NATION : Probation Given in Infanticide

PHILADELPHIA —  An obstetrician convicted of infanticide after witnesses said he let an aborted fetus die was placed on three years’ probation today and ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.

Dr. Joseph Melnick, 66, was found guilty in a nonjury trial in June, the first criminal prosecution under Pennsylvania’s 1974 abortion law that requires doctors to do what they can if they remove a living fetus.

Common Pleas Judge Lynn Abraham heeded Melnick’s plea for leniency, calling what he did a “criminal mistake” for which neither jail nor a heavy fine was appropriate. She also said she had no intention of making an example of him.

The mistake, the judge said, was that the doctor performed an abortion on a teen-ager in her eighth month of pregnancy. The doctor said he had been told she was in her fourth or fifth month.