The girl is today nine years old, his identical twin sister is dead. According to the indictment, a doctor and a doctor of a Berlin hospital have jointly killed the child in the summer of 2010 at birth. Already during pregnancy the twin had been diagnosed with severe brain damage. The concern of the doctors was for the good of the healthy girl.
Since Tuesday, the two doctors have to answer before the 32nd criminal division of the Berlin district court. The prosecution accuses them of manslaughter. The doctors do not deny the killing. But they acted convinced that they were doing the right thing.
At twelfth week of pregnancy, the twins, who are 27, gave birth to the twins. The doctors opted for a cesarean section. At 5.20 am the healthy twin was born. Shortly thereafter, they injected potassium chloride into the second twin while still in the womb. "This is a crime under Section 212 Criminal Code," says prosecutor Silke van Sweringen.
The doctors injected the deadly drug, "even though they knew they were not aborting because the birth had already started," says the prosecutor. The ill twin would not have been allowed to be killed in the womb after the birth. Selective fetozide means such an intervention. However, when the defendants injected the remedy, the birth was already in progress.
The doctor defends herself
Prosecutor van Sweringen makes the beginning of childbirth known as so-called inaugural labor or, in the case of a cesarean section, at the opening of the uterus. According to this view, at this moment from the unborn child becomes a criminal. For the accused physicians, this definition has little to do with their practice.
The accused doctor is 58 years old. She was in charge of the operation at that time and is still working in the clinic today. "It is a special concern for me to express myself," she says on Tuesday in court. "It's a very complex case."
The doctor reports how the patient finally came to the hospital in Berlin after prior treatment in Hamburg. The "high-grade brain damage" of a twin was already known to the mother. "She has opted for a selective fetozid," says the defendant.
In Germany, such an abortion may also be allowed after the twelfth week of pregnancy - if, as the text of the law states, it is advisable to discontinue medical treatment "in order to endanger the life or the risk of seriously damaging the physical or mental health of the patient Avert pregnant women "(read more here). The parents in the Berlin case are to be heard next Tuesday in court as witnesses.
Their doctors saw the danger that injecting potassium chloride could cause not only one child but also the other child a cardiac arrest. Other options were risky for the healthy twin.
The defendants decided to get the healthy twin by caesarean section as late as possible and to do the "fetuszide in the womb" during the same procedure, says the doctor. But in the view of the prosecutor, it was at the time no longer a fetocide, so no permitted abortion of a fetus. According to the prosecutor, it was killing a human being at the time, a crime.
"We assumed that it is a fetus"
"Our goal was to find the maximum safe path for the healthy fetus and bring it to the world as late as possible," says the doctor. She also says that the mother had contracted labor. They would then have opened the uterus during the operation, brought the first twin, disconnected the umbilical cord at the second, and killed him.
Whether they did not know when an abortion is allowed and when not, asks the presiding judge Matthias Schertz. "We were of the opinion that a fetus is a fetus while it is in the uterus," the defendant replies, "We did not question that."
Judge Schertz is not satisfied with the answer. "It's hard to understand that," he says. Doctors would have to legally secure, when they can make such an intervention and when not more. The accused repeated: "We assumed that it is a fetus."
The judge tells her that in the criminal sense, the "incarnation" of the unborn child is due to the opening labor or the opening of the uterus. "Never busy?" He asks. The doctor repeated: "We assumed that it is a fetus." Schertz sounds snide: "You are avoiding me."
Three anonymous ads
It was a fetus, says the co-defendant. He is 73 years old and has retired since 2012. And he also says they did not get legal advice in the summer of 2010, "because we had no doubt that it was right." He says: "In the foreground was not the legal, but the health of the child, we wanted the least possible risk for the healthy twin."
Only three years after the incident, in the summer of 2013, received three anonymous ads with the same text at the prosecutor's office, the author or the authors described themselves as "employees". Schertz asks if there have been any discussions in the team, "if this is what you are doing there". "No," says the doctor, "so we were very surprised at the ads."
The public prosecutor's office has filed charges in 2016, according to the prosecutor, for an additional three years before the main hearing was over.
The court has only scheduled five more days of trial. For the chamber, the case does not seem to be particularly complicated. Morally it looks different. The prosecutor is asked outside the hall what would have happened if both twins had died in a selective fetozid. If then neither of the two doctors sat in the dock. The prosecutor thinks for a moment. Then she nods. "Yes," she says.