This is what Western Civilization is becoming. From the story:
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. 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.
Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?
April 30th, 2010 | 12:29 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Lisa, Bellez and Bellez , Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Italian Baby Aborted at 22 Weeks for Cleft Palate–Born Alive, Left to Die » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://shar.es/mcp5d [...]
April 30th, 2010 | 1:34 am
Thanks Wesley for your important work informing us of the consequences of the pro-choice mentality. This is clearly an example of the ruthless logic, that indicates that, if one always has a right to control one’s body, well, this would include up to the moment of birth. The pro-choice zealots hate these stories more than anything, I think, because it reveals the lie that the unborn are not human.
Of course, as George Will has rightly pointed out, Peter Singer is the pro-choicers worst nightmare. He has the value of, at least, consistency. If you’re going to allow abortions, in his view, not only should you allow them up to the moment of birth, but, hey, the newborn is no more deserving of rights than the preborn, so, Singer maintains, one could permissibly kill her too! but Singer is not really that consistent: he thinks that the baby has no rights up to a month,postbirth. why, one might ask? There is no rational basis for this ridiculous claim.
These stories, as sad as they are, need to continue to be told, so that one day, all fetuses and newborns will have the protection that they deserve.
April 30th, 2010 | 4:04 am
[...] Read more from the original source: Italian Baby Aborted at 22 Weeks for Cleft Palate–Born Alive, Left … [...]
April 30th, 2010 | 4:10 am
[...] More here: Italian Baby Aborted at 22 Weeks for Cleft Palate–Born Alive, Left … [...]
April 30th, 2010 | 7:42 am
Lord have mercy upon us.
April 30th, 2010 | 7:42 am
So only a pretty baby deserved to live.
April 30th, 2010 | 11:45 am
Thank you for posting these kinds of stories, and please continue to do so. People often don’t believe me when I speak of the culture of death, and it’s so important to note the accumulation of these stories. We need to become outraged.
April 30th, 2010 | 12:02 pm
We live in a politically correct culture in name only. Really, the belief out there is that there are just some people who are too ugly to have earned the right to respect, and some are just so ugly that they deserve to die. Unfortunately, a culture like that will fall under the weight of its own insecurities.
April 30th, 2010 | 12:05 pm
Or, perhaps I should say, unfortunately a culture like that will do its damage by trying to “improve itself” first only to fall under the weight of its own insecurities.
I don’t think it’s unfortunate that it will fall, only that it will damage other people in the process.
April 30th, 2010 | 12:44 pm
I am sorry this story is so [expletive deleted]! It never happened, and stories that are made up do not go to helping us make our case.
April 30th, 2010 | 1:16 pm
Excuse me, Bob, but how the heck do you know whether or not this happened? Where you there? Stop denying reality in order to be politically correct.
April 30th, 2010 | 3:07 pm
I’m sorry, Bob, but I think we’re going to need more than your word as proof that this never happened. (I mean it isn’t like sex selection abortions never occur, right? Oh wait, they do!)
April 30th, 2010 | 5:48 pm
@Bret Which part do you find ridiculous and irrational, the baby not having rights before a month, or having rights thereafter? I think Singer presents very good reasons for the former, but I agree the latter is irrational.
April 30th, 2010 | 8:53 pm
having children is amazing! Every story I hear of children dying hurts. It does not matter where.
May 1st, 2010 | 2:18 am
Hi Josh: “Which part do you find ridiculous and irrational,the baby not having rights before a month, or having rights thereafter?”
Josh, I think that it’s ridiculous and irrational, to assert that a baby has no rights prior to birth, (when it’s called a fetus), and anytime after birth. There’s simply no rational basis for Singer’s claims.
Singer asserts in his book, Practical Ethics, that only persons cannot be permissably killed. And he defines personhood, as having consciousness, AND rationality. Clearly fetuses and newborns don’t possess these traits, so they have no moral standing, in his view. He asserts that “personhood” is reached at about a month, therefore, in his assessment, it’s no longer permissible to kill a baby after one month.
For someone like Singer, who, normally, whether one agrees with him on issues or not, presents reasons for his views, here he’s strangely contradictory: the month old baby is conscious, so it fullfils one of his criteria for personhood, but no baby, pre-month, or post-month, or child for that matter, is rational. So, Singer is not following his other criterion for personhood, rationality.
