LONDON - The parents of Siamese twins were last night trying to overturn a British court decision that the girls should be separated, meaning certain death for one baby.
A judge had ruled that the twins should be separated against their parents' wishes. The girls, given false names of Jodie andMary to protect their anonymity, were born at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester on August 8.
Their parents, who are from eastern Europe, came to Britain because of inadequate medical facilities to cope with Siamese twins in their own country. The twins are joined by their lower abdomens and Mary depends on her sister for her heart and lung function.
In the first ruling of its kind in Britain, Mr Justice Johnson on August 25 said he had made his decision to approve the operation on the grounds that if the girls were not separated, both would die within months. Jodie's heart and lungs would not be able to take the strain of supporting her sister's body.
"For Jodie, separation means the expectation of a normal life; for Mary it means death," the judge said. In their submission to court, the girls' parents said they could not sanction the death of one of their babies. "We cannot begin to accept or contemplate that one of our children should die to enable the other one to survive. That is not God's will."
Surgeons will not perform the operation until the legal position is clear. The parents' lawyer told the BBC that they could go to the House of Lords and possibly the European Court of Human Rights should today's Court of Appeal verdict go against them.
