The Pro Life Campaign has said today’s media reports that an unborn baby was delivered at 25 weeks by Caesarean Section, citing provisions in last year’s abortion Act, highlights the “horror and deep seated flaws” in the Government’s legislation.
A report in today’s Irish Independent states that the mother of the baby claimed she was suicidal and requested an abortion under the new Act. The two psychiatrists assessing the case acceded to her request but the obstetrician on the three-person panel argued that, given how far on the pregnancy was, the baby should be delivered.
Commenting on the case, Pro Life Campaign spokesperson, Dr Ruth Cullen said: “It is agreed on all sides that abortion is not a treatment for suicidal feelings yet the Government pressed ahead and railroaded through legislation that is not evidence-based and provides for abortion based on a threat of suicide. We now have the situation where doctors are placed in the situation of making decisions knowing there is not a shred of evidence to back any of them up.
“Reports that an unborn baby was recently delivered at 25 weeks, citing provisions in the new abortion Act, underlines the horror and deep seated flaws of the Government’s legislation. To induce a pregnancy at such an early stage inevitably puts the baby at risk of serious harm, such as brain damage, blindness or even death.
“To put a defenceless baby through all this, and to pretend the intervention is medically indicated when it is known that there is no evidence to back it up, is a chilling aberration of law and medicine. The fact that the panel could just as easily have sanctioned an abortion in this case also brings home everything that is wrong about the new law.
“The Government successfully packaged the law as a life-saving measure even though it is nothing of the sort. Although it is going to take time, as more and more people begin to realise what the law actually provides for, support for it to be repealed will grow and grow.”