| William Liley | |
|---|---|
| Born | Albert William Liley 12 March 1929 |
| Died | 15 June 1983 (aged 54) |
| Cause of death | Suicide |
| Nationality | New Zealand |
| Occupation | surgeon |
Sir (Albert) William Liley KCMG, FRSNZ (12 March 1929 - 15 June 1983), was a New Zealand surgeon, who worked primarily on techniques to improve the health of fetuses in utero.
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Sir William graduated from Otago Medical School at the University of Otago in Dunedin, in 1954. He was awarded fellowships with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and was appointed to the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, although he was an atheist. He was also a member of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He was knighted (KCMG) by Queen Elizabeth II in 1972.
Sir William became known for his technique for intrauterine blood transfusions for Rh-affected fetuses. In developing and performing intrauterine transfusions to save fetuses that were too young to survive extrauterine life, Sir William became the first medical practitioner to treat the fetus as a patient in his or her own right. Prior to Sir William's development of the intrauterine transfusion, the gestating uterus was regarded as inviolate. Many developments in prenatal treatment have ensued since Sir William performed the first successful intrauterine transfusion in 1963.
He was one of the founders of the New Zealand anti-abortion group, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (now Voice for Life), in 1971 and served as that organisation's first president. In 1977, Robert Sassone edited a series of interviews with Liley and Jerome Lejeune, entitled The Tiniest Humans.[1]
Liley committed suicide in 1983. He had been a vocal advocate of the right to life in a time of changing attitudes, and many were prone to associate his death with the stress caused by tension between his convictions and their public reception.[2]
Liley is survived by his wife, five natural children and one adopted child. He first met his wife, Dr. Margaret, Lady Liley (formerly Margaret Hunt) when they were at medical school together. They married in 1953. His wife was an authority on pregnancy and fetal life on her own right, and was director of the Antenatal Clinic at National Women's Hospital.[3]
Since 2004 the Health Research Council of New Zealand has annually awarded the Liley Medal in recognition of an outstanding contribution to medical research.[4]