Hospital and doctor praised for in-utero surgery aborted other babies with same condition

A life-affirming story recently shared by media outlets including Live Action News celebrated an Indiana hospital’s first ever in-utero surgery on a preborn baby with spina bifida — but disturbing information has come to light about the hospital and physician involved.

While the life-saving surgery is an incredible accomplishment, the very same hospital commits the most abortions in the state, and the doctor who performed the surgery to save this child’s life has intentionally ended the lives of others.

Key Takeaways:

• Riley Hospital for Children performed an in-utero surgery to repair a severe form of spina bifida last month.

• The surgery was performed by Dr. Hiba Mustafa, the hospital’s director of fetal surgery.

• Indiana’s latest Terminated Pregnancy Report shows that Riley had committed the highest number of abortions in the state.

• Mustafa herself has committed abortions, including late-term abortions and a “selective reduction” in a twin pregnancy.

The Backstory:

As Live Action News previously reported, Dr. Hiba Mustafa led the team at Riley Hospital to repair a myelomeningocele, a severe form of spina bifida in which the spinal canal and backbone do not close before birth, which can lead to “lifelong complications including hydrocephalus, severe leg weakness, bowel and bladder dysfunction, and learning difficulties.”

The surgery was performed while the preborn baby was still in the womb, using a “fetoscopic approach utilizing a small maternal skin incision, which reduces risks to both mother and baby compared to traditional open fetal surgery and other fetoscopic approaches.”

Also noted in the previous Live Action News article was how often families who receive a prenatal diagnosis of spina bifida are pressured to have abortions; according to one study, 63% of babies with prenatal spina bifida diagnoses are aborted.

The Details:

Preborn children are protected from abortion in Indiana, except in three circumstances: pregnancy due to rape/incest before 10 weeks gestation, to save the life of the mother, or in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities. Whether these guidelines are being bent is not entirely clear from the 2024 Indiana Terminated Pregnancy Report, which shows 142 abortions were committed that year.

For example, “congenital heart malformation,” “diabetes,” and “chromosomal abnormality” were reasons given for abortions. Trisomies 13 and 18 were also listed, though neither are inherently fatal; instead, these conditions lead to death because the babies diagnosed with them are deprived of health care after birth.

Riley Hospital committed nearly half of the state’s abortions, at 67 — more than any other hospital in the state.

Two abortions were committed after 20 weeks gestation, and three babies were reportedly born alive.

Meanwhile, according to information provided by Indiana’s Voices for Life, Mustafa committed several second-trimester abortions. Reasons given for these abortions included myelomeningocele — the very condition she was able to successfully treat when the child’s life was deemed worthy of being saved.

The preborn child Mustafa aborted should have been given the same chance to survive as the one whose life she worked to save. And even if it was not possible to successfully repair the defect, that does not mean the baby deserved a death sentence due to a disability. Even if a child is unlikely to survive long after birth, actively killing him or her before natural death is unacceptable.

The Bottom Line:

Picking and choosing which children are deserving of health care and a chance at life versus which children should be sentenced to death is wrong. All lives have worth and value, and should be protected… from fertilization to natural death.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Voices for Life for their assistance with this report.

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