Necie Franklin of Flowood, Mississippi, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that Dr. Kenny Robbins of River Oaks Hospital refused to treat daughter Jessa Mackenzie after she was born suddenly in May, because she was three days shy of 23 weeks gestation - at which point he would have considered treating her at the hospital's Level II neonatal intensive care unit.

Franklin said that Jessa gasped for breath twice while in her arms, but was told by nurses that it was "just a reaction" - leading her to believe the child had died. Only after Jessa had been taken away, says Franklin, did she learn that the child still had a heartbeat.

Franklin, who says she has lost a child to a premature birth before, said it "shocked" her when Robbins said he would not help Jessa breathe.

"I looked at him and said, so you're telling me you're not going to do anything for my daughter?" said Franklin. She says Robbins "simply flat out refused."

"He actually told me this - This is what stuck in my mind most of all for days afterwards - was that I would be torturing my child to do something, because she was so little," the mother recalled. "She weighed just over a pound - which there are children who weigh less than that, that actually make it."

"They took so long to bring her back to me that she had already passed away by the time they had brought her back to me," said Franklin. "I don't know how many times after she left my sight that she gasped for breath. And they didn't even put a respirator on her to make her a little more comfortable."

She says Jessa's heart beat for about an hour and a half before she died.