Thomas Catan in Madrid and David Rose
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Police investigating four abortion clinics in Barcelona used frequently by British women have been horrified to find purpose-built machines attached to the drains that were used to crush foetuses.
The clinics allegedly performed illegal abortions on women into their eighth month of pregnancy. Police have arrested Carlos MorÍn, the Peruvian head of the clinics, his wife and four other colleagues after a lawsuit by a Christian organisation, e-Cristians. Mr MorÍn reportedly has refused to answer police questions.
Because they were so loud, the machines – which fed into public drains – were switched on only during the early hours of the day to avoid drawing attention to the illegal arrangement, police sources said. Officers gathering evidence at the clinics this week have been testing the machines and drains for traces of DNA, which may be matched with that of past clients, according to reports.
Under Spanish law, abortions can be carried out only in cases of rape, if there is a risk to the mother’s physical or mental health or in cases of severe foetal malformation, and then only until the 22nd week of preganancy.
The clinics under investigation – Ginemedex, Barnamedic, EMECE and TCB – advertised throughout Europe and are thought to have had a large number of British women as clients.
Three years ago the publicly funded British Pregnancy Advisory Service was found to be referring women beyond the 24-week legal limit in Britain to Ginemedex, the clinic where the foetus-disposal machine was allegedly found this week.
At the time Ann Furedi, the service’s chief executive, defended its policy, saying that it would be “morally reprehensible” not to help women to get treatment. Yesterday Ms Furedi said that BPAS did not refer British women to the Spanish clinic but continued to give out its number.
“If any of these clinics were to be found to be working [outside] their country’s law, we would cease to inform women about their existence,” she told The Times, adding: “My understanding is that this latest action [against the Spanish clinics] was triggered by a Christian fundamentalist group.”
A public inquiry was begun in 2004 by John Reid, then the Health Minister. However, the Chief Medical Officer decided ultimately to take no action. “Whilst BPAS can be criticised for giving out the number of the Spanish clinic too readily, and not giving appropriate advice to women, on the available evidence BPAS has not broken any law,” he concluded.
News of the latest police findings in Barcelona has shocked Spaniards. The conservative ABC newspaper yesterday described what the police had found as “a set of horrors more usually associated with Nazi extermination camps”. The operation, it said, “has uncovered a entire homocide industry that should shame any developed society”.
Last year a Danish television documentary filmed Mr MorÍn offering an abortion to a woman in her seventh month of pregnancy. He gave the undercover journalist a form stating that she suffered from a mental disorder, dispensing with the need to get a certificate from another two doctors.
“We put a toxin in [the baby’s] heart that causes instant death,” he explained, saying that the procedure would cost €4,000 (£2,860).
Police phone taps have reportedly gathered evidence of abortions being practiced at the clinics in the eighth month of pregnancy.
There has been a steady rise in the number of abortions performed in Spain since it was partially legalised in 1985. About 90,000 are currently performed each year and many experts doubt that they are all legal.
Mirentxu Corcoy, a law professsor at Barcelona University, said recently that 90 per cent of the abortions practised in the northeastern region of Catalonia “were on the outer fringes of legality”.
— The British Government has said that it wants a new set of guidelines for approving late abortions when there is a risk that the child would be seriously handicapped. Opponents of abortion said that because there is no definition of abnormality some abortions have been carried out on trivial medical grounds, such as cleft palates. In reply to a cross-party committee of MPs who rejected calls for the publication of a list of abnormalities, the Government said that it would ask the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists for new guidelines.
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You can twist and shape the laws to fit anything you want to do good bad or indifferent but bottom line, "it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgement."
R Kreis, Wichita, Kansas
R. Kreis, Wichita, , kansas
It is downright sick and wrong! There should be no abortions past 4 mos, maybe even less. I mean come on when a woman conceives she knows within 2 mos if she is capable of following through, there should be no reason to go past 4 mos. After that you're killing a baby. I'm not against abortion but there is a limit. Children are born into this world and are suffering and in some cases just waiting to die. For example here in the United States children are in foster care and get shuffled around being exposed to physical, sexual and verbal abuse and some even die. But, taxpayers are paying for fostercare, taxpayers that don't know the system is broken, taxpayers that say no abortion. The system meant to help actually hinders its own society. There are good even great foster homes but those alone cannot balance the bad and horrible ones. As for the case workers one out of three are good. To me in this country we breed criminals out of foster care. I've been there, I am blessed.
BMG, Northern CA, CA
Even an athiest should be able to figure out how morally disgusting this kind of behavior is!
W. Peters, Queens , New York, USA
This information was almost too much to absorb. How sad that society has come to this point - bad enough that people are too lazy and too stupid to use preventative methods - I knew when the Roe v Wade went thru here in the USA - I knew that all it meant was an easier way for the parents of the young stupid girls to handle the situation. No more do they have to teach them anything such as birth control - nope - if she gets pregnant we can just take her down and have her hosed (vacuumed) out. To know that an agency that refers people for abortions is ignoring the time limit for same - and to know that they are grinding up near-term or any fetus is a nightmare I could never handle. No wonder the entire world is in such turmoil over everything else - we have given up our standards and very possibly destroyed future leaders in the process... sad sad. Perhaps the adoption laws are too stringent and take too long to allow a child to be adopted?
