An 11-year-old girl has given birth after becoming pregnant when she was raped by grandmother’s boyfriend.
The girl gave birth to the baby boy at 23 weeks via a caesarean section in the Eva Peron hospital in Tucuman province in the northwest of Argentina, The Sun reported.
The new born child weighed only 1.3lb and was then placed in an incubator though doctors feared he wouldn’t survive, Pagina 12 reported.
“When we arrived at the operating room the girl asked to listen to Christian music while playing with dolls,” gynaecologist Cecilia Ousset told local radio.
“I saw her and my legs were loose, it was like seeing my youngest daughter, the little girl did not understand everything that was going to happen.
“A baby of that age is in danger of death because she does not have the developed body to continue the pregnancy.”
Abortion is illegal in Argentina but can be carried out in exceptional circumstances.
According to local media reports, the Health Ministry granted permission for the girl to have an abortion but the local government sought to block it.
The girl then went into labour to the following day despite her reported wish to have an abortion.
Her request had been delayed by almost five weeks, and some doctors refused to carry out the procedure, the BBC reported.
Eventually doctors carried out a C-section instead, arguing it would have been too risky to perform the abortion.
The Noticias Argentinas news agency reported the girl told a psychologist that she wanted to have an abortion, saying: “I want them to take out what the old man put in me.”
Her mother, Soledad Bazán, 36, told a court she wanted her daughter to be granted an abortion.
The girl was found to be pregnant when she went to the doctor on January 23 clinic complaining of stomach pains.
Local media reported she was sexually abused by 65-year-old grandfather Eliseo Víctor Amaya, who has since been arrested and in custody.
He allegedly threatened to kill the girl if she told anybody about the abuse.
The news of the birth sparked huge debate in Argentina with human rights groups putting the blame on the Tucumán state health authorities.
Pro-choice groups told the BBC that what happened to the girl amounted to “torture”.
