Heritage Snapshot: Part 80

In February, 1988, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interviewed Dr. Leonard Bailey for a “backgrounder” on Loma Linda University Medical Center. By that time, five Canadian babies had received heart transplants. The reporter asked, “Why not stop.… Let people catch up.… Let debate happen.… Let some new laws and standards be set, and then carry on?” “Well, that’s reasonable, I think,” Bailey replied. “And we could stop.” Then he asked, “If your baby tomorrow had hypoplastic heart disease, would you want me to stop … and wait around for the ethicists to make up their minds? I think the slant of public opinion is sufficiently in our direction that we don’t need to stop. Furthermore, I feel we are morally correct in what we are doing, so I’m not about to stop.” He was emphatic: “Every time we look into the eyes of those little babies that have new hearts in them, we’re convinced we’re on the right track. When a baby dies, it just doesn’t seem fair. Death never seems quite fair. But to begin your life with death … is a terrible tragedy.… Aren’t you ever interested about the possibilities of this little life … in 20 or 30 years … of wondering what could really come of all that? Just wondering about that, thinking about it, keeps you coming back.” In an interview with editors of Loma Linda University Scope, Bailey admitted to being “a real patsy when it comes to looking into a baby’s eyes and dreaming about the potential for this little person.… We could have continued to let them die, I suppose. We’ve been doing that for years. However, when we can, we try to save them.… That we take an interest in babies makes a real statement about us as human beings, about our way of life. We need babies; we need the statement that saving babies makes.” Speaking of Loma Linda’s statistics, Bailey said: “I’m convinced the Almighty has much to do with it. It’s almost humanly impossible, given the condition of these babies. These were kids with incurable heart disease in all states of decompensation!” What has been Dr. Leonard Bailey’s motivation in trying to save doomed babies? “Few life events on earth exceed the realization of love, the miracle of conception, or the emotion of birthing,” he wrote. “Babies are naturally embraced by hope, by reflection of what can be, and by promises to keep; that is, unless the heart within a baby’s breast is so poorly developed that life cannot go on. I have been driven by the notion that heart disease should not end the promise of a newborn infant. Heart transplantation restores the hopes and dreams surrounding these babies and, hence, ranks right up there with the best of life events on earth. It is a genuine re-birthing for a baby dying of heart disease, and the process is a very fine moment, indeed, for humanity. It is fundamentally good news, and while it may not necessarily even the score for all the tragedy facing our planet, saving a baby always makes a clear statement for what can and ought to be in the universe. As with the babies and their loved ones, my own life assumes new meaning and affirmation in the process. I am compelled by the belief that saving babies is the right thing to do.” The heart transplant team has now performed 329 heart transplants on babies under one year of age. All would have died without the delicate surgery.