Abortion in Australia

The Senate Finance and Public Administration Committees is calling for submissions on Senator John Madigan’s  “Health Insurance Amendment (Medicare Funding for Certain Types of Abortion) Bill 2013”. Submissions close 24th April 2013. 

This is the link which has all the details.

For further information, contact:  The submissions are due by 24th April and the report will be tabled on 25 June 2013. That means Public hearing can be held right through May and the first half of June.  When you make your submission please send a copy to Senator madigan at his private e-mail address: Sen.Madigan@aph.gov.au  Below is the “Manifesto to End the war Against Women” which was developed by pro Life leaders at a Strategic Consultation on 20 March 2013 at Parliament House in Canberra. You will also find links to downloadable documents below, that will help you develop arguments and get information for your submission to this historic inquiry. 
Please pass this request for submissions on to all your friends and networks.  The United Nations estimates that as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today. There are 200 million women who are no longer alive simply because they are female and not male. That’s 200 million fewer change-makers, leaders, parliamentarians, mothers, doctors, teachers, wives, sisters and grandmothers. They have been abandoned, aborted, neglected, murdered and abused. This commodification and objectification of women as the “disposable gender” has created an increase in violence, sex-trafficking and child abduction.  It is estimated that 160 million females, which is more than fourteen times the entire female population of Australia, have gone missing in Asia alone, due largely to gender-selective abortion.  This practice is not limited to China and India; evidence of gender-selective abortion has also been documented in America, the United Kingdom and Australia.  The three deadliest words in many parts of the world, and in some cases in Australia, are “It’s a Girl”. We can change that. Surveys consistently show that Australians are overwhelming opposed to Gendercide and the practice of gender-selective abortion. The most recent Galaxy poll in Tasmania 9 February 2013 showed that 92% of people opposed gender selected abortion. The United Nations condemned gender selected abortion in a 2011 report as “gender discrimination against girls and women and a violation of their human rights.”  A girl has a right to live not just because she is a girl, not just because she can contribute to society and not just because she could change the world, but because it is her most basic human right. We stand for a generation where the full rights of girls and women will be fulfilled everywhere because women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights. We stand for gender equality. We stand for justice. We stand against indifference. We stand against gender-selective abortion and the ‘Gendercide’ of women in Australia and around the world.    We call for an End to the War Against Women.  CALL FOR ACTION 

1. Warwick Marsh – National Day of Prayer and Fasting, Wollongong NSW 
2. Brad Taylor – Justice Mandate & 40 Days for Life, Perth WA 
3. Richard Egan – Coalition for the Defence of Human Life,  Perth WA 
4. Sonja Couroupis – Life Network Australia, Deniliquin NSW 
5. Teresa Martin – Cherish Life, Brisbane Queensland 
6. Andrew Smith – Pro Life Media, Brisbane Queensland 
7. Dr John James – Past President Right To Life Australia, Sydney NSW
8. Ps John Alley – CEO Peace Australia,  Rockhampton  Queensland 
9. Clara Curtis – Nurse & Pro Life Activist -  Canberra Declaration. Wagga Wagga NSW 
10. Paul Monagle – ACT Right to Life & Australian Family Association, Canberra ACT 
11. Ps Robin J Johnson -  “Beyond Here” Pro Life Worker and Prayer Leader, Melbourne Victoria 
12. Tom Colman – NSW Right to Life Sydney NSW 
13. Margaret  Colman – NSW Right to Life Sydney NSW 
14. John Miller – Parliamentary Liaison Australian Christian Values Institute, Canberra ACT 
15. Tiffany Porter – Pro Life Youth Worker,  Wollongong NSW 
16. Jack Sonnemann – Federation for the Family, Hobart Tasmania 
17. Dr Ivan Stratovi – Medical Specialist from Melbourne 

Written by Mishka Gora - MercartorNet.

Used with permission.

Tasmania may be small, but it will punch far above its weight on the world stage in shutting down protests against abortion if a new bill is passed.

Tasmanians learned on Friday, International Women’s Day, that abortion is to be decriminalized. This left many confused. Some took it to mean that abortion is currently illegal; others wondered if the State Government had somehow “lost” the amendments to the criminal code that legalized abortion, at any stage of gestation, in 2001.
 
Abortion has effectively been legal in Australian states for more than 40 years, although it has remained in the criminal code. The number of prosecutions in all that time can be counted on one hand. So why the sudden enthusiasm for decriminalization?
 
