The Herald Sun newspaper reports that the unnamed woman from Victoria had already named her unborn children when doctors told her one of the unborn babies had a congenital heart defect that would requires years of operations, assuming the baby survived long enough to have them. The mother decided to have an abortion, terminating the life of one of her unborn children and allowing the other baby to live.

The newspaper indicates an ultrasound tech checked on the healthy baby before the abortion and determine the child was in a separate amniotic sac than the sibling. However, the abortion, which took place Tuesday afternoon, went awry and the wrong baby was injected with drugs meant to end his or her life.

After the mother was informed of the error, doctors did an emergency Cesarean section and the sick unborn baby was killed in a three-hour operation, the newspaper indicates.