PACE

Council of Europe: Presentation of the Petition Against Neonatal Infanticide

Right of New-borns

By ECLJ1469782680000

The European Centre for Law and Justice submitted today a petition to Mark Neville, Head of the Private Office of the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, for the condemnation of neonatal infanticides, signed by more than 185,000 European citizens. The dossier must now be the subject of an admissibility examination during the next session from the 20th to the 24th of April 2015.

(From right to left: Grégor Puppinck (ECLJ), Mark Neville (Head of Private Office) & Philippe Toussaint (FAFCE))

This is an important procedure in more ways than one. It is the first time that this Assembly has been presented with a petition of such scope: nearly 200,000 citizens demanding that European deputies from 47 Member States condemn the practice of neonatal infanticide and to recall that every person born alive has the right to respect for their life and to medical care, whatever the circumstances of their birth.

This petition initiates an official and concrete procedure within the Parliamentary Assembly. Presented with the petition, the Bureau of the Assembly, after examination of its admissibility, will delegate one of the Parliamentary Committees of the Assembly to examine the petition closely and to make a report. The report procedure will allow an inquiry into the facts and their public exposure. The Bureau of the Assembly will then decide what happens next, such as the preparation of a Resolution.

When a child is born very prematurely, everything is put in place to save them. If survival is not possible, the baby still receives care and is supported until their death. The opposite is true in the situation of those born alive after an attempted abortion. In effect, every year, in European countries, numerous babies are born alive after abortions, in particular when they are practiced after the 20th week of pregnancy. According to the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, at 23 weeks of gestation, 10% of babies survive abortion. These children, who may be injured by the abortion, are most often abandoned to die without medical care, suffering in a basin and fighting to breathe, or killed by lethal injection or asphyxiation (in particular when they are capable of surviving), even thrown out with biological waste. This is an inhuman treatment and contrary to the most basic human rights.

Official statistics for England and Wales indicate that in 2005, 66 newborns survived their abortion and suffered for sometimes more than ten hours. Following a scandal provoked by the revelation of these facts, Great Britain ceased publication of these statistics. In the public hospitals alone in Canada (outside Quebec), 622 babies were born alive after an abortion between 2000 and 2011. Countries that officially recognise these situations are rare but they are occurring everywhere. The press will sometimes report on it, such as in Italy in 2010, when a baby aborted at 20 weeks (four and a half months) for having a cleft palate lived for two days.

No one knows the number of these children nor the fate reserved for them. If some among them are taken care of during their short life, it seems that others do not enjoy the same treatment. Witness statements and news reports reveal terrifying practices: babies abandoned in an empty room or a closet until their death, or killed (often by asphyxiation), or even thrown out with hospital waste despite signs of life. These children are born to die in an agony we would not tolerate if it were inflicted on an animal.

To deny newborns basic medical care – and of the simple presence of another human until their death if one cannot save them – is barbaric behaviour and a blatant violation of their fundamental rights.

The ECLJ hopes that this petition will bring to light the tragic situation of these children born alive who are granted none of the medical care to which they have a right by virtue of their right to life and to physical integrity. This petition aspires to lead the Assembly of the Council of Europe to recall the equality before the law of all human beings, whatever the conditions of their birth.

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