Because the real aim of the Labor-Green coalition which is running Tasmania is to criminalize abortion dissent . With only two weeks for the public to respond, the Health Minister, Michelle O’Byrne, has drafted what may be most draconian abortion law anywhere.
 
The neighbouring state of Victoria decriminalized abortion in 2008. Ms O’Byrne says that this is the model for her bill. But the Victorian bill contains no penalties for conscientious objectors; the Tasmanian bill does. The Victorian bill doesn’t mention counsellors; the Tasmanian bill threatens counsellors with jail. The Victorian bill doesn’t mention protests; the Tasmanian bill threatens protesters with jail.
 
If this bill passes, a part-time volunteer counsellor for an organization supporting pregnant women could be jailed for a year and fined up to A$65,000 if she refuses to refer a woman to a place where she can get an abortion. The bill’s definition of a counsellor includes anyone who gives “advice or information relating to pregnancy options” and “whether or not for fee or reward”. Overnight, all agencies which disagree with abortion will be forced to shut down.
 
Medical practitioners will be obliged under threat of a $65,000 fine to make referrals if they have a conscientious objection. To anyone who believes that an unborn child has a right to life making a referral means cooperating with evil. The proposed laws are coercing participation in the overall process of abortion procurement.
 
Nurses who refuse to participate in abortions could be fined $65,000.
 
The right to peaceful protest will also be shut down. The bill imposes a 300-metre-wide exclusion zone around abortion clinics. The maximum penalty is 12 months in jail and a $65,000 fine.
 
In the heart of the Hobart CBD a dingy, anonymous-looking building houses an abortion clinic. The exclusion zone incorporates not only four major thoroughfares (where protests and parades have traditionally taken place) but also Hobart’s busiest Catholic church and the Anglican cathedral. A priest preaching against abortion in his own church, or participants in a prayer vigil, or someone wearing a pro-life T-shirt while walking through the city, or a photographer taking candid shots of street life could all be arrested. In Launceston, the other major city in Tasmania, the exclusion zone includes part of a Catholic hospital and a major park.
 
To make matters worse, the prohibited activity includes intimidating, protesting or photographing, and “any other prescribed [sic] behaviour”. The sloppy wording, in combination with an open-ended section on regulations, could be used to punish innocent activity.
 
The Health Minister has been quite disingenuous about the scope and purpose of her bill in her statements to the media. She has mentioned none of these tyrannical measures and has given the public a mere two weeks to respond to one of the most far-reaching pieces of abortion legislation ever proposed anywhere.
 
What about doctors and nurses?
 
Although not required to perform abortions in normal circumstances, doctors and nurses are placed under a “duty to treat” if a pregnant woman is deemed to be at risk of serious injury. This means that doctors who believe it is best to treat the symptoms arising from pregnancy or to terminate the pregnancy via caesarean section or induction rather than an abortion would be forced to directly destroy a human embryo or foetus against their conscience and better judgment. It also means that Catholic hospitals will be required to offer abortion as a treatment option.
 
Sloppy drafting in the bill creates a range of potential problems. It extends the time that an abortion may be procured without specialist consultation to 24 weeks. This means that surgical abortions will not require a surgeon, thus decreasing the safety of the procedure.
 
The section protecting medical practitioners could, furthermore, be interpreted to allow abortions against a woman’s consent if it is deemed “for the woman’s benefit”. Termination has been so vaguely defined that the medical procedures of induction and caesarean section are included, potentially making elective caesareans technically illegal.
 
The removal of Section 165 of the criminal code (which applies to circumstances other than abortion) opens a can of worms. It removes the protection for anyone (other than doctors) administering first aid to a pregnant woman in good faith; it abolishes the reduced charge of infanticide for women suffering from post-natal depression; and it replaces the words “death of a child before birth” with the dehumanising euphemism “pregnancy termination”, even though the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1999 requires notification of stillborn children (which includes an aborted foetus after 20 weeks) and their cause of death.
 
The spectre of “backyard abortions” has also been raised. The bill specifies that a woman who performs an abortion on herself is not guilty of a crime or any other offence. This means that abortions outside of the requirements laid down in the Reproductive Health Act, ie, unlawful abortions, will nevertheless be lawful for women self-administering an abortion, even though they may have no medical qualifications.
 
This inconsistency, deeming anyone who performs an abortion other than a doctor guilty of a criminal offence except if that person happens to be the pregnant mother, creates a dangerous temptation for desperate pregnant women and sets an alarming precedent.
 
