By Sarah Terzo
A midwife gives the following testimony:
A midwife for almost 9 years, I can testify that babies born from late abortions (case of abortion on medical grounds) without feticide, 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 that 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 not having their contracts renewed.
In my experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that in order to protect the right to abortion, an embryo or fetus is considered to be a person by medical practitioners under two conditions:
1. The child must be wanted by the parents and
2. The child must be “normal” and not “disabled” (with all the risks that such a subjective term permits).
As soon as the fetus fails to meet these conditions, it is just considered to be waste… It’s terrible to say, but that is the truth.
Grégor Puppinck PhD (Dir.), Claire de La Hougue PhD, Andreea Popescu, Christophe Foltzenlogel: “Late Term Abortion & Neonatal Infanticide in Europe: Petition for the Rights of Newborns Surviving Their Abortion” ECLJ (European Centre for Law and Justice) June 2015.
Editor’s note. This appeared at Clinic Quotes and is reposted with permission.