Sept 25, 2003

Thank you very much for the privilege of presenting my testimony in the United States Senate. My name is Jim Thorp and I am 50 years of age. I am a Maternal-Fetal Medicine Physician Specialist and am privileged to have worked with unborn children as my patients for many years. A Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist is an Obstetrician/Gynecologist who has completed two to three years of additional formal education and clinical experience within an American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology approved Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellowship Program. Members of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) have advanced knowledge of the obstetrical, medical, genetic, and surgical complications of pregnancy and their effects on both the mother and fetus.

My career has focused upon the child within the womb as a patient. I completed my Fellowship in Maternal-Fetal Medicine in 1988 and began practice at St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City, affiliated with the University of Missouri at Kansas City. In 2001 I relocated to practice at Sacred Heart Women’s Hospital, affiliated with University of Florida at Pensacola. My particular area of expertise involves closed maternal fetal surgical procedures, that is, procedures that do not involve a major maternal surgery to open the womb. During my Maternal-Fetal Medicine career I have performed in excess of 250 such procedures including fetal transfusions, urinary decompressions, fetal blood samplings and others. I have also directed clinical research and published extensively in my specialty.

The first fetal surgery is credited to Sir Albert William Liley in 1963. He developed the technique for diagnosing and treating fetuses suffering from anemia as a result of Rh disease. He is known as “the father of fetology”, and was an advocate for the rights of the child within the womb. Dr. Liley said, “As a doctor I regard the unborn child as my patient and protect and respect his life as I would the life of any other patient. From my clinical experience I am convinced that unborn children are individuals and human beings who are capable of receiving and responding to medical care and who should have legal protection.”

It is extremely difficult not to see the fetus as a child before birth with the same value as a child after birth, especially after one sees her smiling, grimacing, moving, sleeping, yawning, stretching, sucking a thumb, as well as responding to pain from needle sticks. When a fetus is suspected of having severe anemia the operating team and I use an ultrasound to guide a needle through the mother’s abdomen into one of the baby’s blood vessels. If severe fetal anemia is confirmed by immediate blood testing in the operating room, I will transfuse the baby with donor blood. Without such a transfusion, the fetus will die. I have done this as early as 19 weeks gestation with perfect outcomes.

As endoscopic and laser technology increased, the surgical correction of twin-to-twin fetal transfusion syndrome is now being performed. The NIH is currently funding the MOMS trial, which is investigating the repair of spina bifida within the womb. Another technique that is currently under investigation includes repair of diaphragmatic hernia, removal of fetal tumors, and even balloon angioplasty of valves within the fetal heart. Near scar free repair of cleft palate/lip may also be possible.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The care of human life, and not its destruction is the first, and only legitimate object of good government”. The United States is the world leader in advanced medical study and this includes research for the youngest and most innocent of our patients, those still within the womb. I believe nations, societies and governments will ultimately be judged by the way that they treat their weakest, their most vulnerable and their most innocent, including the child within the womb. I will close with a quote from the June 9th Newsweek article by Claudia Kalb: “No matter what legislators, activists, judges or even individual Americans decide about fetal rights, medicine has already granted unborn babies a unique form of personhood-as patients.”