The Fifty Who Survive
The Times is reporting a government inquiry into claims by doctors that approximately 50 babies a year are born alive in the United Kingdom after botched abortion procedures. In England, abortion on demand is allowed up until the twenty-fourth week, the longest of any nation in Europe. The Times article notes that “[i]t is not known how many babies who survive attempted abortions go on to live into adulthood.“
According to guidelines governing abortion in Great Britain, “doctors should ensure that the drugs they use prevent such babies being alive at birth.” The prospect of attempted abortions resulting in live births, however, raises a serious moral question: what is to be done with the unwanted baby, born alive, a survivor of an attempt to put it down? Qualifying himself as “not anti-abortion,” one doctor observed that an abortion resulting in a live baby that “can be born breathing and crying at 19 weeks’ gestation” is “sub-standard medicine.”
Gianna Jessen, a 28-year-old survivor of an attempted abortion who lives with cerebral palsey as a result, approaches the issue personally:
“If abortion is about women’s rights, then what were my rights?†she asked.
“If people are going to talk about abortion, then it’s important for them to know that these are babies that can be born alive and survive.â€
Finally, Shantala Vadeyar, the consultant obstetrician at South Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust who led the study, addresses the moral question underlying this issue more starkly: “If a baby is born alive following a failed abortion and then dies (because of lack of care), you could potentially be charged with murder.†The assumption behind this statement is that infanticide is still against the law. But infanticide seems a slippery concept where a baby that can survive outside the womb after 18 weeks can still be electively aborted until the twenty-fourth week. The more you think about it, the more it deconstructs itself.
Pause. For. Thought.
Good spot, JF.
Comment by Ronan — November 27, 2005 @ 10:33 am
damn.
Comment by annegb — November 27, 2005 @ 11:59 am
annegb said it all, and eloquently.
double damn.
Comment by Ivan Wolfe — November 27, 2005 @ 8:01 pm
This news story raises at least three questions for me. The first is contained in the original post above. The second is, how is it that people like Gianne Jessen find out that they were an attempted but failed abortion and how does that affect them psychologically? It seems like this would be far worse than finding out that you were adopted. Third, if the baby survives the attempted abortion, can it still be killed while laying on the table or would that in fact be considered murder as suggested in the Times article? After all, the decision has already been made when the baby was still on the inside to kill the baby, and even more, the attempt has already been made to kill it–the mens rea and actus reus are both already there, so to say. But it still comes out alive. If completing the job on the outside crosses the line to infanticide, how can it be legal while the baby is still on the inside? If it is legal to kill the baby while still on the inside, then it seems inconsistent and arbitrary to say that just because it is on the outside now it cannot be killed (when literally 5 seconds ago it could have its brain liquified by a lethal injection and its head crushed). Consistency seems to require allowing the baby to be killed as it lies there breathing and crying. And yet, even if this seems more consistent, it still feels very uncomfortable to the point of understandably exciting passions and actions to the protection of the baby laying there on the table after a failed attempt to put it down.
Comment by john fowles — November 29, 2005 @ 11:16 am
Good points, John.
This is an awful story. You are right to point out the ridiculous inconsistency in the law. I do not think elective abortion should be banned, but this story has served as a sobering reminder to me that the law in the UK is way too liberal on this one, and quite frankly, a moral mess.
Comment by Ronan — November 29, 2005 @ 11:37 am
In the mid-70′s an LDS student came into the Institute shaking and nearly incoherent. A nurse, she had just assisted in an abortion in which the “fetus” was left on the counter, crying, for three hours until “it” was still. She didn’t know how to react to what she’d just witnessed. The memory of her trying to make sense of a world in which that would happen still bothers me, as does the callous death of that baby.
Comment by manaen — December 1, 2005 @ 4:12 pm
Today will be a difficult day to finish after reading that, manaen.
Comment by john fowles — December 1, 2005 @ 4:30 pm
I found Manaen’s comments disturbing but difficult to believe (not to say it didn’t happen). First of all, I doubt any LDS nurse who would actually come to institute would participate in an abortion. Nurses are legally allowed to refuse to participate based on moral grounds, and I think assisting in abortion would probably be grounds for church discipline (based of course, on the individual facts of the circumstance and the judgment of the Bishop…).
Second, “the callous death of that baby” as you have described probably constituted a criminal act on the part of the doctor, the mother, and the nurse- the abortion probably was legal, but letting a live baby die after three hours of not caring for it is certainly homicide (at least in most of the United States- where I assume you were during the time of the story. Correct me if I am wrong- maybe you were in England). If the nurse talked about it openly, as she apparently did at institute, how is it that the police or the local DA’s office did not catch wind of it?
Again- heartbreaking story, but tough for me to believe.
Comment by Jordan Fowles — December 1, 2005 @ 6:02 pm
“Nurses are legally allowed to refuse to participate based on moral grounds”
Jordan Fowles,
This is the current state of things, but in the 70s a lot of development that we take for granted hadnt’ happened yet. Not saying that a nurse would have been required to participate, just saying that a lot of expectations we have now that participating in abortion is clearly optional might not have been in place. This doesn’t make our nurse into much of a heroine, or even someone who’s blameless, but it certainly would make it understandable.
Comment by Adam Greenwood — December 5, 2005 @ 10:35 am