Tragedy Times Two

Editor's note. I'd appreciate your thoughts on this. Please send them to daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

When the subject is eugenic abortions, an already nauseous and inhuman practice is made even more grotesque when we hear discussions about "mistakes." The latest "mistakes" (or "blunders") took place in Italy where "police have been asked to investigate a case in which doctors treating a 40-year-old woman who was pregnant with twins aborted a healthy foetus while leaving a second, malformed one untouched," according to the British publication, the Guardian. One of the twins had been diagnosed with Down syndrome.

Talk about blaming the victim: According to John Hooper, reporting from Rome, the hospital said the babies had '"changed places" between the first ultrasound and the second, conducted just prior to the abortion. The unborn babies were 18 weeks old at the time.

Later in the story, we learn that the woman subsequently returned to have the second baby--the "deformed foetus"--aborted at the San Paolo hospital. After this, she "reported the doctors to police," according to Italian news agencies.

According to the AFP news agency, the initial abortion was performed last June on a woman in Milan.

The latest "misfortune" (as the hospital phrased it) represents another intersection of Italian abortion law and what the Guardian calls "several high-profile errors."

Abortion on demand is permitted through the 90^th day of gestation, according to the Guardian. But the "still-controversial 1978 law" includes the kind of exceptions that swallow the rule. Abortionists "can terminate pregnancies at a later stage if there is a danger to the life of the mother or if the foetus is malformed," the Guardian reports.

The latest tragedy comes only five months after a baby at a Florence hospital was aborted at 22 weeks because of "suspected deformities." Found to be "physically sound, it [!] was resuscitated and survived for a brief period," the Guardian reported. 

According to the Guardian this string of "mistakes" has "prompted fierce debate over both the standards of professionalism in Italy's hospitals and the application of its abortion law."

No pro-lifer needs to be reminded that the debate over "professionalism" not only rings hollow but also entirely misses the point. Abortionists weren't "professional" enough to abort the "right" baby? Babies ought not to be destroyed because they are less-than-perfect in the first place.

Obviously none of us know anything about the mother. But the baby she "wanted" is accidentally killed. The baby she didn't want is deliberately killed.

What must be going through her mind now?

Send any comments or questions to Dave Andrusko at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.