The Abbie Dorn Story: Brain Damaged During Child Birth and Denied Child Visitation

Many of you may remember the Terri Schiavo case. The seven year battle between Terri’s parents and her husband was heart wrenching to watch. The husband wanted to remove Terri’s feeding tube because he felt that she would not wish to continue life-prolonging measures in her vegetative state. The parents fought tooth and nail to prevent Terri‘s life sustaining feeding tube from being removed, but eventually lost their battle on March 18th, 2005. Terri died 13 days later. 

Abbie’s story is also a battle of will between her parents and husband. Abbie gave birth to triplets. Shortly afterward, she began to bleed and went into cardiac arrest. Her brain was deprived of oxygen for about 20 minutes while medical staff tried to resuscitate her.  Abbie was left unable to speak or move from the brain damage. 

Abbie received a 7.8 million dollar malpractice settlement. Her parents, Paul and Susan Cohen, a physician and former nurse, became the conservators of Abbie’s  estate.  They are also Abbie’s full-time caregivers.  A $7.8 million medical malpractice settlement funds her treatment. Dan Dorn, Abbie’s husband, occupied himself raising the triplets.

Just one year after the triplets were born, Dan Dorn asked Abbie’s parents to file for divorce on behalf of Abbie. The divorce was finalized in 2008.

Dan Dorn has not brought the children to see Abbie since October of 2007. Abbie’s parents are now fighting to reunite Abbie with her children. Meanwhile, Dan is not only fighting for the children to not see their mother, he is also seeking child support from Abbie’s estate.

In court papers, Dan Dorn says that Abbie is in a vegetative state, and contends that she is not only physically disabled, but also “neurologically incapacitated.” He claims that this makes her legally incompetent to make decisions involving her children. The legal papers also claim that it is not in the children’s best interest to see their mother…now. The legal papers he submitted to get child support from Abbie’s estate echo the above, but add that he has not told the children what happened to their mother, and he will not consider taking the children to see Abbie until they are older and he has medical evidence that Abbie would be able to communicate with them. Dan told CNN, “I still love Abbie very much, but I am trying to move on and have been and will continue to parent our children, who are happy and are thriving,”

However, Abbie’s parents are not seeking for Abbie to per say ’parent,’ they are just seeking visitation rights so that Abbie has the opportunity to interact with her children. They have also requested that children see a psychologist to help prepare them for visiting their mother.

Abbie’s mother, therapists, and mental health counselor also claim that Abbie can communicate after considerable progress via intensive rehab. The $33,000-a-month rehabilitation program uses a method called neurofeedback, which trains the brain to function more efficiently. Dr. McCarthy, Abbie’s mental health counselor says that Abbie has become increasingly alert through neurofeedback. Abbie can voluntarily bounce her legs up and down, has regained movement in her arms, and can even verbally respond yes or no by blinking her eyes. 

Blinking communication is actually very plausible. Michelle Wheatley, of England, who had a stroke when she was 26, is able to communicate only by blinking her eyes. Michelle is unable to move any other part of her body, but she can think, hear, and communicate. Doctors diagnosed this as “locked-in syndrome” Her boyfriend, and two children ages 4 and 1 present Michelle with letters of the alphabet on a board. As they scroll from one letter to another Michelle picks a letter by blinking. Of course, this is a painstaking process, but Michelle is able to communicate with her family and have a meaningful relationship through her blinking.

Abbie’s trial to see her children is scheduled for May 13, 2010.

My Two Cents:

While I would be overjoyed if Abbie can indeed communicate with blinking, it really doesn’t matter to me whether she can communicate with her children or not. The simple fact is that regardless of her disability, she is the mother of these children….she, and the children, have the right to be exposed to each other. Secondly, these kids are going to eventually be old enough to discover the circumstances of their birth. The message hiding their mother from them sends is that they indeed have something to be guilty over…..when they don’t.  Third, if Dan Dorn feels that Abbie (via her estate) should pay child support and that her parents could speak for her when he wanted a divorce, then why should Abbie not be fit to see her children and her parent’s not have the right to seek visitations for Abbie?