He must know this, he’s not stupid after all. There’s simply no rational basis for asserting that at one month, a human is now a “person”, and should have all of the protections the rest of us have. Even, as I’ve demonstrated, if one accepts the definition of personhood that Singer (who actually, as he states in the book, borrows his definition from John Locke, the seventeenth century english empiricist), advocates, it’s internally inconsistent. To be consistent, he would have to find when in human development rationality emerges, and claim that all humans prior to this, could be legitiamtely killed!
Clearly, and frankly, Singer’s views are dangerous, and should be rejected.
May 1st, 2010 | 8:54 am
Most students of History know the story of Sparta’s parents towards their children. They could have supported their wounded babies & the deformed but they chose to destroy them for their imperfections. How much worse they would have been with todays lost ethics supported by inhumane laws & medical practitioners who have devalued the life of babies to this point in History. Something tells me that the fact that God was angry enough to kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden pales for wanting to act as gods knowing the knowledge of good and Evil is wasted on this generation.
May 1st, 2010 | 9:00 am
Yes Wils, Having Children is amazing and giving them full worth in our society is a lost art for some of the legalize of today’s world. Ethics should begin with the first heat beat heard from the womb and end with the knowledge that we people of Souls make sure every life is protected till the last self-sustaining heart beat fails before the tomb.
May 1st, 2010 | 5:51 pm
Bret, as you’ve pointed out, there is no basis for the arbitrary line at one month post-partum that Singer draws. I agree, it is irrational.
But saying his ideas are dangerous simply means you don’t agree with the premise that infants do not have the right to live. It’s not really an argument, because for somebody who feels infants have no rights, there is consequently no danger.
May 1st, 2010 | 9:05 pm
There is most definetly a danger of losing our humanity when we ignore the callousness of killing the weakest and yet most promising members of the human society.
May 1st, 2010 | 9:11 pm
“Left to die…” And then a couple of sentences later, we’re told that the baby died “in an intensive care unit.” Now that doesn’t sound very much like being tossed in a corner and taken out with the laundry. Really, Wesley, if you’re going to dabble in propaganda you ought to get your fibs straight.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 1st, 2010 at 11:10 pm
He was left to die by the abortion doctor. Found, and sent to intensive care. Can’t you read?
May 1st, 2010 | 10:08 pm
Hi Josh:”But saying his ideas are dangerous simply means you don’t agree with the premise that infants do not have the right to live. It’s not really an argument, because for somebody who feels infants have no rights, there is consequently no danger.”
Josh,we both agree that someone who believes that, say, all teenagers really are not persons should be killed, is dangerous to society, right? Because the right to life is the right that all other rights depend on. That is, the argument is as follows: proper moral reasoning requires us to respect rights. The right to life is the greatest right, because, without it, no other rights could exist. It would be obvious, that someone who threatens the right to life would be dangerous, wouldn’t it?
Well, Singer believes that a whole group of beings have no right to life(actually, he believes no one has rights, since he’s a utilitarian, so maybe we could say, a whole class of beings can be permissibly killed, in his view). If his arguments have been shown (as I think that I did, in the previous post), to be fallacious, and the right to life is the greatest of rights, it would follow that someone unjustly attempting to take away that right is dangerous.
May 2nd, 2010 | 2:24 am
Yes Bret, “it would follow that someone unjustly attempting to take away that right is dangerous”, but how do you know it’s unjustly? You can’t say ‘because it’s dangerous it’s unjust’ because it’s only dangerous if it’s unjust.
May 2nd, 2010 | 7:16 am
History Writer “Left to die…” And then a couple of sentences later, we’re told that the baby died “in an intensive care unit.” Now that doesn’t sound very much like being tossed in a corner and taken out with the laundry. Really, Wesley, if you’re going to dabble in propaganda you ought to get your fibs straight.”
Common sense would tell you that the Dr. left the baby to die as was recorded in the article after the failed abortion attempt and that it most likely was not attached tp a life support system which any Dr. would designate for a 22 week old abortion *FAILURE.* It is your cognitive reasoning power that challenged that you would insinuate Wesley was lying because you lack mental faculties of reasoning out the meaning of a 22 week old failed abortion versus a 36 week full term birth?????? You work very hard on destroying your own credibility in making such a charge against Wesley as the article clearly supports Wesley’s claims as would any Standard procedure for any baby born at 22 weeks and how protecting such a living child would be handled in a compassionate hospital.
