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Aborted baby in Italy survives for two days (the details are now emerging)
cna ^ | May 1, 2010

Posted on 05/01/2010 2:42:30 PM PDT by NYer

Rome, Italy, May 1, 2010 / 11:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Fr. Antonio Martello, a hospital chaplain was shocked to see that the baby boy he was praying over was still breathing, a day after he had been aborted at 22 weeks. The case of a "therapeutic" abortion in Rossano Calabro, Italy raises questions about the reliability of sonographies in diagnosing deformities.

Due to a perceived, and as yet unspecified, malformation of the fetus, possibly a cleft palate, the mother had solicited the abortion at a public hospital in the southern Italian city.

The "interruption" of the pregnancy was carried out in the early afternoon of April 24, Fr. Martello told Italy's Il Foglio newspaper this week. The day after, at 11 a.m., he went to pray for the child as he said he always does with aborted and stillborn children.

Noting movement under the sheet with which the babe was covered, the chaplain removed it and saw the child kick. "When I called for help and the pediatrician and anesthetist arrived ... they also observed that the baby was breathing, moving and that (his) heart was beating," he told Il Foglio.
"What I witnessed last Sunday had never happened to me before," said the priest, who was unable to make further comment due his involvement as a witness in the investigation of the case.

According to neonatal specialists, reported the newspaper, vital signs are so subtle in a 22-week old child that only an expert could recognize them. Due to the lack of pulmonary development, the child should not even be able to breathe unassisted, "not for an entire, very long day, but not even for an hour," they reported.

Director of Neonatal Studies at the University of Turin, Claudio Fabris, told Il Foglio that it is "in consideration of the fleeting possibility of survival at 22 gestational weeks (that) many health companies ... have established internal regulations that prohibit therapeutic abortions after that period."

The possibility of survival at that age has seen an increase in recent years in Italy. According to the national statistics, in 2008 five babies of 41 born prematurely at 22 weeks survived, in the previous three years only one survivor was recorded in 28 cases.

"As you can see," said Fabris, "the numbers are extremely scant. But we have the obligation to treat the newborn in extreme prematurity as any person in risky conditions and we must assist him or her adequately."

According to Italian law, if the possibility exists that the fetus can live autonomously, an "interruption" can only take place when the mother's life is in serious danger and in that case doctor's must adopt "every appropriate measure" to safeguard the life of the child.

There is no specific time limit established within the law, which, as the newspaper explained, allows space for medical advancements that increase the possibility of the child's survival at ever younger periods of gestation.

Obstetricians and Gynecologists from the Medical Colleges in four major Roman universities affirmed this law in a statement in 2008 in which they sustained that from "the moment of birth the law attributes the fullness of the right to life and, therefore, to healthcare."

It is further stated in the joint document that doctors must also do everything possible to save the child who survives an abortion, "even if the mother is against it, because the interests of the newborn prevail."

The right to abandon the child at birth is also guaranteed by law, underlines Il Foglio, but "health personnel have the duty to assist the aborted baby, when he or she can survive."

In the case of the child from Rossano Calabro, after spending his first day of life under sheet, the baby died in an incubator in the intensive neonatal therapy unit at a second hospital in nearby Cosenza the next day.

Doctors predicted that his age could have been underestimated thus explaining his development and subsequent survival.
 
A margin of error of four or five days, Dr. Fabris said, is "fundamental for explaining the survival of that baby."

Although it is still not known, probability suggests that the malformation of the baby may not have been serious. Geneticist Bruno Dallapiccola, scientific director of Rome's Bambino Gesu pediatric hospital, told Il Foglio that in his experience of thousands of cases, "80 percent of the pathologies found sonographically, after a competent genetic consultancy, reveal themselves to be completely compatible with the normality of the unborn child."

After sonographies in other institutions, he said, "couples arrive to me terrorized, with diagnoses almost always, fortunately, without true consequences."

An autopsy is currently being carried out which will shed more light on the case from Rossano, possibly clarifying the age of the child and the nature and gravity of his malformation. In the meantime, a judicial process is being brought against a doctor and two nurses for voluntary homicide.

