UK News 29-09-2000 Parents End Court Battle To Save Twin Mary who: Siamese twins Jodie and Mary what: Will be separated after parents give up court battle where: Court of Appeal, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "The parents of Jodie and Mary, the Siamese twins who are joined at the abdomen, will not appeal against a court ruling that the two must be separated," reports The Independent. "Having taken this case to two courts before four judges," said the parents` lawyer yesterday, "they feel they have done the best they can for both daughters and are unable to take this any further." The decision of the Roman Catholic couple from the island of Gozo, near Malta, will mean that the operation they battled to prevent will go ahead in the next few days. And it means the certain loss of baby Mary, whose heart and lungs are incapable of sustaining life. "Doctors had said she was draining away the life of Jodie, whose own heart had been keeping the tiny girls alive," says The Express. "Without surgery, both sisters would have died within a few months." "Yesterday`s decision ends a legal battle which has involved complex legal, moral and religious issues and which has attracted worldwide attention and divided public opinion," writes Steven Morris in The Guardian - the only British newspaper, incidentally, which always describes the babies as "conjoined" rather than "Siamese" twins. The Official Solicitor has been criticised for allowing a dangerous precedent to be set by failing to carry on with the appeal in spite of the parents` wishes. "There is a very important point of law at stake," says Barbara Hewson, a barrister specialising in medical law quoted in The Times. "This should be ventilated before the House of Lords, regardless of what the parents now think". [... more]

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