‘An unborn child is a child’: Lawyer questions lack of empathy regarding pregnancy loss

Ecuadorian lawyer Pablo Proaño questioned the lack of empathy for families who lose a child during pregnancy and called for protocols to support them.

His remarks followed the death due to a pregnancy complication of Stefano, the son of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa and his wife, Lavinia Valbonesi.

On Aug. 15, Interior Minister Nataly Morillo announced the news and offered her condolences to the presidential family.

Many comments appeared on social media questioning the characterization of the loss as the death of a “child” rather than an embryo or fetus, or arguing that the matter should have remained private.

For Proaño, a lawyer with the firm Dignidad y Derecho (Dignity and Law), these reactions reveal “a lack of understanding regarding pregnancy loss and a lack of empathy that goes beyond the political debate over the way the president is running the country.”

“Many people approached this topic by first claiming it’s a ‘fake news’ story — arguing that it’s not a child, but rather an embryo or a fetus — and secondly, by insisting that it’s a matter that should remain private. And this reveals, as I said, a profound lack of empathy,” he noted in an interview with…