A Washington, D.C.-based abortion practitioner caught on video promoting infanticide has given an interview in which he backtracks from doing so and lashes out at pro-life advocates.
As LifeNews reported today, the videos show there are other abortion clinics, abortion practitioners and staff who, like Kermit Gosnell, would leave babies to die after failed abortions.
“Hopefully we’ll get this pregnancy out intact, but it doesn’t always happen that way,” Washington, D.C. abortion doctor Cesare Santangelo tells an undercover Live Action investigator who is 24 weeks pregnant. “I try and sever the umbilical cord first, and we wait for that to stop pulsing, and this way the fetus is expired first.”
When asked by the undercover investigator what would happen if the baby were to survive the abortion, Doctor Santangelo responds:
“Technically – you know, legally we would be obligated to help it, you know, to survive. But, you know, it probably wouldn’t. It’s all in how vigorously you do things to help a fetus survive at this point. Let’s say you went into labor, the membranes ruptured, and you delivered before we got to the termination part of the procedure here, you know? Then we would do things – we would – we would not help it. We wouldn’t intubate. It would be, you know, uh, a person, a terminal person in the hospital, let’s say, that had cancer, you know? You wouldn’t do any extra procedures to help that person survive. Like ‘do not resuscitate’ orders. We would do the same things here.”
Santangelo is forced to do damage control in a new interview with the Washington Post.
Santangelo said he was trying to reassure the woman, who turned out to be an undercover operative of the group, Live Action. In reality, he said, he would call 9-1-1. But he said he stands by what he said on tape.
“What I said is, basically I wouldn’t do anything extraordinary,” he said Saturday. “We would call EMS. We would call 9-1-1. But I wouldn’t do intubation or anything. . . . You let nature take its course.”
No authorities have accused Santangelo of violating the law. His attorney, Alfred F. Belcuore, said the doctor practices medicine in full compliance with laws in the District of Columbia. In a statement, he criticized the recording of “a private exchange between a physician and his patient” and their release as an “outrageous intrusion upon the doctor-patient relationship.”
He said he was “tripped up” by a hypothetical at a moment when he was trying to reassure a client. “Once the baby is born, it’s out of everybody’s hands, and the baby has rights, too,” he said. “I understand that and I support that.”
He said he has not watched the video because “I don’t like to feed into these people. I really consider them terrorists.”
Live Action President Lila Rose called the practices “illegal and inhuman” and charged that they are a violation federal law – namely, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.
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Rose told LifeNews: “It is clear from our investigation that Kermit Gosnell is just the tip of the iceberg. Our videos expose the truly gruesome, illegal, and inhuman practices going on inside many of America’s abortion clinics. Our investigation reveals that these inhuman practices make for just another day at the office to the doctors, nurses, counselors, and staff who engage in this abuse on a regular basis.”
Responding to the “terrorist remark, Rose released the following statement to LifeNews:
“For Dr. Santagelo to call a 24 week pregnant woman a terrorist, after having just admitted he would leave struggling babies to die after surviving abortion, is a desperate attempt to distract from his own horrific actions. The numbness Dr. Santangelo displays to his victims is both heart-breaking and shocking. It is time to investigate the inhuman and brutal practices that happen behind the closed doors of these facilities across the country.”
In the video of the Bronx, New York abortion “counselor,” the staff member described how a born-alive baby would be placed in a jar of toxic “solution” to ensure death.