Archbishop of Rossano, Santo Marciano, told Vatican Radio this week that such a case is "something truly aberrant.

"I define all this as barbaric," he said. "I believe that non-Christians might also be in agreement on this."

Inspectors from the ministry of health will begin their investigation of the case on Monday.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abortion; catholic; italy; prolife; prolifeworldwide
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1 posted on 05/01/2010 2:42:30 PM PDT by NYer
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To: netmilsmom; thefrankbaum; markomalley; Tax-chick; GregB; saradippity; Berlin_Freeper; Litany; ...
The "interruption" of the pregnancy was carried out in the early afternoon of April 24

Interruption? You mean the abortionwas carried out ....

Let's call it for what it is.

Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list


2 posted on 05/01/2010 2:43:57 PM PDT by NYer ("Where Peter is, there is the Church." - St. Ambrose of Milan)
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To: NYer

What has happened to this world? I am truly puzzled....yet I know the reason and the perpetrator. Yet, I ask...what has happened to the principles that my father...and the fathers of countless others stood up and went to die for?


3 posted on 05/01/2010 2:48:09 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (The only moral use of violence is in retaliation against those who initiate its use.)
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To: NYer
in consideration of the fleeting possibility of survival at 22 gestational weeks

It's really fleeting if you do nothing.

The survival rate ain't great, but it's not zero....unless you do nothing.

Then it's Murder.

4 posted on 05/01/2010 2:50:28 PM PDT by Regulator (Welcome to Zimbabwe! Now hand over your property....)
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To: NYer

The new leftspeak”: Murder is now termed as “an interruption of life”.

I also didn’t know that a cleft palate warranted the death penalty.


5 posted on 05/01/2010 2:50:54 PM PDT by aSeattleConservative
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To: NYer

It is barbaric. The Europeans ban executions of adults and yell at us for allowing them, yet they allow abortions. No nation should look at themselves as superior to others as long as they allow baby murders.


6 posted on 05/01/2010 2:51:16 PM PDT by FreeAtlanta (Hey, Barack "Hubris" Obama, $10 is all it would take, why spend millions to cover it up?)
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To: NYer

My husband was born with a severe club foot. I have to say that I am very fortunate to have met him and had three beautiful daughters with him.

I think that it is absolutely despicable to abort any child, and I am absolutely perplexed with the justification of aborting a child if they have a cleft palate or say a club foot. If my husbands Mom and Dad were to have seen his malformed foot on ultrasound(wasn’t around yet) would they have been offered that choice? Knowing my husbands parents, they would have told them to stick it.

How can people be so superficial as to abort for malformations such as these. How do they rectify this in their heads? I will never understand this mindset.


7 posted on 05/01/2010 2:53:58 PM PDT by Mrs. Frogjerk
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To: NYer
Praise be to God Who now has the little one in His loving presence! May God turn this tragedy into glory for Him; may all those who were involved in this evil repent so that they can be forgiven.
8 posted on 05/01/2010 2:56:16 PM PDT by skr (May God confound the enemy)
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To: NYer

therapeutic???? OH MY GOSH, so now if you look different an abortion is in order that’s therapeutic??? That’s sick. interrupted, what the heck, interrupted???? Let’s just call it what it is, murder.


9 posted on 05/01/2010 3:02:50 PM PDT by MsLady (If you died tonight, where would you go? Salvation, don't leave earth without it!)
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To: FreeAtlanta

Amen to that!!!


10 posted on 05/01/2010 3:05:14 PM PDT by MsLady (If you died tonight, where would you go? Salvation, don't leave earth without it!)
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To: MsLady

It is merely satanspeak i.o.w. PC speak.


11 posted on 05/01/2010 3:06:54 PM PDT by 353FMG (What can Islam possibly contribute to America other than its destruction?)
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts
What has happened to this world?

Moral relativism ... secularism. The notion that "anything" goes.

