By the time you read this, another innocent Irish child will have died

By Ronan Mullen I WOULD have liked to write about Saddam Hussein this week, and how his capture might offer a new prospect of stability in Iraq. But I have something more serious to write about, something deeply troubling.

A child is going to be killed. As I write, it has not yet happened. By the time you read this, the baby will probably be dead.

There is only one way to discuss abortion and that is with sensitivity.

Women and their unborn children both suffer in abortion.

Sometimes, when the mother is very young, there is very little real 'choice'; the youngster is confused over what to do.

This story is particularly sad. An Irish girl, just 14 years old, got pregnant in the care of the Midlands Health Board (MHB). The board sought, and obtained, an order from the District Court allowing them to take her to England for an abortion.

I wish this unfortunate 14-year-old, who became a mother too young, peace of mind and a better life than she has had to date.

Let me tell you something about the child who will have died by the time you read this.

This infant we do not know its sex; let's say female would be 24 weeks in the womb this weekend.

Under British law, an abortion in these circumstances must take place before the unborn child reaches 23 weeks and six days. So it seems the health board was in a hurry.

As Macbeth said prior to the killing of Duncan: "If it 'twere done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly."

Already this baby was moving, tasting, smelling, seeing, hearing and even (according to some experts) dreaming. For weeks now, she had been using her hands to shield her eyes from direct light. Six weeks ago, she began sucking her thumb.

The hair she would have had at birth, her eyebrows too, the fringe of eyelashes on her little closed eyelids, her toenails all were growing.

And then death. For those of you who still don't believe that life begins at conception, maybe we can agree on this: this child could have been induced, instead of killed. Yes, admittedly, she would have been very, very sick but children younger than 24 weeks have been born prematurely and survived. That didn't happen because the authorities didn't want it to happen. We can only guess, instead, at what was perpetrated. Dilation and evacuation is one technique used in England to abort children as old as 24 weeks.

A sharp, metal-jawed, forceps grasps parts of the developing body, then twists and tears them away. Alternatively, they may have used prostaglandins. The injection of these induces violent labour.

Often, salt or another toxin is injected to make sure the baby is delivered dead.

I doubt whether the district court judge knew precisely how the baby would meet her death. I doubt, as well, whether he tried to insist on an anaesthetic for the baby. Normally there is none.

We hear a lot these days about the violation of human rights in our world.

People have disappeared and part of the torture is that nobody knows what the person is charged with and nobody knows whether the prisoner is alive or dead.

In Argentina, Mothers of the Disappeared, an organisation of mothers protesting at the disappearance of their children, the desaparecidos, stirred millions of consciences over the years.

You might not think such a comparison appropriate here, but consider the facts.

Everything we know about this abortion case came from a journalist. From the authorities, silence.

Yesterday, I telephoned the Midlands Health Board. I didn't want any identifying details, just basic answers. What had the district court ordered?

Had somebody been present to represent the interests of the unborn child? Did the case comply with the grounds for abortion required by the law?

Was this issue properly tested? Were alternatives to abortion considered? Were possible psychiatric consequences of an abortion considered?

Was assistance from non-health board agencies, which might have met the pregnant child's requirements, ever solicited and offered to her?

The response from the MHB director of communications was brief: "We make no comment on any child in our care."

THEY referred me to the childcare regulations. Under section 18 of the Child Care Act, 1991, a child care order puts the health board in the place of a minor's parents.

As the chief executive of another health board put it earlier this year, in relation to another State-sanctioned abortion: "It follows that the board is entitled to exercise the judgment of a prudent parent..."

Prudent? Some parents understandably panic when their child gets pregnant.

They bring her for an abortion. But shouldn't a health board and a District Court judge act more cautiously?

Despite the fact that our Supreme Court allowed abortion on the grounds that a threat of suicide could constitute a "real and substantial risk" to a woman's life, the psychiatric evidence points to a greater risk posed by abortion itself. We know of at least one teenage girl who was brought by an Irish health board to England for an abortion, and who suffered psychological trauma as a result.

Maybe when the women start to sue, as has happened internationally, the State will wise up. 'Prudence' will dictate it.

However, it seems the State is willing to go even further than the Supreme Court by taking all pregnant minors in their care for an abortion if they request it. Last year, the Minister for Health said that the State would pay for foreign abortions for teenagers in care.

"We cannot stop parents bringing their children abroad for abortions why would we put an obstacle in the way of health boards who are acting in loco parentis?" he asked.

The State has also institutionalised Britain's cruel abortion laws. Faced with a viable pregnancy here, they didn't just want the underage mother to be rid of her pregnancy; they wanted the unborn baby killed.

Where is the accountability? How have we arrived at a point where an unborn child can disappear into the system, swallowed up as if she lived in a South American dictatorship?

And how can the District Court pass such a sentence on an unborn infant in secret or, as the law prefers to put it, in camera? The State shouldn't be killing unborn children. We should direct our energies towards the welfare of young mothers and their children.

The abortion trail is administratively efficient for a health board. But it is cruel, quick-fix and counter-productive. Back in 1999, USA Today printed a stunning photograph of an unborn baby, Samuel Armas, 24 weeks in the womb. Samuel underwent a successful operation, while still in utero, to alleviate the effects of spina bifida.

The photo showed Dr Joseph P Bruner making contact with the tiny hand which squeezed tightly around his finger.

The hand has now fallen away, lifeless.