The reasons behind this new legislation are also worrying. It is clearly aimed at allowing terminations on grounds that are not apparent prior to 12 weeks. Indeed, the Health Minister cited genetic abnormalities at the 20-week mark as a motivation for the change. This is blatant discrimination, and it sends the message that discrimination on such grounds as gender or disability is socially and legally acceptable. An accompanying information paper also blurs the distinction between abortion and contraception, extending the right of choosing when to reproduce (or not) to include abortion (which unlike contraception takes place after reproduction has occurred).
 
Tasmanian legislators are being offered a choice between abortion at any stage and abortion at any stage plus criminalizing dissent. The minister wants to make abortion a health matter, not a criminal matter. But she wants to achieve this at the expense of freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and common sense. After all, if it is a crime to perform an abortion without medical qualifications or a woman’s consent, shouldn’t it be in the criminal code? The law as it stands is quite sufficient, and to alter it is nothing less than tyrannical.
 
Mishka Gora is a Tasmanian writer specialising in matters relating to war, conscience, and the former Yugoslavia. She is the media representative for Human Rights for the Unborn – Tasmania.

What can you do?

Please respond - send an email to public.health@dhhs.tas.gov.au opposing the proposed abortion laws in Tasmania.  Submissions close on March 22, so please act quickly!

Say that you oppose the proposal because it would:

• allow abortion of babies who are capable of being born alive.
• legalise the brutal partial birth abortion method (banned in the U.S)

• remove the protection of the law from all unborn children in Tasmania right up to birth.
• not provide any support for women who are under pressure to abort from partners or others. Women coerced in this way may regret their abortions for the rest of their lives.
• force all health professionals to facilitate abortion - or be fined up to $65000. It robs them of freedom of conscience.

Related articles:

ACL's Dan Flynn on proposed changes to abortion laws in Tasmania here

 

21 January 2013 , 10:08 AM by Sally Rope  

"It was the longest sentence ever imposed on an Australian right to Life Activist
 
Brisbane family man Graham Preston, a father of seven children, was arrested by police on Wednesday May 2 last year for refusing to pay accumulated fines of $8,000 for previous charges related to his activities.
 
Graham is a social activist - not over the environment or coal mining but over pregnancy terminations. Abortion.
 
Graham would sit down in the entrance of medical clinics. He was released from prison in the lead up to Christmas. He came in to talk to Steve about his motivations..."

Download Graham's interview here

Introductory comment:

In the version Babette Francis sent to the ABC, she did not refer to "the fetus", but to the unborn child. The ABC declined to publish unless the term fetus was used. Moreover the ABC refused to publish a direct quote from Wainer, on the grounds of lack of corroborating evidence. Wainer had stated "Yes, I know it is murder, but, if I don't do [abortions], some of these women will die because they will go to incompetent [practitioners]"

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4381186.html
 
Dangerous fallacies are being promoted by Leslie Cannold and other elite advocates for abortion rights, writes pro-life campaigner Babette Francis.
The ABC's Dangerous Remedy provoked very different emotions in me than those felt by Leslie Cannold. At the centre of the telemovie was Dr Betram Wainer, a man who I believe was sincere, albeit grossly mistaken.
In the 1970's my late husband, Charles Francis AM, QC, was embroiled in political turmoil when he criticised his own Liberal government for allegedly covering up land deals. During this challenging time, Dr Wainer called us - he knew we were pro-life, but he respected Charles's integrity and offered him financial help with his campaign to contest Caulfield as an independent.
Charles politely declined, explaining he could not accept money earned from abortions.
Recognising some idealism in Wainer I tried to persuade him to help women in ways other than by killing foetuses.
He told me he knew it was destroying the foetus, but that if he didn’t do it some women would die by going to an incompetent abortionist.
Wainer's response may reflect a failure - at that time - of the pro-life movement that we did not have enough resources to offer women attractive pregnancy support.
The situation is different now - no woman or girl need fear a lack of help with her pregnancy and care of her baby. There is government help, private services and many prospective adoptive parents if the mother does not want to keep her baby.
Cannold promotes the fallacy that abortion is in the interests of women. Abortion is a very short-sighted 'solution' that may solve temporary career dilemmas, but 18 years down the track, that mother has lost a daughter or son she would have loved and who would have loved her and been a friend and companion.
Do elite advocates for abortion rights ever mourn their lost children or are the plaudits of their feminist colleagues enough to sustain them in their retired years?
Do they regret the absence of grandchildren and that physical link with the future? And during the festive season do they seek comfort in reading old articles about themselves in the newspaper? Is it enough to warm their aging hearts?
It is a fallacy that heaps of women do not bitterly regret their abortions. Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe v Wade is now a staunch pro-lifer. Denise Mountenay, founder and president of non-profit society Canada Silent No More, regrets her abortion, has written books about her grief and lobbies energetically at the UN and in Europe and Asia in the hope of persuading other women not to make the same mistake. As does Molly White, from Women for Life International.
Another Cannold fallacy is that the pro-life movement is a patriarchal or paternalistic enterprise. The leading opponents of abortion are women - Margaret Tighe, Denise Cameron, Anne Lastman and many more speak out about personal heartbreak, and groups such Victims of Abortion and Rachel's Vineyard offer counselling for post-abortive women.
The ABC showed excellent documentaries on the cruelties involved in the live cattle trade and the sheep slaughter in Pakistan. Come on Aunty, have the courage to show what happens to the foetus in an abortion, we have lots of pictures you can screen.
Babette Francis is the National & Overseas co-ordinator of Endeavour Forum Inc., a Christian, pro-family, pro-life NGO.

