By Michelle Martin
STAFF WRITER

Jill Stanek had some stark words of advice for nursing students at the University of Illinois at Chicago:

“Don’t let any pseudo-ethicist tell you there are no moral absolutes. There are. The world of morality is not gray; it is black and white. And you would do well to think about this before being put in a situation you don’t have time to analyze.”

Stanek, a former nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, discussed “Controversies in Nursing” at a Sept. 16 lecture sponsored by the Integritas Institute of the John Paul II Newman Center at the university. The standing-room-only audience of more than 100 people was the institute’s biggest yet, organizers said.

Stanek was thrust into national prominence in 1999 when she protested the hospital’s policy of performing “induced labor abortions” in the middle trimester of pregnancy in certain situations.

Some fetuses, intended to be aborted, were born alive and allowed to die quietly, with no effort made to save their lives. Stanek and others contend that with medical attention, at least some of them could have survived and thrived.

Even those that couldn’t deserved better than being left in a “soiled utility room” until they died and could be sent to the morgue, said Stanek, who described picking up a 10-inch baby with Down syndrome and rocking him until his heart stopped.

Stanek called the procedure “abominable,” and said she was shocked to discover it happening “at a hospital named for my Lord and Savior.”

Stanek approached her pastor, who tried working privately with the hospital to end the practice, then alerted 70 pro-life organizations and churches. Late in 1999, Stanek said, Christ Hospital changed its policy to allow such abortions only in certain cases, such as where the fetus had a lethal condition or where the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest.

But, she pointed out, some conditions that were considered lethal as late as 1999 no longer are, and premature babies born earlier and earlier are surviving, so health care professionals cannot count on creating different rules for different circumstances.

“My advice to you,” she told the students, “is to develop overriding principals now by which you can practice your profession.”

Stanek kept working at Christ Hospital until she was fired in 2001, using that time to serve as a witness to people outside the medical field about what was happening within it. After leaving the hospital, she mounted an unsuccessful run for the Illinois House of Representatives and has been working as a public speaker.

Stanek testified three times before the U.S. Senate on the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, which President Bush signed into law in August.

The law stipulates that any infant born alive, whether as the result of a normal delivery or an intended abortion, is a person for legal purposes and must be accorded legal rights as such.

How the law will change the situation remains to be seen, Stanek said, because it has not yet been tested.

Meanwhile, Stanek predicted that medical ethics will come under increasing pressure as the nation’s population ages during a severe nursing shortage, when fewer staff members are under pressure to provide care for more patients.

Her story surprised some of the students, and also drew some pointed questions from participants who questioned the ethics of stepping in to save a baby whose mother wanted to abort it.

For Stanek, a pro-lifer who accords human rights to fetuses inside the womb, the need to treat a living infant as a separate person with his or her own rights is self-evident.

“The mother terminated her pregnancy,” she said. “She got what she wanted. But now we have a second patient.”

Vanessa Cruz, a senior in the nursing school, said she knew the talk would have something to do with abortion, but not the details. As for providing care to infants born alive, she said, “It just seems like common sense.”

Nursing school senior and Integritas Institute advisory board member Monica Alvarez said Stanek’s talk should help students keep ethical concerns in mind when they choose where to work.

“Do you really want to work at an institution that performs such procedures?” Alvarez said, adding that the national nursing shortage means most graduating nurses will have more than one job offer. “We have more options.”