The ECJL (European Centre for Law and Justice) has published a damning report on “late abortions and neonatal infanticides in Europe”.
This report contains a series of testimonies from doctors, midwives and nurses who have witnessed lethal injections, suffocation and the abandonment of new-born infants who have survived an abortion or medical abortion. This report reveals that “generally, the parents are not told that their child has survived. Similarly, they are not informed of the real cause of death”.
According to a study carried out in 2000 (end-of-life decisions in neonatal intensive care: physicians’ self-reported practices in seven European countries), “73% of French neonatology doctors reported having administered lethal medicinal products to new-born infants at some point during their career”.
Grégor Puppinck, Director of the ECJL, reminds us that a “premature baby, even if born during a late abortion, is a human being and must benefit from treatment and the right to live, just like any human being”. Thus, the report refers to a law enacted in the United States in 2002 to protect new-born infants “without knowing whether the umbilical cord had been cut and if the expulsion or extraction was following a natural, voluntary procedure, a Caesarean section or an abortion”.
He believes that it is “humanly possible to improve the situation for both the child and the family concerned, primarily by developing good neonatal treatment practices”.
This report supports the petition signed by 210,000 Europeans against infanticides performed on babies who survive late abortions or medical abortions. This topic was deemed “too sensitive” by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the European Parliament of the Council of Europe, which turned down the petition on 23 June. It will shortly be presented to the Office of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which must pass judgement on 31 August 2015.
Famille chrétienne (Arianne Lecointre-Cloix) 07/07/2015