Wow...what a great day!

Melbourne's CBD virtually came to a standstill as a few thousand pro lifers marched through it's streets.  The March was held on Saturday, October 13, to remember the lives lost by abortion since the 2008 abortion law reform, and to advocate for babies, women and families by seeking the reinstatement of protection for them.

Many thanks to Bernie Finn and the March for the Babies committee for the hours and hours of work you have put in to making this march the success it was.

A number of people have posted pictures and footage on facebook and others have written articles about the day, which included obscene behaviour from pro abortion protestors. We have included them here for anyone who was unable to attend.

It was a great day, and we encourage you to put the date, October 12, on your calendar for next years March. Closer to the date, we will run a 'Bring a Friend' campaign, so please keep in mind who you might invite.

Happy viewing :) 

Footage of the March

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou8wZweswdM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne0jrEX9t7M

Ninemsn video http://video.au.msn.com/watch/video/royal-at-abortion-protest/xy6u62d?cpkey=3db3c3d3-9867-4220-a739-9da7a703788f%7C%7C%7C%7C

Yahoo 7 News http://au.news.yahoo.com/video/national/watch/87a7285b-4507-3675-a407-13dce89bd8a5/anti-abortion-protests-break-out/

Youth for Life Australia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fshc___G84&sns=em

Articles -

The Craigazette (includes great pictures of the day) http://craigazette.digitalbling.com.au/?p=2701

Bill Muehlenberg http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2012/10/13/abortion-public-discourse-and-the-media/

The Aristophrenium  http://aristophrenium.com/mathew/pro-choice-is-pro-life-or-so-the-logic-goes/#comment-683745231

 

The following letter was published in The Australian:

Letters - Abortion not settled
• From: The Australian
• October 23, 2012 12:00AM
IT is disturbing to learn Arthur Sinodinos, a senator in federal parliament, thinks such a life and death issue as abortion is a "settled" matter ("McTernan is the PM's high priest of negative campaigning", 18/10) - especially a day after scenes of the largest, youngest and most vibrant protest against abortion in years.
Melbourne's March for the Babies attracted an estimated 3500 protestors calling for the restoration of protection for unborn children. In 2008 the Brumby Labor government deprived these hapless children of the right to be born right up to birth. The message from these protesters was clear - enough is enough. Surely a federal parliamentarian cannot believe his fellow Australians accept the annual abortion carnage of 100,000 young Australians?
Thomas Jefferson believed the first responsibility of government was to protect human life. What does Sinodinos think he is doing sitting up in parliament if he is not doing this?
There is nothing bizarre in the recognition of the right to life of an unborn child. The Leader of the Opposition recognises it. If abortion was a settled matter, Tony Abbott wouldn't be causing the pro-abortion sisterhood such angst.