May 2nd, 2010 | 11:02 am
[...] Born Alive Survives, Left to Die By nohiddenmagenta Nothing more needs to be said about this horrible story. I’m not sure I could say it anyway without losing it: A baby found alive nearly a day [...]
May 2nd, 2010 | 8:17 pm
Hi Josh: We can start with the premise that no person should ever be deprived of her life, unless she is trying to kill someone else, and the only way to stop her from killing someone else, is to kill her. Any killing that is incongruent with the above premise is unjust.
Since Singer’s assertions, regarding the personhood status of the fetus, and newborn, are wrong, and the fetus and newborn are indeed persons, who are not threatening the lives of anyone, it stands to reason that it would be unjust to kill them.
May 3rd, 2010 | 2:43 am
Bret, I mostly agree with your premise about killing. I’d also say it’s perfectly valid to deprive somebody of their life if they wish their life taken from them.
As for your counter-assertion against Singer, is where I have to disagree with you. I think Singer is correct regarding the personhood of the foetus and newborn, so therefore I don’t think his views are a danger at all.
May 3rd, 2010 | 6:29 am
God made a terrible mistake in creating humans. He should have made the human skin transparent for this generation so the family of fetus could see just how special the human embyro really is to everyone but the most callous members of the human family. Maybe even the mother of this child could have know just how special her child really was despite the facial problems that are easily corrected today. She certainly doesn’t have Sarah Palin’s courage or convictions towards the gift of every life.
May 3rd, 2010 | 8:55 am
Donnie McLeod. This happened in Italy. No sense in blubbering over it here in the USA. If you and Wesley have problems with the quality of Italian medical care and the so-called “culture of death” you ought to be talking with the Italian consulate.
BTW, Steve Ertelt, one of Wesley’s bosom buddies, even tried spinning this story into an attack on President Obama. http://www.lifenews.com/nat6288.html
Go figure.
When it comes to creativity, nobody beats propagandists.
May 3rd, 2010 | 8:58 am
Wesley. You wrote: “He was left to die by the abortion doctor. Found, and sent to intensive care. Can’t you read?”
Sure I can. It’s just that I have a selective reading impairment when it comes to BS and propaganda. Know what I mean?
May 3rd, 2010 | 10:17 am
HistoryWriter,
The “attack” was a mention that our President vigorously fought against legal ramifications for that happening in the US. The primary point was that it does happen here, not just Italy, and that’s not BS or propaganda. Perhaps if you put yourself in a prolifer’s shoes for a moment – if indeed it’s true we’ve taken more than 50 million innocent human lives the last 40 years – you’d see there’s a lot at stake in ending what a prolife person would consider one of the gravest evils of the entire blood-drenched 20th Century.
May 3rd, 2010 | 11:17 am
So HW is saying that the story is _lying_ when it states that a priest found the baby still breathing, left alone without medical care? How the heck do these people claim to _know_ these things? The priest went to pray by the baby’s body (he believed it was dead) and found it breathing. _Then_ it was taken to have care. It’s not like it’s unclear. I don’t have time to check Wesley’s link, but this is the report in the news story I read.
May 3rd, 2010 | 1:50 pm
Lydia:
Time for a reality check. Where in Wesley’s article does it say that “a priest found the baby still breathing, left alone without medical care”? Wesley doesn’t tell us how the baby was found, or by whom. In fact, he qualifies this whole unlikely story with “according to reports,” without citing a single source.
Time for a second reality check. Italian priests don’t hang out in Italian operating rooms any more than American priests hang out in American operating rooms. ORs are generally off limits to all except authorized staff, just like prep rooms in funeral homes.
The current version of the story is that some unidentified priest just happened by to pray over the fetal remains. Who was he? What was he doing there? Where did it happen: in the morgue? In the laundry room? In a corridor? The silence is deafening. I’m willing to bet that this story will get better and better with each telling. I wonder what’ll be next? “An angel descended from the O.R. ceiling, struck the entire hospital staff blind, and miraculously transported the baby to the ICU”? Why not? It makes about as much sense as expecting an 11oz., 22-week fetus to survive an abortion in the first place.
May 3rd, 2010 | 1:54 pm
Wesley: I almost forgot to ask: is that heartwarming photo stock footage from National Right to Life, or just something you dug up yourself?
