Baby boy survives for nearly two days after abortion

[WhiteWings]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/7646540/Baby-boy-survives-for-nearly-two-days-after-abortion.html

By Simon Caldwell
Published: 4:29PM BST 28 Apr 2010

The 22-week infant died one day later in intensive care at a hospital in the mother's home town of Rossano in southern Italy.

The mother, pregnant for the first time, had opted for an abortion after prenatal scans suggested that her baby was disabled.
However, the infant survived the procedure, carried out on Saturday in the Rossano Calabro hospital, and was left by doctors to die.

He was discovered alive the following day – some 20 hours after the operation – by Father Antonio Martello, the hospital chaplain, who had gone to pray beside his body.

He found that the baby, wrapped in a sheet with his umbilical cord still attached, was moving and breathing.

The priest raised the alarm and doctors immediately arranged for the infant to be taken to a specialist neo-natal unit at the neighbouring Cosenza hospital, where he died on Monday morning.

Italian police are investigating the case for "homicide" because infanticide is illegal in Italy.

The law means that doctors have had an obligation to try to preserve the life of the child once he had survived the abortion.

The Italian government is also considering an inquiry into the conduct of the hospital staff.

Eugenia Roccella, the under-secretary of state in the health department, on Wednesday night promised a government inquiry into the incident.

"The minister of health will send inspectors to the hospital in Rossano Calabro to investigate what actually happened, and to see if the Law 194, which prohibits abortion when there is a possibility of the foetus living separately from the mother, and permits it only when the continuation of the pregnancy would result in life-threatening danger to the mother."

She said that if initial information is correct, "this would be a case of deliberate abandonment of a seriously premature neonate, possibly also with some form of disability, an act contrary to any sense of human compassion but also of any accepted professional medical practice".

She added: "We must remember that a baby, once born, is an Italian citizen equal to all the others, and is entitled to all fundamental rights, including the right to health and therefore to be given full support."

The case has reignited controversy on the legality of abortion in the Roman Catholic country.

It could also raise questions in Britain over the legal upper limits for abortion and the viability of the foetus – or its ability to survive outside of the womb.

A spokesman for the ProLife Alliance said: "There cannot be anybody in the world who is not horrified by a story like this nor anybody in the UK who would not support a massive reduction in the upper limit for abortion."

Most abortions at 22 weeks simply involve the induction of the birth which normally results in the death of a young foetus.

The case is causing uproar in Italy because it is the second involving a foetus of that age surviving the procedure in just three years.

The other involved a baby in Florence who weighed just 17oz when he was aborted at 22 weeks because of a suspected genetic disorder, but lived for three days.

Since 1978, abortion has been available on demand in Italy in the first three months of pregnancy but is restricted to specific circumstances – such as disability- in the second trimester. The government is considering a review of the working of the laws.

The case also comes as figures in Britain revealed last week that the number of babies born weighing only 2lbs has more than doubled in just two years.

Yet the proportion of tiny babies born stillborn has nearly halved, the health service statistics have shown.

The figures do not reveal at what stage the babies were born but a child weighing under 2lbs is likely to have been born at least three months early.

They will inevitably include some born alive at an age when they could, in other circumstances, have been aborted.

More than 200,000 abortions are performed each year, most for non-medical reasons within the legal upper limit of 24 weeks gestation.

The increasing number of babies surviving below 24 weeks, partly because of advances in medicine, has led to widespread calls for the legal upper limit to be further reduced.

Attempts to lower the limit failed in Parliament in 2008.

In 2005 a baby boy in Manchester was born alive at 24 weeks after surviving three attempts to abort him. He is now a five-year-old schoolboy.

[Syndicated]

In 2005 a baby boy in Manchester was born alive at 24 weeks after surviving three attempts to abort him. He is now a five-year-old schoolboy.

Wow!  God really wanted this little boy to live!!  3 attempts to abort him?  That's CRAZY!

[Paul Hazelwood]

How does the law work over there WW?   Over here if the baby was aborted in alignment with the law that of course would be legal, but,  once they discovered it had survived the ordeal then someone in the medical profession could be held liable if they did not try to save it if they.   :thumbdown:

Considering the precident that abortion carries, I wonder how it could be something that could be saved, isn't it just a mass of tissue?   :thumbdown:

[WhiteWings]

How does the law work over there WW?   Over here if the baby was aborted in alignment with the law that of course would be legal, but,  once they discovered it had survived the ordeal then someone in the medical profession could be held liable if they did not try to save it if they.   :thumbdown:

I don't live neither in Italy of Britain of the countries. The Italian police is investigating because once born the boy became a citizen with full protection of Italian law.

But I suppose you mean the boy from Brittan. Below is his story. Summaried they used an abortion drug designed for early stages of pregnancy while the baby was much older.


British Boy Survived Three Failed Abortion Attempts, Now Two Years-Old Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 14, 2005

Manchester, England (LifeNews.com) -- A baby in the U.K. survived three failed abortion attempts and was born alive at 24 weeks into the pregnancy. The baby boy was born at a local hospital after his mother changed her mind about the late-term abortion.

Although the mother had been told at an abortion business that the RU 486 abortion was complete, she felt the baby moving on the way home.
Only coming to light now, two years after the failed abortions, the baby boy is healthy and is one of the few survivors of an abortion and premature birth to remain alive. His story has been documented recently in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The baby was on a ventilator for seven weeks and fought off life-threatening infections to survive. He had a serious lung disease for the first six months of his life and was finally able to go home after seven months of treatment in the hospital.

Dr. Paul Clarke, one of the report's authors and the baby's doctor at Hope Hospital, told the Times, "This mother went through extreme hardship waiting to see if her baby was going to make it. She was told to expect him to die so many times. I am full of admiration for her."

A report in the London Times says the mother did not realize she was pregnant until 22 weeks into the pregnancy. Already the mother of one, she felt she could not handle caring for a second child.

She was given the dangerous RU 486 abortion drugs over a series of four days at the abortion facility run by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. The abortion drug is not supposed to be used so late in pregnancy.

The abortion business is under investigation by British officials for sending women to Spain for illegal late-term abortions and falsifying medical information.

Dr. Clarke's article calls for further investigation into the performance of late-term abortions and decries the lack of medical care available at abortion businesses to treat newborns who survive failed abortion attempts.

"Late abortion raises serious practical, ethical and professional concerns," Clarke wrote. "The dilemma of being telephoned about an infant born showing signs of life following termination of pregnancy is one that many pediatricians have faced. If viable, and resuscitated, those infants who survive may suffer significant illness."

Millington of the ProLife Alliance said the case "highlights the gross injustice of abortion" because "a healthy baby had to fight for his life whilst doctors tried repeatedly to kill him."

Related web sites:
Pro-Life Alliance - http://www.prolife.org.uk