Medical tests suggested baby had Down syndrome
By Dave Andrusko
A polish publication has reported that on March 7, a baby survived an abortion at 24 weeks but that doctors and medical staff at Holy Family Hospital in Warsaw, Poland, left the child to die.
According to the Global Dispatch, “The child cried and screaming for an hour before dying, according to witnesses, as reported on Republika Television.”
Hospital spokesperson Dorota Jasłowska-Niemyska “explained that a patient at the end of the 23rd week of pregnancy came to the hospital, and her medical tests suggested that the baby had Down syndrome,” the Global Dispatch reported.
“The hospital claims that everything that happened thereafter was according to the law and medical procedures. The dignity of the patient and the dignity of the fetus were respected, she continued.”
No doubt shocked by her response, a reporter from Salve TV asked about the dignity of a child that had been born alive. Jasłowska-Niemyska said, “Those are details which I can’t talk about. It is confidential, and I am not allowed to comment on the details of this procedure.”
Needless to say, pro-lifers found the explanation preposterous.
Bartosz Lewandowski, a lawyer from Ordo Iuris Institute, gave an interview to Salve TV in which
he mentioned that the Polish Doctors Code of Ethics clearly states that an unborn child is a patient, and that doctors are obligated to help. It does not matter that the mother does not want the child to live. According to the Polish Criminal Code, the newborn baby was a “child” (article 148 section 1 Criminal Code) protected by legal norms, Lewandowski concluded.
Another case “of a 22-week baby born alive after a failed abortion took place in Poland almost exactly two years ago,” Natalia Dueholm reported. “ In mid-February 2014, Polish media reported in shock and disbelief about a baby girl born in the Provincial Specialist Hospital (Wojewódzki Szpital Specjalistyczny) in Wrocław. In that case, the doctors were called and helped the baby. Unfortunately, she died within two weeks due to her forced premature birth and resulting problems. This child had Down syndrome.”
Since there was no evidence the mother’s health was at risk or that the baby had been conceived in rape, the only plausible explanation for why an abortion was performed this late in pregnancy is the third category of cases in which abortion is legal, according to the Global Dispatch:
The baby has a severe and irreversible handicap or an incurable and life-threatening disease. In such situations, the procedure is legal until the baby is viable. However, viability is not precisely defined.
The “irreversible handicap” presumably would be Down syndrome.
According to Dueholm
Holy Family Hospital was known as one of the best medical facilities in Poland, and one that does not conduct abortions. It was once led by the famous gynecologist Dr. Bogdan Chazen, who had lost his job for refusing an abortion.
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