When abortion was first legalized, it was intended for the early stages of pregnancy. Then it was expanded, based on someone's objection. Now it reaches to the 3rd trimester to 'resolve' the problems of physical handicaps ... essentially, mercy killing. In this case, the child had a cleft lip and palate, a very treatable condition. But the 'secularist' society says: "Who are we to judge the hardship such a condition might cause for the birthmother?".

And that is what has happened to this world.

12 posted on 05/01/2010 3:07:41 PM PDT by NYer ("Where Peter is, there is the Church." - St. Ambrose of Milan)
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To: 353FMG

Total agree!!! I’m really sick of the sweet little words they use for one of the ugliest acts on earth.


13 posted on 05/01/2010 3:09:21 PM PDT by MsLady (If you died tonight, where would you go? Salvation, don't leave earth without it!)
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To: NYer

Interrupted my foot!
they murdered a baby (almost)
God forgive them and I wonder if He really can?


14 posted on 05/01/2010 3:17:47 PM PDT by cubreporter (Rush is an American Patriot. He has been blessed with exceptional wisdom. Thank God for Rush!!!)
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts

Indeed. A very good question. I am hoping the Lord is taking HIS time but when the time is right HE will decend upon this sinful world and make it whole again.


15 posted on 05/01/2010 3:18:57 PM PDT by cubreporter (Rush is an American Patriot. He has been blessed with exceptional wisdom. Thank God for Rush!!!)
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To: Mrs. Frogjerk
I think that it is absolutely despicable to abort any child, and I am absolutely perplexed with the justification of aborting a child if they have a cleft palate or say a club foot.

Dear Mrs. Frogjerk. You have been blessed to recognize that a club foot does not a person make. In today's relativist society, however, a club foot is an impediment to perfection. Parents want "perfect" children. In today's society, a club foot is reason to abort a baby. And, worse yet, society agrees! They rationalize this notion with a - "Who are we to judge this woman?" - mentality.

When Pope Benedict XVI visited Australia in 2008, he commented:

"Relativism, by indiscriminately giving value to practically everything, has made 'experience' all-important. Yet experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect,"

Moral relativism is the bane of contemporary society in the western world. It can only lead to our own downfall as a civilization.

16 posted on 05/01/2010 3:20:21 PM PDT by NYer ("Where Peter is, there is the Church." - St. Ambrose of Milan)
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To: MsLady

Amen.
It is MURDER plain and simple.
A baby’s little head punctured and collapsed.
Limbs torn apart!
Yet there are those who hold candle vigils outside prisons for evil men and women awaiting their deaths.
Sickening and wrong, wrong, wrong no matter how it is depicted. The only reason they want it legalized is because it would mean there was no baby there at all...just tissue. That way they don’t have to live with the guilt of murdering someone. It’s sinful and to me absolutely incomprehensible that one adult human being could do this to a baby.


17 posted on 05/01/2010 3:22:17 PM PDT by cubreporter (Rush is an American Patriot. He has been blessed with exceptional wisdom. Thank God for Rush!!!)
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To: cubreporter
God forgive them and I wonder if He really can?

God can forgiven the truly repentant. You can be sure that this incident which has now become a national scandal, will burn a hole deep within the hearts of the birthmother and her family. They need our prayers! For it is only in repentance that one receives mercy. This decision will be forever in their thoughts and hearts. They will carry it into eternity. What a cross to bear!

18 posted on 05/01/2010 3:25:20 PM PDT by NYer ("Where Peter is, there is the Church." - St. Ambrose of Milan)
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To: cubreporter

I totally agree. We truly live in a sick twisted world.


19 posted on 05/01/2010 3:29:21 PM PDT by MsLady (If you died tonight, where would you go? Salvation, don't leave earth without it!)
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To: MsLady

True. Imagine going into a place so dark and dank like an abortion clinic knowing what is going to happen to your own baby...your own flesh and blood. I sure the hell can’t.


20 posted on 05/01/2010 3:40:16 PM PDT by cubreporter (Rush is an American Patriot. He has been blessed with exceptional wisdom. Thank God for Rush!!!)
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