In June of 2015, the European Centre for Law and Justice released a report titled “Late Term Abortion & Neonatal Infanticide in Europe: Petition for the Rights of Newborns Surviving Their Abortion,” which can be found in its entirety here.
The report documents cases of babies born alive after abortions. These children were allowed to die without medical treatment, or in some cases, were directly killed.
J.C., a 46-year-old doctor currently in practice, recounts a case he witnessed. J.C. has been practicing adult resuscitation for 10 years now, but he vividly remembers something that happened during his training. Sixteen years ago at a university hospital, he was providing anesthesia for women in labor. J.C. explains what happened:
I was called to perform an epidural for a young woman who was to vaginally deliver induced after a medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) at a fairly advanced stage; around six months. Her husband was present. This late abortion was decided following the protocol in force in the service, after the necessary multidisciplinary consultations, but I can no longer remember the cause that led to the decision to terminate the pregnancy. I remember very clearly not wanting to know what happened in the abortion itself, and I clearly told the responsible anesthetic physician that I no longer wanted to enter the room after the installation of the epidural anesthesia. I had expressed the wish not to attend terminations of pregnancy (abortions, abortions on medical grounds).
The 6-month-old baby was being aborted by the induction method, which requires a woman to go through labor. Former abortionist, Dr. Anthony Levatino, explains the procedure in the video below:
Babies born at six months survive between 40-70% of the time, depending on the level of care they receive. The doctor was sitting in the anesthetist’s office when his phone began to ring. J.C. was seized by a feeling of dread. Initially he did not answer, but then after 15-20 minutes he went back to see the midwife. Something was clearly wrong. The midwife spoke to him:
She was nervous and uncomfortable, blaming me for not answering, and then the anesthetic doctor who was responsible for the delivery room that day came. He had been called by the midwife. The midwife told me how quickly the gynecologist had ended the life of the child in the womb, making an ultrasound location and injecting the product to make the child’s heart stop beating. Then the vaginal delivery was induced. By the time the child came out, the midwife was alone. When the child was completely out, he cried; he was alive. The midwife told how she was seized and choked the child’s cries with her hand and hurried out so the parents would not hear their child. She walked to the neonatal intensive care unit. It was at that precise moment she called me on the guard telephone and I could not answer.
The mother and father were not allowed to know their baby was born alive. Their wishes, therefore, were not taken into account. Had they known, they might have changed their minds and wanted to save the child. According to medical professionals that day, however, the baby was condemned to die.
The midwife had to go back to the woman who had just given birth and the anesthetist was alone with the child. He did not resuscitate the child, and after several maneuvers, they killed the child.
Ironically, an hour later, a young woman came to the hospital in labor at 6 months. This baby was the same age as the baby who had just been killed, but there was a difference – this baby was wanted by his mother.
J.C. describes what happened:
Quickly, she gave birth. Her child was taken immediately into the neonatal resuscitation room. It was a difficult resuscitation; pediatricians soon arrived to help us because things were not going the way we wanted. After a long resuscitation, the child was stabilized and he went to the neonatal intensive care unit. I realized then that this child we had to resuscitate was the same age as the other child, a few hours before, who had not had the right to live.
After the day was over, the medical personnel gathered together and drank:
At the end of the day, the midwife invited the team to meet in the break room. She took out a bottle of champagne from the fridge. She invited everyone to take a glass, not to rejoice, but to help everyone to forget what had happened. I saw how many people altogether balanced, could be induced to do things they would have refuted in another context, detached by this notion of emergency and the psychological gearing that was set in place from the beginning of this abortion procedure. I can attest to the discomfort, to say the least, rather the torpor in the medical and paramedical team at the end of the day. I remain deeply appalled by this and I see how our medical facilities can sometimes lead us to achieve what we would not want to do.
The only difference between the baby who was killed and the baby who was saved was the parents’ feelings and wishes toward them. Each preborn baby’s worth was decided by another person or people who either wanted or did not want them. If the mother and/or father wanted the baby, the child’s life would be saved. If they didn’t want the baby, his life would be taken. Giving one human being complete power over another human being’s life is illegal in any other context, but with abortion it is accepted.
Pro-lifers believe that all children have a right to life regardless of whether they are wanted by their parents. Human beings have inherent value, not conditional value based on how others view them. The sad truth is that the baby who was killed may have been unwanted by his or her parents, but no doubt there were many couples who would’ve been willing to adopt him or her. There were couples who would have wanted that baby, but the parent’s desires overrode everything, even after the baby was born.
The parents had ultimate veto power over the baby’s life, even though the child was out of the womb and struggling to live. This is not a woman’s right to “control over her own body.” The baby was not in her body. This is control over the body of another individual, who is murdered. Ultimately, this is what abortion is about. The killing may take place in the woman’s body, but it is another body — the body of her child — that is torn apart and destroyed. The fact that the murder took place after the child was born and not before shows how abortion leads to a complete devaluing of life.
