9-ounce challenge
Will birth and survival of tiny baby cause LA County-USC Medical Center to rethink links to Planned Parenthood?
By Anna M. Rodriguez Earlier this month, the Women and Children’s Hospital at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center told the world about the miraculous story of Melinda Star Guido, one of the tiniest babies in the world to survive a very premature delivery. 
Melinda was born at 24 weeks in late August, and weighed only 9 ounces -- about the size of a Coca-Cola can. Doctors thought there was little chance for her to survive, but her mother pleaded with Dr. Rangasamy Ramanthan to give Melinda an opportunity to live -- and he did. Now physicians say little Melinda may be able to leave the hospital and go home in the near future -- maybe as early as the New Year. Melinda will soon be placed near the top of Dr. Edward Bell’s “Tiniest Baby Registry” as one of the world’s smallest surviving babies. Photos of little Melinda with her smiling parents and beaming doctors were flashed by news sources into living rooms around the world. But virtually all of the news reports ignored the obvious question posed by Melinda’s birth and survival: What does it tell us about abortion? Planned Parenthood, the international abortion promoter, remained silent, except for a statement it published as a “Fact Sheet:” Determination of Viability In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v.
Danforth (428 U.S. 52 (1976)), the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that judgments of viability are inexact and may vary with each pregnancy. As a result, it granted the attending physician the right to ascertain viability on an individual basis. In addition, the court rejected as unconstitutional fixed gestational limits for determining viability. The court reaffirmed these rulings in the 1979 case Colautti v. Franklin (439 U.S. 379 (1979). Unquestionably, if viability is left up to the abortionist being paid to kill, it is extremely unlikely that the mother will be told about possible viability. So photos of small living babies -- and the mothers who love them -- are a threat to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry’s efforts to persuade the public that babies like Melinda are a mere “product of conception,” easily aborted when unwanted. Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles has had a long history of association with, paradoxically, the USC Women’s Hospital where Melinda was born. Planned Parenthood advertises “abortion up to 24 weeks.” In the 1970s, while Women’s Hospital was under the direction of Dr. Edward Quilligan, an entire floor of the hospital was dedicated to “therapeutic abortion.” A large poster was placed in the lobby of the hospital that showed two illustrations: the first drawing was of two parents with one child and everyone smiling, while the second showed one woman bowed over with several small children tangled at her feet. The caption said “THIS, NOT THIS,” and encouraged Spanish-speaking women to get sterilized and to abort. Eventually, medical school students and residents were encouraged to train at Planned Parenthood across the street. Dr. Raquel Arias, who was an associate of Planned Parenthood, promoted the relationship. Will the survival of 9-ounce Melinda Guido challenge Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and the physicians who work there to reconsider their relationship with Planned Parenthood and their complicity in killing tiny babies through abortion?
