By Hilary
White
LONDON, May 20, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The venerable Spectator, a leading
British magazine of political news and commentary, has published excerpts from
a letter from a British nurse who, in 2005, described babies surviving
late-term abortions who are left to "gasp for breath for ten minutes on
the side of a sink" until they die.
The nurse, identified only as "Kay" in a newspaper column, said,
"I know of two nurses who went off work with stress as a result of their
experience with late terminations. I suffered horrendous nightmares and guilt
for months. The guilt comes from the fact that you as a nurse cut the umbilical
cord and, as dramatic as it sounds, we felt like murderers." In Britain,
late term is defined as those abortions committed after 20 weeks gestation.
The Spectator's Fraser Nelson wrote that Sun newspaper columnist Jane Moore had
written a column about the nurse's letter but declined to discuss the matter on
a television talk show with Andrew Marr because it was "unsuitable"
to be talked about on air. Moore's March 2005 column did not publish the full
text of the letter. Nelson, political editor of the Spectator, however, said
that given the ongoing debates over the lowering of the gestational age limit
for legal abortion in Parliament he would publish an edited version of Moore's
column this Sunday.
"I would say that I'd like every MP to read it before voting, but I
suspect those voting to keep the 24-week limit would not expose themselves to
descriptions of what, precisely, they are supporting," Nelson wrote. This
is the first time Moore's column has been made available on the internet.
In her letter, Kay said, "It is all too easy for people to picture a clump
of cells or mush. People don't want to picture perfectly-formed miniature
babies and I don't blame them, I was once the same."
Kay, however, said that she had no qualms about "terminations" for
disabled, or potentially disabled children. Kay said that
"terminations" for "social reasons" far outnumber those
committed for suspected foetal abnormality. She says that "emotional
distress" the reason most commonly given, cannot be genuine and that
abortion, even by 2005, was already being used as a form of contraception.
"There are girls who come back five or six times demanding terminations
and they get them. How can someone coming for their fifth termination be
allowed to keep saying it is due to emotional distress? I should imagine in ten
years' time the emotional distress of being allowed to have five terminations
is going to take its toll. What is going on?"
But Fr. Tim Finigan, founder of the Association of Priests for the Gospel of
Life, responded, "So is it OK to allow 'severely disabled' babies to die
gasping for breath on the side of a sink?"
Writing on his weblog, the Hermeneutic of Continuity, Fr. Finigan added,
"I hope the article does indeed make some MPs think about what is going on
in our supposedly civilised society but I pray that the presumption 'It's OK if
they are disabled' can be seen for what it is."