Life Network Australia congratulates the new board of Toowoomba's St Andrews Hospital.
According to the Chronicle (July, 2011), the hospital's board chairman, Reverend Andrew Clarke, said that "a new interim policy on abortions would effectively ban the practice at St Andrew's."
The Presbyterian Church reportedly "sacked former long-standing board chairman Treg Rowe and eight governors two weeks ago after the church feared the former board was attempting to overturn the church's influence on the running of the hospital."
According to the article, "The current policy was in accordance with Queensland legislation where an abortion is lawful when carried out if there is serous danger to the woman's physical and mental health from the continuance of the pregnancy”.
The stance of St Andrews is in line with this legislation. Reverend Clarke commented: “In the rare contingency where two specialist gynaecologists, in consultation with the medical director, deem that termination of a pregnancy is necessary to prevent life-threatening injury to the mother, and that the threat of injury is so imminent as to require intervention prior to the age of foetal viability, such intervention is ethically justifiable."
He also said that “St Andrews has never practised abortion on demand" and that “This revised policy simply further restricts an existing policy.
In a public letter to be published in The Chronicle tomorrow, four Toowoomba obstetricians are challenging the new hospital policy, but have said that "banning all terminations as dictated by the board was unlikely to have a significant effect on the demand for these services."
Drs John McLaughlin, John Esler, Geoff Kelsey and Anthony Cerqui said that “These women will be subjected to a significant increase in pain and stress by forcing them to seek treatment outside the Toowoomba private hospital system.” Life Network Australia argues that these women need practical and emotional support when facing unplanned pregnancies, not abortion.
Life Network Australia commends the new board of St. Andrews and encourages them to withstand the inevitable and aggressive onslaught from pro abortion advocates. Despite the pro abortion rhetoric of "choice", it seems they are not happy unless abortion is the first and seemingly only "choice" offered. The move by St. Andrews will hopefully encourage women to consider more positive "choices" available to them.
St. Andrews has set a wonderful precedent and hopefully more hospitals and Churches will follow their courageous lead by making a strong stand for women and their unborn babies and families.
Please email the board a message of support minister@rest.org.au
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mercy to unborn children. As a foster carer for a baby with a serious disability, I can say that I have never held anything more wonderful and precious than her fragile body. I have never known greater joy than to see her smile. I pray our work at St Andrew's
and with you across Australia will give many more parents and carers that profound blessing. Rev Andrew Clarke Chairman, Board of Governors St Andrew's Toowoomba Hospital
assisting her, and a hospital with a religious background seems the perfect place for this help to be provided and coordinated with auxiliary services. St Andrew's could be a 'blueprint' for other hospitals, and I wish you every success.
disability(Australian Christian Lobby)Like the Australian Christian Lobby I am opposed to abortion at any stage of pregnancy..The late term abortion clinic in Croydon , in Melbourne's east has again been in the news, for all the usual reasons and now there
is a very concerted effort to convince our Premier to repeal the abortion laws passed in 2008. I will be directing Ted Bailliew to your ban on abortions at St, Andrews Hospital in Toowoomba
God Bless you.