Girl Gets New Birthday to Qualify for Adult Lungs

June 6, 2013— -- Sarah Murnaghan now has two records in the official organ transplant database: one with her real birthday and one with a birthday to make the system treat her as a 12-year-old.

The 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl is dying of cystic fibrosis and won a federal court order Wednesday to sidestep a controversial transplant rule that had been preventing her from getting new lungs.

Read about the Murnaghans' battle to save Sarah

The Murnaghan family of Newtown Square, Pa., had been fighting a little-known organ transplant policy that had been effectively pushing its daughter Sarah to the bottom of the adult transplant waiting list because it mandated that adult lungs be offered to all adult patients before they could be offered to someone younger than 12 years old.

The family filed an emergency motion on Wednesday to prevent Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius from enforcing the policy. Sebelius said Tuesday that she would not make an exception for Sarah.

But on Wednesday afternoon, Federal Judge Michael Baylson ordered Sebelius to stop enforcing the under-12 rule for Sarah "so that she can be considered for receipt of donated lungs from adults based on the medical severity of her condition as compared to the medical severity of persons over 12 in the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network system." The order is effective immediately and will remain in effect unless the court rules otherwise at a preliminary injunction hearing on June 14.

The case prompted a second family at Sarah's hospital – the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia – to sue to be considered equally on the adult lung waiting list, according to a complaint filed Thursday. Javier Acosta, an 11-year-old from in the Bronx who is dying of cystic fibrosis, has now been granted the same exception as Sarah, according to a statement from his lawyer at Pepper Hamilton LLP. Javier 's brother, Jovan, died at the age of 11 while waiting for a lung transplant, according to the complaint.

Eleven "priority 1" children under 12 years old are currently waiting for lung transplants, according to OPTN data compiled on May 24 for ABCNews.com. Nine under-12-year-olds awaiting lung transplants are categorized as "priority 2."

This morning, Sebelius wrote a letter to the president of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network's president to send him the signed court order.

In the letter, Sebelius wrote that she was aware that a duplicate organ candidate record was created for Sarah at 10:34 p.m. It explains that Sarah is still a priority on the pediatric list, but she will now also be considered as a 12-year-old.

"I appreciate your immediate attention to the court's order," she wrote.

But the clock is still ticking for Sarah. A judge could rule to reinstate the under-12 rule on June 14 at the preliminary injunction hearing.

If she doesn't receive lungs by then, it's not clear whether the duplicate organ candidate record will be deleted. A spokesman for HHS said he could not speculate on what might happen.

Bioethicist Art Caplan wrote on Wednesday that politicians and bureaucrats shouldn't decide whether Sarah gets lungs because of the medical complexities of her case.

Speaking to ABCNews.com before the judge ruled in Sarah's favor, he said he didn't expect the Murnaghans to win because it would involve challenging the legitimacy of the entire organ transplant system. That is, unless lawyers could make a pure discrimination case. Otherwise, he said the effort was "doomed to fail."

"I don't think they have any other options to get her on the list," Caplan told ABCNews.com Wednesday after the emergency motion was filed but before the judge ruled in Sarah's favor. "Do I begrudge them the right or the effort to try to do what they can? No."