8mm
Posted on 08/29/2007 5:57:11 AM PDT by NYer
Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into a botched selective abortion that the Vatican has described as the result of a “culture of perfection” resembling Nazi eugenics.
The deeply Catholic country was embroiled in a bitter ethical dispute yesterday after it emerged that a surgeon had accidentally terminated a healthy foetus instead of its twin with Down’s syndrome. The operation – on a 38-year-old woman 18 weeks into her pregnancy – was performed at the San Paolo hospital in Milan in June but has only now come to light. The foetus with Down’s syndrome was also aborted subsequently.
The revelation has reignited the debate in Italy over abortion, which was legalised only in 1978. The law allows terminations of healthy foetuses up to the 90th day of pregnancy, though abortions can be performed at a later stage if there is a risk to the life of the mother or the foetus is malformed.
Anna Maria Marconi, the gynaecologist who carried out the Milan abortion, said that the woman – who has not been named – requested the operation after an amniocentesis test.
Professor Marconi said that her conscience was clear. The foetuses, which had been identical, had changed positions in the womb between the last scan and the operation, an “act of fate that could not have been foreseen”, she said. The professor was backed by the hospital authorities.
The mother, who has a small son, said that her life had been ruined. “Neither my husband nor I can sleep at night,” she told the Corriere della Sera, which first reported the blunder. She said that the happiness she and her husband had experienced when they learnt that she was expecting twins had been transformed into heartbreak.
Her husband said that they were “truly desperate over this terrible mistake” and were consulting family lawyers.
The episode has been seized upon by Catholics campaigning to have the abortion law repealed. L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said: “No one has the right to suppress another life and take the place of God for any motive whatever.” The paper said that selective abortion amounted to eugenics, stemming from “a culture of perfection”. The Association of Catholic Doctors said that selective abortion was “the fruit of an egoistic culture”, while Luca Volontè, a Christian Democrat politician, said that the Milan mistake amounted to infanticide.
However, Carlo Flamigni, a leading fertility surgeon and a non-Catholic, argued that repealing the abortion law would be like “closing down all motorways just because now and then someone causes an accident by falling asleep at the wheel”. Rita Bernardini, of the pro-abortion Radical Party, said that if the “pro-life” campaign succeeded, prospective parents could lose the right not only to abortion but also to prenatal diagnosis warning them of birth defects.
Giorgio Bolis, the head of obstetrics and gynaecology at the San Paolo hospital, said that such cases were “very rare indeed” and that an internal hospital inquiry had shown that there were “no procedural errors”. Livia Turco, the Health Minister, insisted that the existing abortion law was “very wise” and would not be altered.
According to the Health Ministry, the number of annual abortions in Italy dropped from a height of 234,801 in 1982 to 129,588 in 2005.
So she could have slept soundly had they just aborted the right fetus. Oh the irony.
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Abortion is always wrong.
No, Professor Marconi's conscience is coated in oozing asphalt from Hell. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as she's okay with it ... /s)
My friend at work has a son with a cleft palate. He has had a few operations to correct the shape of the bone and will look perfectly normal as an adult. He is a little dollcake and as smart a child as you could imagine. Ryan... you could just eat him up!!
God bless the Catholic Church for its strong pro life stand. We Protestants need to applaud and support our Catholic brothers in their fight.
Their fight = our fight. Sheesh!
Which is just another reason why it's horrifying that these 'mothers' are willing to abort. Just because they don't want to go to the trouble and expense of corrective surgery? What would they do if their 3 year old kid fell off a wall and shattered a leg? Just have him 'put to sleep' because they didn't want to bother with the expense of surgery?
“So, what’s happening with the Downs baby?”
Boy oh boy...THAT is an interesting question isn’t it?
Will the parents raise this child or institutionalize it?
I hope they keep the child and get to know and love the baby they were trying to kill.
Maybe then they could give witness to others about the reality of these murderous “medical recommendations” that are thrown at expectant parents today.
They should take that baby back to the hospital periodically to visit the “doctors” who thought it was acceptable to snuff out his/her life.
“Then after they realized their mistake, she went in for another abortion and killed the Downs one also.”
OH.....nevermind.
I didn’t read far enough to realize they already went on to kill the downs baby.
sigh.
I say her conscience was dead.
Che disgrazia!! Povera Italia.
I was tempted to say they were on the right track, except judging from the Italian birthrate, morality is probably not a factor.
It's disgusting what is happening to Italian culture. Really really disgusting. My cousin's husband was born and raised in Italy and goes back frequently for business. The last family party he was at--now keep in mind he was talking to all Italians here, either born there or, like me, born here--he just absolutely unloaded at how disgusted he is with the country.
Many many people don't want to work. They have advanced degrees but they can't find jobs because they don't want to move from their 2000-person village...so they live with their elderly parents who get pensions from the government. This while businesses are dying for good workers and can't find them. Small business? Forget it--all but impossible thanks to government heavy-handedness and taxes and regulation.
And what also disgusted him--this is an agnostic as far as I know--was the trash in advertisements and tv. You can't turn on the television anymore for the amount of nudity and sex. And many people are never getting married and having children. To have Italian culture--with its storied emphasis on the family--turned into a rampant birth control/abortion/pornographic country is sickening beyond all measure.
Let's ponder that...an "act of fate". I understand that in earlier times, people would make excuses for their sins. Now adays though, people flat out deny the very existence of sin.
Of course, the good doctor here claims both excuses. 1) No acnowledgement of the sinful act to begin with, and 2) for exra cover, she claims an interferance by "nature."
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