Baby boy survives for nearly two days after abortion

[SMR 368]

Yes... they were alive and are now dead. We're talking about abortion, not a hair appointment

You made a very specific claim that abortion is "murder". Murder is a legal designation that is applied by the courts according to a series of circumstances.

Why do you think that courts have the ultimate last say in what is "murder"? Courts are instated to interpret laws. The very premise of this conversation is that those laws may be flawed. Thus, appealing to the present law as a definition for murder is circular reasoning.

If Hitler liked chocolate ice cream, and so do you, do you think that would be be relevant to this discussion?

No. But chocolate ice cream has nothing to do with systems of government.

No, you can't discuss it "deeply", because you've already stated outright that abortion is "murder". No if's, no but's, no exceptions. You've taken a stance that is both extremist and intolerant.

Good use of buzz words. I suppose you could say I am intolerant. But by that logic, so are laws against child rape. Things that are bad should not be tolerated, thus intolerant.

In regards to extreme, extreme is a relative word. I could just as easily call you extreme because you see as acceptable that which I see as murder.

I didn't choose to change anything. I only believe in the right of individuals to govern their own bodies and bodily processes and to make informed decisions thereof.

That was a generic you describing someone who gets an abortion.

I could, but why should I when you have written me off at the outset without actually giving me the courtesy of further explanation. Why should I be motivated to justify my opinion to you, when you have written it off out of hand by suggesting that it is Hitleresque?

You don't get something for nothing, and you get what you pay for.

I'm not going to waste my time justifying an opinion that I didn't get to elaborate on to someone who has used to to make a knee-jerk comparison to Hitler. Give me a reason why I should.

No. I don't feel the need to encourage you to defend your beliefs.

[Ban Hammer 12,829]

Personally, my concern if I had a child that required round the clock care for catastrophic disabilities would be on it outliving me. It's one thing to care for it yourself, another to put a burden on other people. Not fair to anyone really.

yet killing the baby is really unfair to the baby.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Why do you think that courts have the ultimate last say in what is "murder"? Courts are instated to interpret laws. The very premise of this conversation is that those laws may be flawed. Thus, appealing to the present law as a definition for murder is circular reasoning.

If you aren't prepared to accept the "law" as being the arbiter of what is and isn't murder then on what factual basis can you claim that abortion IS murder?

"Murder" IS a legal term. Anything else is your personal (flawed) opinion.

Why No. But chocolate ice cream has nothing to do with systems of government.

And neither does a pro-choice stance on abortion.

Good use of buzz words. I suppose you could say I am intolerant. But by that logic, so are laws against child rape. Things that are bad should not be tolerated, thus intolerant.

In regards to extreme, extreme is a relative word. I could just as easily call you extreme because you see as acceptable that which I see as murder.

You could, but it would be silly - because I actually wanted to talk about the topic, yet you shut down that discussion before it started by suggesting that my opinion was Hitleresque.

What's more you don't seem to see anything wrong with this.

In a similar way I could take what you just said above and suggest that might be an argument that someone in the Taliban might use (Shortly before they cut off your head).

If I did that, would you find it reasonable?

What kind of productive discussion do you think we would be able to have with a militant religious fundamentalist?

[SMOKE 1,426]

Never mind, I'm sure a guy like you is thick skinned enough to not notice when he has made a complete ####### of himself

indeed. i don't care what you think. i'm here for my entertainment not yours.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

yet killing the baby is really unfair to the baby.

If you think it's unfair to live your entire life in a condition where you can't move, talk, eat or go to the toilet on your own and have to rely on other people to keep you alive for 5, 10, 20 or 30+ years.

There are no absolutes to this, we shouldn't pretend that there are.

The poster who described her own experience raising a disabled child is a case in point. I'm not about to tell her that the choice she made is wrong, noone has any right to do that.

indeed. i don't care what you think. i'm here for my entertainment not yours.

Likewise.

[SMOKE 1,426]

Likewise.

good, hope you don't mind i find you entertaining.

[Marilyn. 340]

our baby boy was born premature at around 23 weeks.. the doctor sat down with us after about 12 days and said it wasn't looking good, he would most definitely be blind and deaf and there was a 90% chance he would have cerebral palsy, this was because of a brain bleed... and this was at that point in time.. they still hadn't been able to stabilize him... so most likely he would have ended up being brain dead... so my husband and I had to make the difficult decision to take him off life support.. we didn't want him to have to live like that...

Edited April 29, 2010 by Marilyn.

[Peikko 1,575]

yet killing the baby is really unfair to the baby.

That's partly the point though, no one is killing any babies - which is kind of how disingenuous the original post is. The abortion process in this case is to allow 'nature' to take its course. Quite frankly, in the circumstances described (one where a family has been advised that the severity of the disability would demand a very low quality of life for the child and potentially a short and fraught one) allowing an aborted premature to die from natural causes is probably a mercy. I mean, what do people expect happens in these kinds of abortions? The baby is born and the nurse stabs it until it's dead?

The only real question mark, surrounding this event is, should the medical profession re-examine survivability of disabled premature babies (Obviously this would be for the angelic families that choose not to abort when there are severe disabilities diagnosed, you know those nice people, not the murder happy mothers who want the baby ripped from their womb and sacrificed to the devil) but guess what? I feel 100% certain that as each medical advance is recorded, as each lesson is learned the medical profession already do.

