Baby Boy Left to Die after Botched Abortion

By Liz Townsend

An Italian priest praying over the body of an aborted 22-week-old baby boy discovered he was still alive. Although the boy was rushed to another hospital for neonatal care, he died the next day.

Doctors at Rossano Calabro Hospital in Italy aborted the baby April 24 on his mother's request because she was told he had a disability, the Daily Telegraph reported. After the abortion, he was wrapped in sheet with his umbilical cord still attached.

Father Antonio Martello, the hospital chaplain, went to pray for the baby 20 hours after the abortion. Shocked to find the baby boy moving and breathing, he called for help and the boy was rushed to Cosenza Hospital's neonatal unit, according to the Telegraph. Sadly, the baby died April 26.

Italian law requires doctors to treat babies born alive after abortions, the Telegraph reported. Government officials said there will be an investigation.

"We must remember that a baby, once born, is an Italian citizen equal to all the others, and is entitled to all fundamental rights, including the right to health and therefore to be given full support," Eugenia Roccella, the under-secretary of state in the health department, told the Telegraph.

If the reported story is true, Roccella added, "this would be a case of deliberate abandonment of a seriously premature neonate, possibly also with some form of disability, an act contrary to any sense of human compassion but also of any accepted professional medical practice."