Catholic Medical Group Assails "Complicity" in Illegal Abortions

UDINE, Italy, NOV. 2, 2004 (Zenit) - A Catholic medical group has appealed to the British and Spanish parliaments to stop illegal abortions that have been taking place in Barcelona with the "complicity" of both countries.

"Illegal late abortions in Catalonia, with the complicity of British agencies and tolerated by the local government - where is Europe?" asked Dr. Gian Luigi Gigli, president of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, in a recent note.

The federation, widely known by its French acronym FIAMC, represents 30,000 doctors in more than 50 countries.

The Catholic Medical Association of Catalonia, a member of FIAMC, suspected for many years "that some clinics in Barcelona were performing late and very late abortions, outside of any control by public authorities," the doctor explained.

With the collaboration of two undercover reporters of the Sunday Telegraph newspaper in Britain, the Catholic doctors of Catalonia "have been able to prove with a video recording an international criminal network for late abortions, to which British women were referred by government agencies," he said.

Daniel Foggo and Charlotte Edwardes are the two reporters who obtained from the Ginemedex clinic of Barcelona "the issuing of false documents which attested a gynecologic emergency, in order to bypass the legal terms and perform the abortion of a 26-week-old healthy baby," FIAMC said in a note.

Gigli said: "The extension of the criminal network for illegal abortions appears clearly from the recorded conversations, with many women in advanced pregnancy filmed while waiting for their turn. The complicity of British governmental agencies in referring women patients to Barcelona for illegal abortions is also uncovered."

The Sunday Telegraph report "clearly documents the growing business of late abortions and the inertia of Spanish authorities in controlling illegal abortions and 'abortion tourism,'" he added. "It also documents the abortion oriented mentality of official British agencies, such as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service."

"Appalled" by the viewing of the video, FIAMC said it "urgently asks the British and Spanish parliaments to intervene and pressure their respective governments in order to stop these kinds of crimes."

FIAMC also called "on the European Union to take a strong stand against the misconducts" documented in Spain and the United Kingdom.

Dr. Gigli stressed that FIAMC "denounces the crimes against innocent lives caused by the business of abortion tourism and the dangers posed by late abortions to the health of mothers, ignored by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service."

ZEN - Zenit
5. november 2004