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Argentinean Hospital Refuses to Perform Abortion on Child of Disabled Woman

Says 20th week pregnancy too advanced for abortion permitted by Supreme Court

By Hilary White and John Jalsevac

BUENOS AIRES, August 2, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a surprise twist, Argentinean news sources reported  earlier this afternoon that the hospital where a young disabled woman, who had become pregnant after allegedly being raped, was to receive an abortion has now decided against performing the procedure.

For several days now an international furor has surrounded the predicament of the Argentinean woman, whose parents have been seeking permission from the Argentinean courts to abort their grandchild. The case, however, seemed to have been brought to a conclusion when the Supreme Court of Justice for Buenos Aires said on Monday that the woman qualified for an abortion under a rare exception in the country’s strict abortion legislation. 

Reuters reports that in a ruling late Monday, the high court of Buenos Aires decided that the woman fell under the provisions of the law that allows doctors to abort the children of "demented" women who have become pregnant due to rape. Although the Argentine Constitution recognizes the humanity of the unborn child "from the moment of conception," this exception remains and the court ruled that the case does not violate the country’s constitutional protection of the unborn.

However, the Argentinean newspaper Clarin reported this afternoon that “Doctors decided not to do the abortion on the disabled woman.”

“The ethics committee of St. Martin’s hospital where the young woman is hospitalized decided not to carry out the intervention because the pregnancy is in its twentieth week,” reported the Spanish-language newspaper. 

According to Clarin the ethics committee of St. Martin de la Plata General Hospital believed that the time for performing the abortion had passed, and that the pregnancy was too advanced to perform the procedure.

“In this case we’re already past the stage of abortion. It’s an advanced pregnancy,” Lilian Soria, the hospital director, is reported to have said.

Soria explained that the legal exception that would have allowed the abortion did not apply to this case since it would not technically have been an abortion, but more akin to the inducement of birth, since the pregnancy is approaching viability.

Soria justified the differing opinion between the ethics committee and the Supreme Court by suggesting that in this case the law was not in step with the medical facts. "The times of Justice are different than medical times," she said.

Clarin also reported that Claudio Mate, the provincial minister of health, was present for the ethics committee meeting that decided against the abortion, and that he ratified the decision not to go ahead with the abortion due to the advanced stage of the pregnancy.

The original petition to go ahead and abort the child was backed by the Argentine Health Minister, who supports the loosening of legal restrictions on abortion, and the Buenos Aires Governor.

The Catholic community in Argentina has protested strongly against the Health Minister’s support and many are warning that such judicial decisions have opened the floodgates of abortion in other countries with similar constitutional and legal protections.
 
The Catholic University of La Plata offered last week to adopt the woman’s child, offering her free counselling from their Department of Legal Medicine, as well as free medical care.
 
Read previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Argentina University Offers to "Adopt" Baby Threatened with Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06080102.html

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