Smyth says damning report that reveals late-term babies born alive and left to die is poor indictment on Irish medical profession
A REPORT that logs harrowing accounts of doctors who perform late-term abortions were a baby has been born alive and left to die, has been strongly condemned by the head of a leading pro-life charity.
Director of Precious Life, Bernadette Smyth has described the contents of the report from University College Cork, as utterly appalling and demanded the current abortion laws are reversed immediately.
The study, which was published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology contains responses from doctors who performed abortions.
It exposes the barbaric nature of an abortion in which a neonatologist refuses to provide care to a helpless infant once it has been delivered alive after a late term abortion but it also confirms that little humanity is shown to these innocent children who are deprived of pain relief ahead of the procedure.
The report, which was first published in September and specifically focused on doctors who dealt with babies with a so-called ‘fatal foetal anomaly’, is based on their personal accounts.
It stated that in some cases, there was no clarity around what to do with the babies who survived the ordeal, while some doctors claimed they were, left “begging people to help them” to provide palliative care for the infant.
Mrs Smyth say this is an outrageous indictment on the medical profession. “A situation,” she said “that pro-life campaigners were told would never happen in the run-up to the Irish referendum on abortion in 2018.
“This procedure involves injecting potassium chloride into the heart of a baby in the womb and is legal right up to birth after the Irish Constitution was amended to justify this act of barbarism.
“Pitiless indeed is the refusal of neonatologists to provide palliative perinatal treatment to a baby after an unsuccessful abortion. In one of the interviews, a doctor said he feared a malpractice suit if a baby lives outside the womb longer than expected."
Mrs Smyth continued: “But, the most heart rendering part of the publication is that doctors admit that it has never been specified who will take care of those babies born alive after the abortion. With the result that they are left imploring people to help them provide palliative treatment to the new born babies.
“One Doctor reported that he had to go out into a corridor and to be physically sick after carrying out this procedure on an unborn baby. This does not sound like healthcare – it is anything but.
“This is inhumane. Once they are born, these babies have rights just like us and they have a right to be protected under law. What has become of us if we are standing aside to allow this obscenity to continue?” she asked.
Mrs Smyth added: "The report also included an analysis of the abortionists themselves and makes for particularly grim reading, Mrs Smyth added.
“While they agree to murder babies in the heart was ‘brutal’, ‘awful’ and ‘emotionally difficult,’ they held themselves responsible for the death of the baby, they went as far to describe themselves as ‘doctor death.”
The study went on to say these abortionists justified themselves in providing the procedures on babies up to birth, as they believed it was ‘a kindness in some cases,’ but those doctors who opposed the performance of an abortion termed “conscientious objectors,” were accused of “obstruction” by their medical colleagues.
In Ireland, abortion is currently allowed by law during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or later if the mother’s life is deemed to be at risk or the baby is deemed not likely to live more than 28 days after he or she is born.
Incredibly, some doctors believed that for sickly unborn infants “feticide needed to be mandatory for late gestations because it was in the best interest of the baby to not be born alive.”