VANCOUVER, Aug. 3 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Last year an out-of-court settlement was reached over the failed abortion of now 12-year-old Ximena Renaerts. Last week the amount of that settlement – $8.7 million – was made public after a BC judge rejected Vancouver General hospital’s attempt to keep the figure secret. The case of Ximena gripped the hearts of pro-life Canadians across the country because she was one of the few survivors of Canada’s abortion industry and, in her terribly handicapped state, was a testimony to all Canadians of the horrible results abortion exacts on real people. Ximena was born alive despite an attempt to kill her with a D&C abortion. Despite being born alive, nurses put her in a bedpan in the room with dead babies, waiting for her to die of exposure, rather than giving her the obligatory standard emergency treatment for distressed newborns.
Unlike other babies who nurses say suffer the same fate today at Calgary Foothills and other hospitals, Ximena survived because a principled nurse who opposes murder later found her gasping for air and immediately attempted to resuscitate her. Despite the late rescue, the girl is severely physically and mentally disabled. She suffers from cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair; she can talk and crawl but has a mental age of a 3-year-old and needs 24-hour-a-day care. Despite the evidence of attempted infanticide, it is unlikely that a criminal case would have been successful against the hospital because the attempted murder was so closely linked to abortion. Ximena’s adoptive mother, Margaret Renaerts, however, decided to launch a civil suit against the hospital and came away with a rare pro-life victory from Canada’s courts.
The settlement is “the largest personal-injury settlement in BC history, and possibly in Canada,” wrote Vancouver Province columnist, Andy Ivens, on Sunday. Ximena’s mother, however, told the paper that “Everybody has focused on the money, but that’s not why we went to the lawyers. My main concern was, I wanted to see justice done.” Margaret Renaerts and her husband have 8 children, four others of whom are also disabled. “We’re waiting for our next child, a boy from Ethiopia,” she said.