May 3rd, 2010 | 2:04 pm
JustChris: Have you ever tried putting yourself in a “pro-choicer’s” shoes? We don’t believe we have a mandate from God Almighty to stick our collective noses into other people’s business. Do you?
May 3rd, 2010 | 5:35 pm
HistoryWriter
May 3rd, 2010 | 8:55 am
Donnie McLeod. This happened in Italy. No sense in blubbering over it here in the USA. If you and Wesley have problems with the quality of Italian medical care and the so-called “culture of death” you ought to be talking with the Italian consulate.
BTW, Steve Ertelt, one of Wesley’s bosom buddies, even tried spinning this story into an attack on President Obama. http://www.lifenews.com/nat6288.html
Go figure.
When it comes to creativity, nobody beats propagandists.”"
How true your last styatement is. In fact you lack the courage to evben attempt to search out the truth because you are so busy spinning your own brand of propaganda which is far removed from the truth.
The truth is this. The Police are investigating possible charges because the story is true. If the abortion was as callously done as indicated in the News articles the abortionists and the mother could be both charged. That news will push your nose out of joint if theyu are charged because you lack that sense of humanity HW.
http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/rossano/aborted-baby-was-rejected-cleft-palate
Police are already looking into the possibility of bringing a homicide charge against the Rossano Calabro Hospital and a Ministry of Health investigation begins today. The investigations will focus primarily on who was responsible for declaring the child dead after the abortion. At the very least charges of negligence are expected to be brought.
May 3rd, 2010 | 5:43 pm
From same article in a News paper which also reported how the child was found by a *****PRIEST***** from many articles supporting Wesley’s article.
http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/rossano/aborted-baby-was-rejected-cleft-palate
The 22-week-old baby was found alive a day after the operation by a ****priest**** who went to pray beside his body in the Rossano Calabro Hospital [Cosenza, Calabria]. The priest was astonished when he saw that there was movement under the sheet with which the child was covered and he immediately called for help.
May 3rd, 2010 | 7:46 pm
HW:
Wesley included one of those newfangled “hyperlinks” in his post. Turns out you can click that “hyperlink” and read the original story! You might even answer some of your own questions!
May 3rd, 2010 | 8:15 pm
Josh: i find it suprising that you agree with Singer regarding the personhood status of the fetus and newborn, considering my demonstration that Singer is not even consistent with his own criteria.
Like I stated, Singer’s criteria for personhood is Consciousness and rationality. But, he claims that one month old babies, are now persons, but they don’t fit his criteria (the rationality part) for personhood.
This is a huge red flag. When an important moral philosopher cannot consistenly meet his own standards, one must be highly suspicious of his system, at least with respect to his views on personhood.
As I’ve stated, for him to be consistent with his own criteria for personhood, he must allow humans, up to, say, age eighteen (the approximate age when rationality is matured), to be killed.
Read his book, Practical Ethics, and tell me what you think.
May 3rd, 2010 | 8:43 pm
History Writer: The prolife position no more relies on religious premises than the prochoice position. There are atheists, such as Nat Hentoff, who wholeheartedly endorse the prolife viewpoint. Why? Because all embryology, human genetics, neurbiology, hardly disciplines derived from religious premises, lead any objective, fairminded person to the conclusion that the fetus is every bit as human as you or me, but merely in an early stage of development.
I challange you to provide evidence that the above, that fetuses are as human as you or me, except in an earlier stage of development.
history writer, you seem like a reasonable chap, so I’ll look forward to your refutation, of my claim, or your acceptance into the prolife community.
May 3rd, 2010 | 9:40 pm
HistoryWriter: “Have you ever tried putting yourself in a ‘pro-choicer’s’ shoes? We don’t believe we have a mandate from God Almighty to stick our collective noses into other people’s business.”
What mandate do you need in order to understand basic reproductive science?
May 4th, 2010 | 9:07 am
HW,
I would, but given I was conceived out of wedlock and considered for abortion, it’s hard to argue I should never have been born, ’cause frankly, I like it here.
I believe no human being should be arbitrarily stripped of their “personhood” and killed or unjustly used for convenience, whether they be black, a Jew, or an unborn child. I believe human life is valuable in every circumstance. Do you? What gives anyone a mandate to stick a suction curette on another person’s arm and rip it off?
