{"id":218935,"date":"2020-02-23T11:50:58","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T17:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=218935"},"modified":"2020-02-21T14:10:55","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T20:10:55","slug":"obgyn-yells-doctor-saving-born-alive-aborted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/obgyn-yells-doctor-saving-born-alive-aborted\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we must pass the born-alive bill: OBGYN yells at doctor for saving aborted baby born alive"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Life Site News<\/a>)\u00a0Dr. Rocco Pascucci was a first-year pediatric resident at a teaching hospital in Monmouth County, New Jersey in the early 1980s. One day, while he was working in the intensive care nursery, a cleaning woman came to him with a message he has never forgotten.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe told me there was a baby crying on the garbage can in the little treatment room,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

He went into the four-by-four room where medications were kept and found a tiny baby wrapped in a hospital blanket. The baby had been left on top of a big metal garbage can, and he was crying.<\/p>\n

Not stopping to wonder why the child had been abandoned there, Dr. Pascucci put the baby in a warmer, put him on oxygen, and inserted a line into his umbilical artery, which is how premature babies receive nutrition and how health-care workers check blood gases. The care the infant received was standard for any premature baby.<\/p>\n

After the baby was stabilized, \u201ca high-risk OB\/GYN came in and yelled at me,\u201d Dr. Pascucci said. \u201cHe told me I had just saved an abortion. He got into a huff and walked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Dr. Pascucci later learned, when the baby had survived the abortion, a second-year resident determined he was under 24 weeks\u2019 gestation and was not viable. Nurses told him it was standard procedure to leave these babies on the garbage can until they died.<\/p>\n

It was Dr. Pascucci\u2019s impression that this was not a rare occurrence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cleaning lady knew it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe nurses knew it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes that the boy was older than 24 weeks but small for his age, possibly the result of his mother smoking or using drugs during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe resident said his eyes were fused, but this baby\u2019s eyes were not fused,\u201d Dr. Pascucci said. \u201cHe was looking right at me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Pascucci\u2019s intervention saved not only that boy\u2019s life, but other babies who would survive abortion in that hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the OB yelled at me, I went to the head of pediatrics to talk about what happened,\u201d he said. After that, these tiny survivors were given the care they needed.<\/p>\n