Denise M. Cameron, president, Pro Life Victoria (Inc) East Brunswick, Vic

 

 

While one of the world’s largest providers of abortion services adds to its ability to generate more income through the availability of training of doctors and the supply of drugs to procure abortions, Australian women are once again supposed to be thankful for an additional solution to their primarily psychosocial problems.
Whilst the research undertaken by Marie Stopes own medical director found that the ‘..regimen is an effective option for Australian women’, with minimal adverse effects, international and national researchers not connected to the organisation do not agree.
A Finnish study published in 2009 found that medical abortion had around 4 times the rate of adverse events than surgical abortion, with haemorrhage experienced by almost 16% of women taking RU486. A more recent Australian study found that 1 in 18 users of RU486 required admission to hospital for adverse events compared to only 1 in 250 women undergoing surgical abortion.
RU486 is sold as a solution to women living in rural and regional areas where access to surgical abortion may be more difficult. Yet it is clear that for these women, the use of RU486 becomes even more dangerous where their access to appropriate medical and surgical care in the face of adverse events may also be restricted.
International research already informs us that up to 30% of women suffer serious and prolonged mental health problems following surgical abortion. The potential for significantly increased psychological harm for women more actively participating in a lengthy, often painful process of abortion, in their own homes,and often confronted with the sight of their expelled babies is enormous.
Yet Marie Stopes, abortion advocates, and the media ‘sell’ this is a victory for women’s health. Social structures that do not support women to continue their pregnancies, but force them to choose between careers and children, education and children, partners and family and children are not ‘health’ issues.
Establishing flexible programs of study for pregnant and parenting university students is a solution. Prosecuting men who are violent toward their partners and coerce them into having abortions is a solution. Appropriate housing, warm clothes and adequate food for a homeless, pregnant women is a solution.
These solutions cost money, take time, involve more resources and say to women you do not have to choose. They are better for women. RU486 is better for Marie Stopes.

Media Release: Victorian late term abortion figures

By Debbie Garratt, Director of Real Choices Australia.

The 2009 Annual Report of the Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity was released last month and details the growing numbers of late term abortions being undertaken in Victoria.

From a total of 410 post 20 week abortions, 210 were performed on physically healthy babies, with 10 ofthese undertaken after 28 weeks, a time when these babies could have been safely delivered alive and thepsychosocial concerns of their mothers addressed.

Over a ten year period from 1999 – 2009 late term abortions in Victoria grew from 66 to 410, with more than half of these being undertaken for psychosocial reasons in every year since 2004 (2007 being an exception).

The 2009 figures show an even more disturbing increase, that is the number of very late term abortions on healthy, viable babies for maternal psychosocial reasons.
Most of the general public continue to believe that late term abortions are only undertaken when women are seriously ill and their lives are threatened, or when their babies have no hope of survival and will die a more horrific death if allowed to come to term. Neither of these is true.

Most remain ignorant of the reality that women continue to be offered surgical solutions to their economic, social, relational, and mental health problems rather than positive solutions to address their circumstances, even when they are at a stage of pregnancy when their babies could be safely delivered alive.

The international research clearly demonstrates that up to 30% of women suffer serious and prolonged mental health problems after abortion with women having later term abortions being at higher risk than those having abortions at early gestations.
Research further indicates that the majority of women undergoing abortion do so feeling as if they have no other choice, forced to choose between their unborn and their jobs, or their education, or their partners or family support. This is not choice for women. This is coercion wrapped up in a tidy ‘safe and common surgical’ package that denies women the right to genuine and supported options.

Real Choices Australia rejects the idea that abortion is ever in a woman’s best interests or that surgical or medical solutions to women’s social, economic, or relational problems in the absence of genuine, supported alternatives can ever be considered a free choice.

Written by Jason Rushton - Used with permission.

SYDNEY, Australia, July 23, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Australia will double annual funding for “family planning services” in developing countries to $50 million AUD by 2016.

The increase was announced at last week’s Family Planning Summit in London by Peter Baxter, the Director of AusAID - the government agency responsible for managing Australia’s overseas aid programme.

Penny Williams, Australia’s Global Ambassador for Women and Girls, poses with Marie Stopes and AusAID staff at the Marie Stopes Clinic in Goroka, Papua New Guinea.

Australian Department of Foreign Affairs

From Cambodia, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr affirmed the increase, saying: “Women have a basic right to reproductive health care… to decide whether, when and how many children they have.”

The increased spending will go to the United Nations Population Fund (about $70 million over four years), while an extra $10 million will go to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, in particular their SPRINT program, “to ensure people caught in disasters can gain access to reproductive health services.”

In Papua New Guinea, an extra 500 midwives will be trained in “the provision of family planning services”, and a national key-hole vasectomy centre will be built in the Eastern Highlands.

An AusAID spokesperson could not provide more detail about exactly how the increased funding would be spent.