May 4th, 2010 | 3:26 pm
This comment is just for anyone who is reading and even tempted to buy into HistoryWriter’s tiresome ignorance about the prolife movement being a bunch of nosy religious folk:
http://secularprolife.org/
http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html
This discussion includes other resources (articles, interviews and essays)
for atheist/nonbelievers who are prolife.:
http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/prolifenonbelievers/forum/topics/favorite-prolife
And for those who think all prolifers are just straight, white republicans:
http://www.l4l.org/ (Libertarians for life)
and
http://www.plagal.org/ (Prolife Alliance of Gays and Lesbians)
and
http://www.nationalblackprolifeunion.com/
…to name a few.
May 4th, 2010 | 3:28 pm
Oops..forgot one of my own personal prolife homes:
http://www.feministsforlife.org/
May 4th, 2010 | 5:51 pm
Not an unidentified priest. His name was Fr. Antonio Martello, hospital chaplain at Rossano Calabro hospital. The story is here, at a propaganda outlet for the American Life League. Oh, guess not:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/7646540/Baby-boy-survives-for-nearly-two-days-after-abortion.html
May 4th, 2010 | 6:41 pm
Bret, I agree with the conclusions of Singer (i.e. the foetus and newborn are not persons). I do not agree with Singer’s logic, as Singer does indeed contradict himself by stating infants are persons after one month of age.
The bioethicist whose views mine align most closely is John Harris, who states a criteria for personhood as ‘being able to value one’s own life’ (based on the premise that the only thing wrong with death is being forced into it unwillingly). He does not state a threshold age, which I think is valid due to the difficulty in ascertaining if somebody is able to value their own life, but certainly neonates are not persons.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 4th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Josh, and therein lies tyranny. But hey, we always pretend those we kill, exploit, oppress, and use as a natural resource are unter menschen. Yes, Harris is prominent in my Culture of Death and speeches. He is also influential at NICE, which explains a lot.
May 4th, 2010 | 11:25 pm
Doesn’t anybody see the absurdity of this story? The only source for it is the London Telegraph. All other mention of it seems to be worded identically to that paper’s “feature article,” and seems to be appearing mostly on the more rabid “pro-life” websites and blogs. It’s NOT being covered by Concerned Women for America — and not even by Steve Ertelt’s LifeNews website. Does THAT give you any ideas?
You might also consider this: a 22-week fetus averages between 10.5 and 11 inches in length, and weighs somewhere around 10-12 oz. That being the case, it is highly unlikely that it was aborted intact. In fact, even smaller fetuses are typically dismembered by the OB/GYN to enable their removal, even when the patient’s cervix has been fully dilated. Yet the writer(s) of this piece would have us believe that the fetus was not only aborted fully intact, but survived for more than a day afterward. As Mel Allen used to say: “How about THAT, folks?”
Then too, important details about the “discovery” of the fetus (such as where and how a priest happened upon it in the first place) are missing, making the story even more unlikely.
Naturally, Wesley’s picture of a live infant with a hare lip is not only tasteless, but misrepresents what was actually “discovered.” That’s nothing new, of course: the anti-choice crowd is forever dragging out pictures of cuddly little tykes and late-term aborted fetuses to illustrate articles about first trimester abortions. So what’s a little fibbing between friends?
If you really and truly believe that this case is an authentic one, and not one for the Urban Legends Department archive, you have my sympathy for suffering from terminal gullibility.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 4th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Contrary to your previous assertion, it has happened here a mere year ago, History Writer. I’d say read it and weep, but you won’t. http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/03/04/arrest-in-thrown-away-baby-who-survived-abortion-only-to-die-in-medical-waste-bag/
May 5th, 2010 | 12:55 pm
Wesley: We’re talking about what supposedly happened in Italy, not what may have “happened here a mere year ago.” Please try to stay on subject. BTW, where’d you get that adorable picture of the little hare-lipped tyke? I wonder if his parents know what you’re using it for.
May 6th, 2010 | 12:46 pm
Actually, HistoryWriter, if you do a quick search on CNN.com, you can see a seperate article written by Hada Messia of CNN that also reports this incident. The article is worded differently, and includes the fact that there are 3 investigations, including one investigation into whether the baby may have been older than originally reported (in an attempt to circumvent Italy’s abortion laws.)
Noone will ever argue that CNN is an anti-abortion or pro-life news organization. Nor should anyone argue that CNN would intentionally post false stories. So, I think the argument that the incident didn’t happen is a flawed one.
