Abortion in Australia

After a debate described by observers as "vicious" and "brutal" the Victorian Legislative Council last night rejected a motion to have the deaths of babies who are born alive following abortions investigated by a committee of the Parliament.  The motion was lost twenty-seven votes to nine votes, after ALP MP's were instructed to vote against it.  The motion was moved by Peter Kavanagh of the DLP.

"My motion was simply a call to investigate the deaths of babies.  The fact that these babies have been born alive after 'failed' abortions seems to mean that abortion staff think that those babies do not have a right to live.  Even after they have been born alive.  Last night's vote suggests
that unfortunately this is also the attitude of a majority of Victoria's politicians" Mr Kavanagh said.

"Brian Tee and Gayle Tierney for the ALP together with Colleen Hartland for the Greens launched a coordinated personal attack on me. All of them asserted facts which were contradicted by the very documents to which they referred. They did not even read the motion they were arguing against!" Mr Kavanagh said.

"I was told by several distressed ALP MP's that they had to vote against my motion.  They said that the ALP decided to vote against the proposed investigation because it did not want anything at all that even hinted at abortion to be mentioned at the time of the election" Mr Kavanagh said.

On 20 May 2010 the Herald Sun reported on the recently released 2007 annual report of the Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity which showed that 54 out of 181 late term foetuses who were aborted for “abnormalities” (at around 26 to 28 weeks) survived late term abortions but all of them in the period studied died “post-natally”.

He further noted that babies born after 26 to 28 weeks of gestation have a very high chance of survival if given even minimal care, and that the death of every one of these babies in the period studied therefore suggests that they were neglected to death, if not deliberately killed.

Recent media reports suggest that the number of late-term abortions in Victoria have sky-rocketed since abortion was decriminalised in the State.

Researchers from the Netherlands have discovered evidence that unborn babies have memories from at least 30 weeks gestation – about two months before they are due to be born.

According to an article in The Washington Times, scientists from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St. Radboud, based their findings on a study of 100 healthy pregnant women and their babies, with the help of some gentle but precise sensory stimulation.

"In addition, results indicated that 34-week-old foetuses are able to store information and retrieve it four weeks later," said the research, which was released earlier this month.

"It seems like every day we find out marvelous new things about the development of unborn children. We hope that this latest information helps people realise more clearly that the unborn are members of the human family with amazing capabilities and capacities like these built in from the moment of conception," said Randall K. O'Bannon, director of education and research for the US National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund.

Related research in 2003 by psychologists and obstetricians at Queen's University in Canada found that the unborn babies in the study preferred the voices of their own mothers - both before and after birth.

For those that have had the privilege of carrying an unborn child or spent time with newborns, especially premature babies, the results come as no surprise. Little babies are just as human as the rest of us. In the womb or out, they deserve our protection.