A petition seeking a report on children who survive late term abortion was submitted to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).  With support from nearly 200,000 EU citizens, the petition highlights widespread evidence of the practice of infanticide in European countries in regard to babies who survive abortion and are “abandoned without care, put aside in an empty room or closet, where they struggle to breathe, sometimes injured by the abortion, before dying alone.”

Grégor Puppinck of the European Center for Law and Justice, (ECLJ), submitted the petition on his own behalf, for the EU citizens who signed the petition, for ECLJ,  and for the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe urging the Council of Europe to condemn neonatal infanticides.

According to ECLJ, “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.”

The petition states that “All children born alive, in their capacity as human beings, are entitled to human rights and must benefit from every protection of these rights” and calls for the EU Member States:

1. To investigate and report on the situation of children born alive during their abortion;

2. To reaffirm that all human beings born alive have the same right to life guaranteed by Article 2 of the Europe an Convention on Human Rights, and that all human beings must benefit from appropriate and necessary health care, without discrimination based on the circumstances of their birth, in accordance with Articles 3, 8 and 14 of the ECHR;

3. To recommend to Member States to take into account the threshold of viability of human foetuses in their legislation on termination of pregnancy.

It points out that the practice of “killing infants or leaving them to die in agony constitutes infanticide aggravated by torture” and is in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.” The practice also violates the European Convention on Human Rights with respect to their right to life (Article 2) and inhuman treatment (Article 3 of the ECHR). 

As explained by ECLJ,

“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 20^th 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.”

Mark Neville, Head of the Private Office of the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, was presented with the petition. The Bureau of the Assembly, after examination of the admissibility of the petition, will delegate one of the Parliamentary Committees of the Assembly to examine the petition closely and to make a report. The process will allow for public exposure of the inhuman treatment of babies who survive abortion and hopefully lead to a PACE resolution.