Edited April 29, 2010 by Madame Cleo

[Peikko 1,575]

our baby boy was born premature at around 23 weeks.. the doctor sat down with us after about 12 days and said it wasn't looking good, he would most definitely be blind and deaf and there was a 90% chance he would have cerebral palsy... and this was at that point in time.. they still hadn't been able to stabilize him... so most likely he would have ended up being brain dead... so my husband and I had to make the difficult decision to take him off life support.. we didn't want him to have to live like that...

I am totally sure that was a terribly difficult decision and I know this still causes you pain and grief. The only comment I will make is, if the medical community consider that these are conditions in which trying to save the baby is warranted (which they obviously did up to a certain point) then the cases where the medical staff advise not to intervene can only be worse.

[Marilyn. 340]

I just want to point out that I didn't share that because I wanted sympathy I just wanted to share that those decisions are very hard and doesn't mean that we are monsters or murderers for making them...

Edited April 29, 2010 by Marilyn.

[Deputy Purple 1,294]

our baby boy was born premature at around 23 weeks.. the doctor sat down with us after about 12 days and said it wasn't looking good, he would most definitely be blind and deaf and there was a 90% chance he would have cerebral palsy... and this was at that point in time.. they still hadn't been able to stabilize him... so most likely he would have ended up being brain dead... so my husband and I had to make the difficult decision to take him off life support.. we didn't want him to have to live like that...

My heart goes out to you. While I can't say I knows how you situation felt I can empathize.

Last summer my mother had a massive brain aneurysm, she had survived one about 10 years earlier and was never quite the same. This time the brain damage was extensive, after a day of tests the neurologists advised us that her best hope was to remain in a Persistent Vegetative State as there was zero higher brain function. They explained that on machines her body could keep living for years. We had to make the difficult decision to terminate life support, I can't imagine that she would have ever wanted to go on like that. If took 4 more days for her body to quit functioning, they were four very long and agonizing days for the whole family.

I still believe our decision was compassionate not selfish.

[rika60607 215]

22 week baby is not the same as 22 week fetus. The one in the story is a 22 week fetus.

They are called babies as soon as they are born. So he lived 3 days, so he was a 3 day baby!

Very disturbing. Terrible. And someone compared the 22 week baby to an amoeba. Right, cause that weighs 2 pounds too and can feel pain as well.

[Danno 1,228]

Update

It looks as the "deformity" which caused this child to be trashed was a cleft lip and palate.

So no PIKE it wasn't a child destined to be connected to feeding tubes for life as you mentioned, it wasn't even a brain damaged child.

If this child were a stray seal which was found deformed on a beach somewhere, it would be given more care... and protection than was afforded this little guy. (or girl)

-----------------------------------------------

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/7652889/Baby-that-survived-botched-abortion-was-rejected-for-cleft-lip-and-palate.html

Baby that survived botched abortion was rejected for cleft lip and palate

A baby found alive nearly a day after a failed abortion in Italy had been rejected by his mother because he had a cleft lip and palate, according to reports.

By Simon Caldwell

Published: 4:26PM BST 29 Apr 2010

The 22-week infant was found breathing a day after the operation. He 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 revealed that the foetus had a cleft lip and palate, according to reports in the Italian media. The condition is treatable with surgery.

The baby - weighing just 11oz - survived the procedure, carried out on Saturday in the Rossano Calabro hospital, but 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.

The story has caused outrage in Italy, where many have called for the country's abortion laws to be changed.

On Thursday, Archbishop Santo Marciano of Rossano-Cariati, criticised the "arbitrary superficiality" of hospital staff and said the Catholic country should reflect on its attitudes both to the unborn and to the disabled.

The prelate said the case should "lead civil society to reflect on the tragic character of abortion, in so far as it is the suppression of a human being, and in this case, on the illicit character of the definition 'therapeutic'.

"In fact, it is not a 'cure' but reinforces the eugenic mentality that is spreading, and which not only increases recourse to abortion, but poses serious questions regarding the alleged benefit to the woman's health and on the natural meaning of maternity," he told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

"It also invites us to consider with what ease a person who is seriously malformed and simply undesired is treated inhumanly."

Bishop Elio Sgreccia, a former senior Vatican official, said the law needed to be clarified to ensure that viable foetuses - those able to survive outside the womb - are protected by law.

"If the aborted foetus, in a voluntary or accidental way, is alive - also if it is at the limit of survival, at the age limit - the doctor is in the presence of a foetus that, because it is strong or because the dates were not properly calculated, fortunately, is living," he said.

The doctor "is obliged to make it live", the bishop told Vatican Radio, adding that "the law must clarify this".

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 has promised an inquiry.

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.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Update

It looks as the "deformity" which caused this child to be trashed was a cleft lip and palate.

So no PIKE it wasn't a child destined to be connected to feeding tubes for life as you mentioned, it wasn't even a brain damaged child.

If the cleft palate was the sole reason for this abortion, needless to say - I don't agree with it. Who would?

If this child were a stray seal which was found deformed on a beach somewhere, it would be given more care... and protection than was afforded this little guy. (or girl)

Take it up with Italians.

[Peikko 1,575]

The source for this proof that the disability was a mild one is the Italian media?

I am very doubtful that late abortion was offered if all that was wrong was a minor disorder that could easily be cosmetically rectified; but none the less, if it was, this was very clearly wrong, and Italian law on abortion does not allow for it and there will be prosecutions.