Disabled Woman : Family Torn by Abortion Controversy

Soon after learning that the abortion procedure on her brain-diseased daughter was over, Helen Stegmoyer lit a cigarette and exclaimed, “What am I doing? I’ve got high blood pressure and I’m not supposed to be smoking!”

Stegmoyer was trying to unwind after eight pressure-filled days that began June 17 when she learned that her daughter, Laura Eldridge, 35, institutionalized and unable to communicate, was five months pregnant.

Stegmoyer discussed the possibility of seeking an abortion for Eldridge with her husband, Tom, her other daughter, Donna Davis, and her son-in-law, Cooper Davis.

“We did a lot of soul-searching,” said Tom Stegmoyer.

Eldridge’s frail condition had to be considered: There was the chance she would not survive an abortion but doctors also said she could die if she carried the fetus to full term.

The Stegmoyers believe their daughter was raped, and they don’t oppose abortions in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is in danger. Still, they oppose abortion generally. And they faced the moral dilemma of aborting a 20-week-old fetus--a medical procedure, the family was told, that some doctors would not perform.

“You know what’s right or wrong,” Helen Stegmoyer said, “but when you’re faced with it, you don’t care what the priest or the neighbors or the rabbi are going to say. You only care about your daughter. I never felt that way before, and I learned something about myself.”

The family became overwrought after learning that Eldridge--who weighs 75 pounds and remains curled in a fetal position with her hands usually bound to prevent her from inadvertently disconnecting intravenous tubes--was pregnant.

“Who would be so lousy to do this?” Tom Stegmoyer said.

Family members were angry with attendants at Mirada Hills Convalescent and Rehabilitation Hospital in La Mirada, where Eldridge was staying, because they thought attendants should have noticed the changes in her body when they washed her.

There are new pressures now as Eldridge recovers from the abortion, completed Tuesday at UCI Medical Center in Orange. The family must find another convalescent home for Eldridge, but the facilities they have contacted so far have refused to take her, the Stegmoyers said.

Eldridge cannot find a room, they claimed, because nursing homes do not want a woman on Medi-Cal who is believed to suffer from a fatal hereditary disease, Huntington’s chorea.

The day after learning about their daughter’s pregnancy, the Stegmoyers said, they spent most of the time calling lawyers and calling friends for names of lawyers who could help them. But they had no success. A lawyer who previously had worked for Tom Stegmoyer shied away.

“Attorneys said the case was too big or too complicated, and they wouldn’t refer us to anyone,” he said.

They finally thought of Eldridge’s divorce lawyer, Frederick W. DeLisio, and called him. DeLisio found a colleague, Dick R. Runels, who would assist him with the case.

Los Angeles County authorities are conducting criminal and regulatory investigations, and the Mirada Hills facility has been interviewing its employees. The hospital also is appealing a citation and a $5,000 fine assessed last Friday by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

Finding a doctor to perform an abortion was even tougher.

“We made it clear from the start that we would sign any paper they wanted for malpractice purposes,” Tom Stegmoyer said. “But the doctors didn’t want the notoriety, they didn’t want any anti-abortion pickets outside their doors and they didn’t want the possibility of any suits against them.”

The family thought a doctor at Norwalk Community Hospital was prepared to do the operation last Friday night after an Orange County Superior Court judge made Helen Stegmoyer the conservator of her daughter, with authority to seek an abortion. They rushed to the hospital with their paper work, arriving just before 5 p.m.

“We never knew who the doctor was, but a hospital official came up to us about 7 p.m. saying the doctor had backed out,” Helen Stegmoyer said. “We were all let down.”

Dr. Teodora Bonuam, Eldridge’s physician for the past year, contacted UCI Medical Center and worked out an agreement for doctors there to evaluate Eldridge, lawyer DeLisio said.