An unborn child has been killed by doctors in the province of Chabut, Argentina, following a protracted legal struggle to save its life, according to local reports.
The abortion took place on Friday despite last minute petitions filed with the provincial Supreme Court by the Corporation of Catholic Attorneys, and despite three earlier rulings against the deadly procedure.
The child, who was at 18 weeks of gestation, was allegedly conceived through the rape of its fifteen-year-old mother, who has accused her stepfather of being the culprit. The mother’s name has not been made public by the Argentinian media.
If the girl’s child had been born only five weeks later, it could have survived outside of its mother’s womb.
Although the local courts of first and second instance ruled against permitting the abortion, as well as the local hospital’s bioethics committee, the civil division of the province’s Supreme Court reversed the rulings, and ordered a local hospital to do the abortion.
According to the pro-life news service Notivida, various elements of the national government put pressure on the judges to permit the procedure, including the National Institute against Discrimination, the National Women’s Council, the National Ministry of Health, and the Secretariat of Human Rights, through friend of the court briefs.
Various leftist organizations and labor groups, including the communist party, protested in favor of the abortion, according to local news reports.
Although all abortions are illegal in Argentina, no criminal penalty exists if the victim of the abortion was conceived by rape.
Catholic Church authorities in the city of Comodoro Rivadavia had offered their “warm and comprehensive” help for the child’s mother, but to no avail.
“The country has suffered much because of the empire of death, as an easy solution for emergency problems. Today, we are suffering the consequences,” the diocese noted.
