This is the Reason

That is disgraceful in this day and age babies survive from 22 weeks, i think its irresponsible of the doctors to have performed and abortion that late and then for them not to realise the child is still alive

From the same article

It sounds like their law is similar to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act

Late term abortions are legal in the US also, and it's by request. In Italy, it's only if there is a special reason like a genetic disorder...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late-term_abortion

I am surprised they are legal at all....

It's appalling, I agree If the fetus can survive outside the womb, it's a human, and has legal rights. This should be common sense.

I use wiki quite a bit i know its written by any tom dick and harry but sometimes its right haha i think the limit is 24weeks here im not sure so please dont quote me

It is 24 weeks, but there are allowances for later term ones if the pregnancy will threaten the life of the mother or the baby will have disabilities

i thought that was the case

I had German measles before I was six weeks pregnant. My gyn dr. told me I needed to consider an abortion. He gave me the figures of more than fifty fifty chance my child would be deformed. I was very young and you know how that is. I thought I was bullet proof and opted not to listen to the doctor and had the baby anyway. She was perfect. I am not a fan of abortion at any stage, let alone what is told in this story. It is despicable.

But let me give the other side. I worked with a guy who was deformed (misshapen head), deaf, blind in one eye, malformed hand and leg. His mother had measles while she was pregnant, and his problems were (probably) the result. I'm not sure his mother considered an abortion, and I don't think my friend would have thought he'd be better off if he had never lived, but it wouldn't be hard to make such a case.

I have to agree. What is this world coming to?

I didn't realize they did abortions that late anywhere in the world. That's horrible.

Many countries that allow abortions allow them up to 20-24 weeks, including many US states

You know, I've always had a tiff with womens rights, or many of the things that are considered rights (I don't mind be allowed to vote, allowed to press charges if my husband decides to hall off and punch me, or the idea to rights to any children I may have...maybe its more a tiff with idiot women?)

The idea that it's our choice to kill another innocent human bothers me, more so when hearing it come from the mouths of someone preaching equality, freedom, prochoice speaches. I am pro choice, you have the choice to use some form of protection, including abstaining, to prevent children from happening. I've done it for years (bc and no bc) but the idea that its your right to chose if a person lives or dies, because they're inside you, well, honey, its not like someone wasn't already to make that child happen, thats where your time to make a choice was.

it's just an aweful story, and to think the child could have lived, What was the reason again, some sort of disability? rubbish, It doesn't mean that child couldn't and wouldn't have had a fullfilling life and been worthy of living and being loved. Thats heartbreaking, I can't imagine being the guy that found the child still alive.

I'm not going to boldy state no abortion should ever happen, there are cases where health risks are too high or death is a factor, but by the sounds of this at least, there wasn't a huge risk, and the child lived afterwards..so its hard to think she was concerned for anything but herself.

its just sad, I see far to many people using abortions as their form of birth control, and this story pulls at my little heart strings.

I can understand how emotional and difficult making a decision like that must be for women, but the one's I just cannot understand are the doctors that do it. How can they do abortions day in and day out. I just can't conceive being able to do that.

I believe they're required to if that's their field..I know there was at one point a personal beliefs clause, but I'm not really sure how all of it works.

I also read a while back that the healthcare act has a loophole for abortions being covered, and required by doctor practices that are able to do such a procedure, I don't remember the specifics it was seriously months ago, but its just another sad progression we've made as a people.

I couldn't do it, I couldn't even be a nurse in the room, but then again you look at the amount of women who hide pregnacies and dump/kill the baby afterwards, or teenagers who do the same and it makes you wonder which is the better alternative you know?

not to stir a can of worms here is a cool quote from George Carlin...it's just a joke though, so take it as such
"Conservatives want live babies so they can train them to be dead soldiers. "

I'm against the death penalty...i think we should force people in jail to work and the money should go to the victims or their families, if not to the government. We should turn the jails into really high security factories or something..I don't know why it's not done.

Anyway I found this article, it's not in the news anymore as its 5 years old but I found it informative..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...-18-weeks.html

22 weeks is apparently exactly the maximum age when babies can be aborted without a lethal injection beforehand
It's such a difficult topic, I am not even sure what to think anymore. I mean, I will always be pro choice, but that doesn't mean pro abortion, because it doesn't mean I think abortion is right, just that women can decide on their own.... But all this is making me see abortion, even when it's done earlier in a totally different light, because I have been reading about how exactly it's done at each stage and such, and maybe most of it is biased because it's done by pro life groups but it's just really, really sad.

I always thought the cutoff in the states was 16 weeks, and only later if there was immediate danger to the mother of the fetus. Wow. Didn't realize you could pretty much wait 2/3 of your pregnancy...

I'm pro-choice and have no problem admitting that, or that I will never have a kid, draw your own assumptions [yes, I'm awaiting the age where I can be fixed, my Dr. will do it in 4 more years]. But saying that, I dont think what they did in Italy was right AT ALL. If they noticed the child was still alive, they should have done more than just leave it to die ... since the mother didn't want it, they could have cared for it at the hospital like the other thread with the Angels' Cradles(?).

I am still shocked ~24 weeks is legal, jeez. That's so far along and so much more developed.

What we're really looking at here is the definition of a person, once you've established that we're talking about an organism of species homo sapiens, and how people just can't agree about what that is. I've watched enough Law & Order to know that in New York it's out-and-breathing...I don't see how you can set a definition any later than that without causing more and bigger problems than you solve. Any organism of species homo sapiens that was affected by laws like Born Alive would be out-and-breathing...

In my opinion the definition should be based on either genetics or brain development anyway because it seems nutty to say that a 38-week fetus has less rights than a 6-month premie. But organisms of species homo sapiens that were viable enough for Born Alive and similar to say anything about would also have the brain development for that to apply to them.

As far as the wider abortion issue...to me, that too is a definition-of-person issue. If it's not a person, then it's something else, like a genetically human animal (?!), so since it's legal under certain circumstances to kill animals, it makes sense for abortion to be legal too, although since it's not legal or right to torture an animal either (I mean...I don't think a human fetus, even if you define it as not a person yet, has less rights than a goldfish...), it should get a good strong shot of painkillers first just in case. And of course there are the extreme circumstances; if it's not safe for the woman to continue the pregnancy, then the fact is that the fetus would not make it anyway so you might as well save its mom (but again, if there's time, with a strong shot of painkillers delivered to the fetus if it's at a stage where it might be able to feel pain during the procedure); also, I have a hard time condemning rape victims who get early procedures, because my right to swing my fist ends at your nose and maybe the fetus's rights end at her actual first chance to say what happens to her uterus.