Infanticide and Late-Term Abortion: Doctors and Midwives Testify
With the approach of the debates initiated by the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) to the Council of Europe on the rights of infants surviving their abortion, doctors, and midwives begin to testify about the fate of these children.
On the 23rd of June, the Council of Europe will decide on the admissibility of the Petition Against Neonatal Infanticide signed by over 200,000 people, who asked it to reaffirm the right to life and to the care of babies surviving their abortion. These children are often left to die without care and disposed of with organic waste.
To prevent this debate, some Members of the Assembly say that such facts do not exist. This is why it is important that doctors, midwives, and nurses dare testify to this reality. The ECLJ will present a report containing testimonies and statistics to members of the Council of Europe.
We would like to share two examples of testimonies we received (names have been removed):
Testimony of a midwife:
As a midwife for almost 9 years, I can testify that babies born from late abortions (case of abortion on medical grounds (ITG)) without feticide, that is to say usually between 20 and 24 weeks gestation, may be born alive. The medical team is then often uncomfortable and either puts the baby in a tray in a separate room until he stops showing signs of life, or asks a gynecologist, anesthetist or pediatrician for a morphine injection in the cord that some accept ... or not. For my part, I have already proposed to concerned couples, if the baby was alive at birth, to lay him on the woman's stomach for him to die with dignity; two couples agreed. I recently decided not to participate in abortions on demand or abortions on medical grounds and to apply my conscience clause, which I can do because I am incumbent. I will probably leave the relevant services, including the delivery room. Those contractual employees who would apply their conscience clause are threatened with dismissal.
Testimony of a student in midwife school
“I am a midwife student in the last year, and saw, during an internship in a maternity department of the North (59), a child born alive from an abortion on medical grounds (IMG). He was 24 weeks of gestation and the midwife left the child struggling to breathe, by leaving the baby alone on the resuscitation table. He died within 10 minutes, greatly weakened by labor contractions (triggered). We did not check the heart sounds during labor, to "preserve" the mother. And the midwife told me that in these cases, "it is born dead if he is lucky, otherwise ... well... we have no choice... for the parents...” I saw a baby struggle against death, in total indifference to his suffering... A chilling inhumanity... This leads to situations of horror... I saw this at 19, I'm 22 and I’ll never forget... I have the desire to become a doctor in order to treat those who no longer have "the right" to be cared for...”
Like any other premature baby, these babies deserve to be taken care of.