May 6th, 2010 | 6:14 pm
Dave Harshmann:
OK, there are now TWO sources. Yet nobody’s trying to address questions that are raised about the story’s validity. For example, HOW did a 22-week fetus manage survive an abortion intact in a provincial Italian hospital? How did the priest just happen to come upon the supposedly intact fetus? Where had it been deposited that the priest was able to stop and pray over it in the first place? I know this whole thing was a “feel-good” story for the anti-choice crowd, but are they so gullible that they don’t have even a single question about these amazing circumstances? Do you disagree that the whole thing sounds somewhat unlikely?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 6th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
History Writer: Assume it is legit, as it was here in the post I referenced earlier. What do you think?
May 7th, 2010 | 12:55 am
@HistoryWriter:
Your arguments strike me as those of someone who is determined to be right, no matter the evidence. I will assume that you haven’t actually read either article, since you would find each of your arguments about the unlikelyhood of the story to be refuted by one or the other.
In answer to your question, I disagree with your general statement that the story seems unlikely for the following reasons.
1) Babies as young as 24 weeks developed have successfully been born and survived, with medical assistance. While there is no substantiated record of younger babies surviving to be taken home by their parents, younger children have survived a day or two.
2) While you are correct that some abortion procedures involve dismemberment of live unborn (or semi-born) babies, not all do. Some procedures are primarily drug-based, and are meant to cause intentional miscarriage. A baby can (and sometimes does) survive this.
3) As I mentioned before, there is some evidence that the mother of this child was attempting to bypass Italy’s abortion laws by lieing about the length of her pregnancy. The child may have been more developed than 22 weeks.
4) Your question about how a priest found the child was answered in both articles (which is why I’m forced to assume you didn’t read them.) The child was left in the hospital’s chapel. Anyway, is it really that hard to imagine a priest wandering the halls of a hospital in Roman-Catholic Italy?
5) This story has been picked up by numerous respectable news outlets, whether you want to admit it or not. While news outlets may pick-and-choose which stories they emphasize, neither the most liberal nor conservative outlets accept articles without some level of fact-checking.
6) This story is not even close to being more outrageous than the kinds of news we see every day. Women abandon their children for dead with unfortunate regularity, and occassional uncaring doctors are frequently discovered performing awful acts of malpractice. This is really just more of the same, in that light.
I hope you’ll see that the questions you have raised are really no challenge to the story’s legitamacy. In fact, your own claims that the story is about “amazing circumstances” strikes me as closer to propoganda than this story does.
May 7th, 2010 | 2:33 am
History Writer: I’m curious how you continue to support abortion, when all evidence clearly supports the notion that the unborn are human.
Do you have a cut off point? That is, do you believe that, after the fetus has reached a certian stage of development, it’s no longer morally permissible to abort her?
You seem to imply that, if the Italian story is true, then it was wrong. So I hope you’ll answer Mr. Smith’s question.
May 7th, 2010 | 7:25 am
The death of a premature baby in Italy is being investigated as a homicide, but had the 22-week-old baby just died like he was supposed to during an abortion, no one would have thought twice about him. Either way, his death was murder.
Let’s consider the short life and brutal death of this boy. His mother was told he might have a disability and she decided to abort. At Priests for Life we hear these stories almost daily, of parents urged to abort to spare themselves the difficulty of raising a disabled child but who choose life instead, only to give birth to healthy, thriving children. Thanks to the controversy it stirred in the run-up to Super Bowl Sunday, the story of Tim Tebow’s predicted disability is now as legendary as his gridiron prowess. His mother was advised to abort; she chose life.
But this boy’s mother took the advice of her physician and aborted her late-term son because, according to reports in the Italian media, he had a cleft lip and palate. How he survived the abortion and how he was treated immediately after is not yet known. What we do know is that a priest found him, alone and under a sheet, 20 hours later, with his birth right now intact and full rights as an Italian citizen in force. Emergency medical care was begun, but he died a day later.
At 22 weeks, babies start to suck their thumbs. Is that how he spent those 20 cold and lonely hours? Can you picture it? Life is not so easily snuffed out, not even under such hostile conditions. People who champion a woman’s right to choose should spend just five minutes thinking about this boy’s life and death and of his rights as a human being. Legal or not, late term or not, from a moral perspective abortion is murder.
Nebraska passed a law recently that lowers the age of late-term abortions from 22 weeks to 20. The law likely will be held up in court for years. Is this really the best we, as a nation, can do?
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