Catholic World News News Feature

VATICAN PAPER CONDEMNS PARTIAL-BIRTH TECHNIQUE July 16, 1996

VATICAN (CWN) -- "With the partial-birth abortion technique, we have passed quietly from abortion to legal infanticide masked as abortion," wrote Father Jacques Suaudeau, of the Pontifical Council for the Family, in today's issue of L'Osservatore Romano.

Father Suaudeau, a Swiss priest with a background as a surgeon and medical researcher, said that the partial-birth abortion technique-which has caused so much controversy in the United States-is generally not well known in Europe. He therefore explained the process in detail: telling his reading audience how the abortionist dilates the mother's cervix, pulls the baby out feet-first, and inserts a sharp instrument to pierce the skull before suctioning out the child's brain to collapse the head.

Father Suaudeau pointed out that under American law, a child becomes a legal "person" when he leaves his mother's womb. Thus in order to kill the child with impunity, the doctor must be able to say that some portion of the child's anatomy remains inside the uterus.

The Vatican has already reacted with horror to President Clinton's decision to veto the ban on partial-birth abortions which was approved by Congress earlier this year.