Life Saver: New 3-D "window to the womb" seen helping turn women from abortion

by Brian Caulfield, Catholic New York (Nov. 23, 2000)

As a picture is worth a thousand words, so a new 3-D ultrasound machine will help save a thousand babies from abortion, said Christopher T. Slattery, the head of six crisis pregnancy centers in New York City.

Slattery, president of Expectant Mother Care, demonstrated the ultrasound machine at a fundraiser Nov. 15 in his midtown center. The machine showed stored images from an exam of a pregnant woman in which a 10-week-old unborn baby is visible from all sides in lifelike dimensions.

Slattery predicted that when women who are considering abortion come to one of his centers and see the images on the ultrasound screen, the majority will decide to keep their babies. Conventional two-dimensional sonograms are effective, he added, but in three-dimensional technology the child in the womb looks much more like a baby and will allow the mother to "bond" immediately.

"If women get to see that window to the womb, I know many lives will be saved," he said.

The machine, made by Medison America in Cypress, Calif., costs $130,000. It will be installed in a new South Bronx medical clinic run by Expectant Mother Care across the street from Planned Parenthood offices. Slattery said the new medical clinic is another step in meeting Planned Parenthood "head-to-head in the battle for the lives of babies and their mothers."

Slattery said he needs more than $65,000 to complete payments on the machine.

Dr. Kevin Reilly, director of obstetrics and gynecology at Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center in the Bronx, will be the medical director of the South Bronx clinic. He told CNY that cooperation between Expectant Mother Care and his hospital will be mutually beneficial.

"As a Catholic hospital, we've always been responsive to referrals that have been sent to us" from Slattery's centers, he said. "What we haven't been doing until now is reaching out and being a part of those programs. I think we can add to the success that he has already been having over the years."

The South Bronx medical clinic, scheduled to open next month at 355 E. 149th St., will be staffed by health care professionals and offer prenatal and postnatal care, pro-life counseling, and referrals to Our Lady of Mercy for delivery. Services will be paid for in most cases through New York state's Medicaid program. Slattery said that city statistics show there are 1,100 abortions for every 1,000 live births in the Bronx.

Father Richard John Neuhaus, a featured speaker at the fund-raiser, said that grassroots efforts such as Slattery's centers will be the turning force in the battle between "the Culture of Life and the Culture of Death."

"This conflict between life and death, light and darkness, good and evil is permanent in the human condition," said Father Neuhaus, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in Manhattan.

Speaking on an evening when the presidential election results were still in dispute, he said the nation was at an "extraordinarily dramatic" moment which could define the direction of world history for centuries to come. At stake is the Judeo-Christian understanding of human beings as persons created by God with an inalienable dignity that cannot be decided by "choice," he said.

"We have been recruited to this cause" by baptism and have a "privilege to be involved," he added.