A baby boy at the centre of an abortion row after surviving a mistaken termination has died, doctors in Florence said on Thursday.
The baby was wrongly diagnosed in the womb as suffering from a rare deformity of the oesophagus.
But when the 22-week fetus was aborted six days ago, medical staff realised it was in fact perfectly healthy and rushed to resuscitate it.
Weighing just 500 grams and measuring 20cm in length, the baby suffered a brain haemorrhage during the abortion and died on Wednesday night.
The Careggi University Hospital in Florence which carried out two ultrasound scans and other tests on the mother has denied any responsibility.
It said on Wednesday that the second scan carried out during the 20th week of pregnancy only showed the risk of a deformity and that it had advised the woman to consult a specialist and undergo further tests.
The hospital said she opted for an abortion after seeing a private specialist.
"There was no error, either in the scan results or in communicating with the couple," it said, stressing that it had "respected Italy's abortion law and the will of the woman".
But Catholic lawmakers and pro-life groups expressed outrage and called for an investigation, accusing the hospital of breaching Italy's 1978 abortion law.
The law allows abortions after 90 days when the mother's health is at risk or when the fetus is shown to be suffering from "serious anomalies or malformations which constitute a grave danger to the physical or mental health of the woman".
Medical experts agreed that the type of malformation that had been feared was very difficult to diagnose with certainty in the womb and that in most cases, could be cured surgically after birth.
The rightist National Alliance, the second biggest opposition party, said that "the law is continually being broken... Parliament and the judiciary have a duty to shed full light on this case and end these violations".
The opposition Catholic UDC party called on Health Minister Livia Turco to launch an inquiry while some MPs went further and called for a revision of the abortion law.
Pro-life group Movimento per la Vita (Movement for Life) wrote to Turco urging her to reform the law so that late abortions were only possible in the case of serious threat to a woman's physical health.
The Vatican daily, Osservatore Romano, said in an editorial published on Thursday that "this tiny innocent life with no rights has been disposed off. Egoism has prevailed".
But left-wing parties in Premier Romano Prodi's centre-left government urged pro-lifers not to "exploit this tragic episode" and said the abortion law was "off limits".
"There is no reason why this case should reignite debate over the law," the hard-left PDCI said.
CASE ALSO SPARKS DEBATE OVER PUBLIC HEALTH.
The case also placed Italy's public health service under fresh scrutiny, particularly since the Careggi university hospital was the same one at the centre of a recent transplant scandal.
Last month, three patients at the hospital were given transplants using organs from an HIV-positive donor.
The blunder was attributed to a senior laboratory worker who mistakenly put HIV negative on a form, clearing organs from the infected female donor for transplantation.
There have been a string of errors and apparently avoidable deaths in Italian hospitals and clinics over the past year.
Earlier this week, a 19-year-old student died in the northern city of Pavia following a nose operation.
The student underwent plastic surgery last Saturday to reduce the size of his nose. During the operation, which was under local anaesthetic, the youth suffered a cardiac arrest which led to a coma.
Investigators are still trying to find out what caused the cardiac arrest.
In another headline case in January, a 16-year-old girl from Vibo Valentia in Calabria entered a fatal coma when a power cut occurred in the hospital where she was being operated on for appendicitis.
Every year, between 4,500-7,000 patients die in Italy because of infections contracted while in hospital.
Hospital infections are considered a factor in another 21,000 patient deaths while up to 700,000 patients contract non-fatal infections.
Reports of poor hygiene and low safety standards sparked a nationwide inspection of public hospitals two months ago.
Less than half were given a clean bill of health, with 36.4% reported for breaching administrative norms, 17.4% for breaching building norms and 7.5% for breaching hygiene and cleanliness norms.
Southern regions were found to be the worst, with hospitals in Sicily, Calabria, Lazio around Rome and Campania around Naples proving the dirtiest.
