They couldn’t sign off on “sacrificing” their daughter Rosie, so they chose not to separate the twins at all, and leave things “in God’s hands.” But a judge, and then an appeals court, ruled against the parents, declaring that the surgery would proceed. Rosie died on the operating table during the twenty-hour separation surgery. Two surgeons both held the scalpel as the aorta was cut, so neither surgeon was solely responsible for Rosie’s death. Gracie is now a thriving eighteen-year-old who still keeps in contact with one of the surgeons who performed the operation.
