neglect. June 29, 1984 "Consensus" language for the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984 is introduced in the Senate by senators who hold vastly different views on abortion. The amendment expands the definition of child abuse for purposes of the Child Abuse Act to instances of medical neglect, including the withholding of medically indicated treatment from disabled infants, and requires that state agencies have in place procedures to respond to such instances of medical neglect. Oct. 9, 1984 President Reagan signs the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984, making it illegal for doctors to withhold nourishment or medically indicated treatments unless the infant is comatose, the treatment will promote its death, or is "futile in terms of the survival of the infant." Jan.15, 1986 The U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the AHA & AMA v. Bowen case (formerly AHA & AMA v. Heckler). At issue is whether the civil rights statute for the handicapped, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, applies to medical treatment decisions for handicapped newborns. Sept. 22, 1989 U.S. Civil Rights Committee reports widespread and continuing denials of life-saving treatment to children with disabilities despite laws forbidding such practices, saying doctors and not parents are often the prime cause in denying treatment and recommending regulatory reform and further investigations at the federal level to remedy the situation. Nov. 19, 1989 President George Bush vetoes the 1990 foreign aid appropriations bill because of its provision to restore funds to The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which agrees with the People's Republic of China that its population control program is totally voluntary. Mar. 1, 1990 U.S. Senate adopted a resolution condemning human-rights abuses in China, including the use of forced abortions and forced sterilizations. Feb. 9, 1993 London: The Society for Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) criticizes a report of the Office for Health Ecs. (OHE) which questions the value of treating premature infants because they are more likely than full term babies to develop various disabilities. Feb. 14, 1993 Detroit News: In India, female infants are seen as financial burdens and often killed. The practice is against the law and punishable by a maximum prison term of ten years. The practice is condemned regularly by the press, parliament members and social agencies, but rural authorities have been unable to combat it. Officials attempt to get a message to new parents in a southern Indian district to abandon baby girls rather than kill them. 1996 South Carolina Supreme Court: First appellate court in the nation to allow prosecutors to charge a pregnant woman with harming a fetus. In 1997 this was amended when Justices said prosecutors would not violate privacy rights by bringing such charges against pregnant women. Jan. 15, 1996 Newsweek: "The death rate of children in China's orphanages is 50%. The vast majority of children in Chinese orphanages are not orphans at all, but abandoned children almost always victims of the one child per family policy and the preference for boys. According to adoption law, only childless couples may adopt a healthy orphaned or abandoned baby and they must be over 35 years of age." Nov. 22, 1996 Milwaukee Journal: A new state law prompted in part by the Autumn Day case, in which baby Autumn survived abandonment in a garbage can after birth, allows parental rights to be terminated after a single incident of serious abuse. Jan. 1997 The Philadelphia Inquirer reports abortions may be down but infanticide and abandonment may be up due to mothers who are frightened and unprepared. Their recent survey showed five abandonments resulting in death and eleven abandonments that lived. July 1997 Newsweek reports that in 1995, the last year for which federal statistics are available, 54 infants were murdered in the first week of life S most within 24 hours of birth. Experts say killing newborns was more common 30 years ago before abortion was legal. "Mothers who kill are typically young and unmarried," says Phillip Resnick a psychiatry professor at Case Western Reserve University, "they think of it as a foreign body that has passed through them." The crime cuts across all races and economic levels. Nov. 1997 Wisconsin State Journal: Columnist George Will points out that some states have to distinguish between the kind of infanticide their state laws allow and the kind President Clinton protects with vetoes on the ban on partial birth abortions. Dec. 1997 Infanticide advocate, Dr. Steven Pinker, suggests the active or passive killing of newly born babies should be treated differently from killing an adult because an infant is not yet a full person that can reflect upon oneself as a continuous locus of consciousness to form and make plans, to dread death, and to make a choice not to die. June 16, 1998 Wisconsin Governor Thompson signs a law making it a criminal act to cause the death or injury of a fetus by acts of violence, recklessness or intoxicated use of a vehicle. The law provides exceptions to the penalties for abortions, customary medical practices and any act by a pregnant woman toward her own fetus. However, the new law allows the courts to order treatment for pregnant women whose habitual alcohol or controlled substance abuse threatens the health of her unborn child. Aug. 11, 2004 China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission reports on a pilot project, Care for Girls, that provides financial incentives to rural families that give birth to and rear girls, according to China Daily.
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