Frostyredbird, detroit, usa
God say''s in the Bible, Vengance is mine, mean's exactly that, he will put those responssible for this abomination in their rightful place for eternity, Thou Shalt not kill, Woe be too them . Mr Robert L Ione WA USA
Robert Lee , Ione , WA
This story breaks my heart. There is a special place for people who commit this type of action. I don't understand how anyone who has a child can condone this type of behavior. These people don't know what it is to love. Makes me sick.
TexanInfidel, Dallas, Texas
With all people out there that are desperate for a child to adopt there is no reason so simply thow away one. As far as there being "enough" people on this planet there are millions dying everyday so to think that an ignorat statement like that justifies killing the innocent is absurd.
Megan B. , Dallas , U.S., Texas
Speaking as a former embryo myself, I find the murder of viable human life to be disgusting. If money being paid out to welfare frauds in Spain (or any other country on earth) could be halted I believe there would be enough money to build homes to care for the unwanted babies. That's what I call a win-win scenario.
Mr. Zug, USA,
I don't mean to be rude to the bloke from Australia, j bardon, but not all Americans think like Sarah.
"Come to terms with the fact that the world does not revolve around America or your failure to believe that realities exist outside of Americans"
What does that statement have to do with anything....your hate of America? Abortion is legal all over the "civilized" world: all across "Enlightened" Europe and it didn't come from the US. Give your "hate America" talk a rest dude!
Feminists believe that children who are dependent on the mother should be allowed to be destroyed: even after birth. Children are thrown in dumpsters after birth, which is the logical extension of abortion on demand! So is child abuse, etc.
Sex without consequenses, marriage, and commitment causes this.........you sow to the wind and you reap the whirlwind!
Were you expecting something else folks?
GodzGurl59, Phoenix, Arizona, US of A
Words can not explain my heart break. I am completely mortified! Please pray for these woman and doctors who carried out such acts. Pray for the children who were killed. Rochester, Ny
Robin, Rochester, Usa, New york
You say 'the state' should set up homes for these children instead of aborting them, but who on earth do you think the state is, and where will it get the money from to do this?!
Surely it is far better to allow abortion, than force someone who doesn't want a child to have it.... its not exactly like there aren't enough people on the planet!
Mike S, london,
Murderers plain and simple these are not foeteses
they are babys sweet innocent babys that did not deserve
to be murdered and ground up like a piece of hamburger
meat.
Denver ,Morgan, skien, norway
Hi,
This seriously puttâs in to question the value of life. All concerned should be ashamed . A foetus biologically must be considered as a form of life. The practice of abortion is something to do with the tidiness of life and the subject of ethical moral and religious discussion.
Regards DR Terence Hale Zandvoort
Terence Hale, zandvoort, Holland
Yeah, a "non-being" that is 4 weeks from being born. What possible problem could any right-thinking person have with that?
Perhaps the next step should be allow parents to dispose of their infants due to "mental distress" when they misbehave...
Tracey, Auckland, NZ
People still should have some respect for the foetuses. You don't through a new-born baby to the dumpster if it's dead when it borns. So why you have to do that to the unborn one?
Paula, Outokumpu, Finland
What the previous post from sarah lear fails to mention or grasp is that in the nation in question "foetuses" are legally defined as BABIES.
Therefore the mangling of BABY bodies in a meat grinder is illegal, genius.
There are only very specific circumstances in Spain that a baby can be aborted. Grisly serial killer logic may dictate that unborn humans do not really exist in your country but in this country they do.
Come to terms with the fact that the world does not revolve around America or your failure to believe that realities exist outside of Americans
j barndon, perth, west australia
I think the same like sarah & on top of this, the state is to blame, we do not have the Middle Ages anymore it cannot force women into raising children shall the state built up homes for children to raise them a woman is a human being with the right to free development such point of view is antediluvian
Nina, Luxemburg, Luxenburg
The state is to blame the state should set up homes for children and raise them and not force women into raising children we do not live in the Middle Ages anymore; this way, such things would not happen
Nina, Luxemburg, Luxenburg
I was sickened to read the article and even more sickened to read the comment by Ms. Lear of New York who has obviously not understood the article properly. The clinic was not aborting foetuses but killing BABIES carried to 7 and 8 months, who could have had a perfectly healthy life outside the womb. Attitudes condoning that sort of butchery are beyond the pale.
C Titchmarsh, Jesi, Italy
The law of life. Either the innocent wield the death penalty against the monsters or viceversa.
eugene, heidelberg, germany
What the hell is so terrible about a purpose built disposal unit? If we're going to permit abortions, then we've tacitly committed to the beliefe that a foetus is not a human being. So what do people want? Funerals for foetuses? If we were doing that, then we'd be undermining the principles that we use to justify the practice of abortion in the first place: that it is merely the disposal of a non-being.
sarah lear, new York, nY