Australia’s aid policy was adjusted in 2009 to allow for abortions by then Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, after which time family planning funding increased from roughly $2 million a year to $26 million in 2010.

The new policy guidelines include “making the prevention of unwanted pregnancies the highest priority, with every attempt being made to minimise the need for abortion,” and prohibiting abortions over 20-weeks gestation.

Nonetheless, in June last year it was revealed in Senate Budget Estimates that AusAID now funds medical and surgical abortions through the IPFF in Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Colombia, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Thailand, Togo, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia.

AusAID also partners with Marie Stopes International in Myanmar, Papua New Guinea and East Timor, where all together the abortion giant estimates it averted around 21,000 ‘unsafe abortions’ in 2011. 

Peter Westmore, the President of the National Civic Council, said: “With regard to developing countries, we know that a large part of the funding for family planning - which is simply a euphemism for reducing the number of children that are born - goes towards abortions.”

“This funding contradicts Australia’s obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to respect human life. It is a repudiation of Australia’s International Human Rights commitments. And the funding will damage the countries towards which it is directed, because it will discourage the formation of families.”

The chief executive of CARE Australia, Julia Newton-Howes, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the doubling of aid was a “terrific outcome” but that the funding should be monitored to ensure it went to sexual and reproductive health programs, rather than child immunisation programs: “If a child’s mother dies in childbirth that is a worse outcome, and having ten siblings is not a good outcome, either.”

Speaking at the Family Planning Conference, Mr. Baxter estimated that one in five pregnancies in Indonesia were thought to be ‘unwanted or mistimed’, and only one in five women in Papua New Guinea used modern contraceptives. Altogether he estimated that 26 million women across south-east Asia and the Pacific wanted to use modern contraceptives but had no access to them.

In a press release published the same day, AusAID stated: “Apart from the life-saving implications of having fewer children, the economic benefits of a smaller family are also significant. Fewer mouths to feed mean incomes go further.”

During the Family Planning Summit, Australia also volunteered to be part of $US2.6 billion fundraising efforts to provide contraception to the world’s poorest women.

On Saturday, the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Robert Marles stated that the number of Ethiopian women using contraceptives doubled between 2005 and 2011, partly due to Australia’s $43-million aid contribution.

Australia is a signatory of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development and a member of the Alliance for Reproductive Maternal and Newborn Health.

 

From Cambodia, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr affirmed the increase, saying: “Women have a basic right to reproductive health care… to decide whether, when and how many children they have.”

By Jason Rushton, Life Site News

Reproduced with permission

SYDNEY, Australia. April 28, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A father of seven children will spend 8 months in jail starting Wednesday as a result of his efforts to the defend the unborn.

Please find following a list of amendments that were rejected when the Victorian Brumby Government legalised abortion up until birth. While there were some 60 amendments, this is a shorter list of those which reveal the cruel intention of those that voted to make abortion legal on demand.

 The following list is from the Life Voteflyer (page 2)

In October 2008, the Victorian parliament voted to make abortions legal,
right up to the day of birth, no counselling required.

Yet:
98% of Australians believe that women should be advised
of the health risks of abortion*
99% want support-counselling for women*
87% want the number of abortions reduced*

Despite this, the Victorian Parliament voted down amendments to help women
in crisis. They voted:
*Against providing support-counselling for women. [VicHansard 3536-3550]
*Against providing information on the health risks of abortion. [VicHansard 3629-3631]
*Against the right of healthcare workers not to participate in abortion or refer for abortion. [VicHansard 4245-4264]
*Against banning late-term and partial-birth abortion. [VicHansard 3498-3506]
*Against mandatory reporting of suspected child/teenage victims of sexual abuse when a suspected abuser takes them to an abortion clinic. [VicHansard 3492-3498]
*Against notifying the custodial parent of a minor seeking an abortion [VicHansard 3480-3485]
*Against requiring abortionists to provide an anaesthetic to the unborn child being aborted. [VicHansard 3625-3639]
*Against protecting the life of a child born alive after an abortion.
[VicHansard 3620-3629]
*Against providing legal protection for an unborn child seriously injured during an assault on the mother. [VicHansard 3474-3480]

 

* Giving Women a Choice: Australia Speaks on Abortion, Southern Cross Bioethics Institute, 2005. 

Related footage:

Babies born alive and left to die: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3WHP7Q5dp8

Change the law: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p4LVSmKx5M 

What do the public know? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOkPX9c_964&feature=relmfu