The inquest into a teenager's fatal abortion has heard evidence suggesting the Civic Hospital's abortion committee is considered such a rubber stamp that abortions are effectively approved before the committee deals with them

Erin Shannon, 18 died Jan. 23 during a therapeutic abortion at the Civic as a result of a rare complication that caused her heart to stop, according to testimony before Ontario Chief Coroner Dr. Ross Bennett.

Nurse Donna McMurtry said Tuesday that when Erin admitted at a 8 a.m. the day of her death, the operation was already shown as "approved" on a list of procedures scheduled for the day.

Abortion committee chairman Dr. Jane Chambers, however, testified Erin's abortion was approved at the committee's regular weekly meeting, that day, sometime around 10 a.m.

The operation started at 10:05 a.m. and Erin was pronounced dead at 10:55 a.m.

Her death was the first known case its kind in the country, the inquest was told.

Erin died of what is known as an amniotic fluid embolism, an extremely rare complication in which fluid in the uterus enters the blood stream creating a clot that causes the lungs to stop pumping oxygen to the heart.

The result is a massive sudden heart failure.

Her mother Joan Shannon, in a poignant appearance before the inquest told how she wanted her daughter to appear before the abortion committee hoping it would show Erin "graphic things" and persuade her not to have an abortion.

When her daughter stood firm, however, her parents decided to support her over the opposition of their family doctor.

Earlier testimony showed the committee approves abortions solely an a doctor's recommendation.

Erin's abortion was one of 2,000 done each year at the Civic Hospital. Last year, every abortion request was approved.

The law requires that a majority of the five-member hospital abortion committee approve a certificate of abortion before the operation proceeds.

McMurtry, however, said when she went through regular admission procedures with Erin before the operation - between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. - she noticed the abortion was already "marked as approved" as of 8 a.m.

"I went and looked at the list and beside Erin Shannon's name was written 'approved'," she said.

The testimony created a stir at the inquest. Lawyers representing the hospital scrambled to find another witness to straighten out the matter.

But the witness they produced, Rita Robertson, secretary to the abortion committee, only added to the confusion.

Questioned by the Shannon family's lawyer, Gary Chayko, Robertson said Erin's abortion request may have been dealt with at some meeting outside the regular meeting.

But Chayko noted the certificate for abortion, which legally authorizes the procedure, is dated as of Jan. 23.

Asked when the supposed committee meeting took place, Robertson said: "I don't remember."

Crown Attorney Andrejs Berzins asked how Erin's abortion could be marked as approved on the daily operations list at 8:00 a.m. when the committee supposedly didn't meet until 10 a.m.

"How could this happen'?" he said. "Surely somebody knows when it was approved."

Robertson said she may have taken the necessary documents to Chambers for approval the "night before" the abortion, on Wednesday, Jan. 22.

Then, she said, she delivered the documents to Chambers "before lunch" that day, after having received the abortion request earlier in the day from the office of gynecologist who did the abortion, Dr. Irvine Soloway.

Chambers probably signed the papers herself and then got needed signatures from other committee members, said Robertson.

She admitted, however, that in a book she keeps of operating procedures, she signed in the date of approval for Erin's abortion as Jan. 23.

Erin went into the operating room at 10:05 a.m. Within 15 minutes of the operation beginning, she suddenly stopped breathing and her heart stopped. Efforts to revive her failed and she was taken off life support systems at 10:55 a.m.