British Report Shows Dozens of Babies Left to Die After Live Birth Abortions 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 4, 2008
London, England (LifeNews.com) — A report from Britain shows that 66 babies were born alive in one year alone after abortions done with public money under the nation’s health care system. The babies were routinely left to die after their premature birth and some survived for as long as 10 hours afterwards.
According to the report, the babies were in the latter stages of pregnancy and were not aborted with a standard surgical abortion procedure.
Instead, the British National Health Service says women were given drugs to soften their cervix and had labor induced to birth the child so prematurely that there is no way to provide enough care for the child to live.
After birth, the babies received no medical care or attention, the report indicated.
According to the Evening Standard newspaper, the babies in these abortions mostly involved unborn children who suffered from severe physical or mental disabilities, some of which may have been life-threatening.
However, the newspaper said the report showed some of the babies had very minor issues such as a club foot or cleft palate that could easily be repaired with surgery after birth.
"It is a distressing situation when these babies are being born alive," Professor Stuart Campbell, an OBGYN whose fetal development photos have sparked calls for limiting late-term abortions, told the newspaper.
"Medical advances make it increasingly possible for even those born after just 22 weeks in the womb to survive," Campbell said. "There is also concern that babies with problems such as cleft palate or club feet are being terminated because they are not ‘perfect.’"
According to the NHS report, 16 babies older than 22 weeks of pregnancy at hospitals in England and Wales in 2005 were victims of the live birth abortions. Another 50 babies who were less than 22-weeks old were victims.
British officials said the babies were left to die because their ultimate death was "inevitable."
Half of the babies survived for an hour or more and one infant breathed without medical help for ten hours before dying.
According to British figures, there were 193,700 abortions in 2006 and 2,948 done after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
After nurse Jill Stanek discovered staff at a Chicago hospital left babies to die after such live birth abortions, Congress passed and President Bush signed a bill to ensure that any infant who survives an abortion must be given appropriate medical care.
