Abortion in the Media

Just in case you were starting to believe the pro-abortion rhetoric about decriminalisation as a compassionate means to stop so called ‘backyard abortions’, think again.

In an astoundingly reckless act, prominent Brisbane abortionist Adrienne Freeman is about to launch an online DIY abortion guide.

Ms Freeman was found guilty of unprofessional conduct last year by the Health Practitioners Tribunal after she helped a woman abort a 19-week-old unborn baby at home in 2003.

According to Brisbane newspaper, the Sunday Mail, the controversial website is set to be unveiled and submitted for medical peer review in October, and includes “plain and simple instructions” and “how to” videos.

The website, Safe Home Abortions, also includes a range of research papers extolling the virtues of the abortion drug, misoprostol. The Sunday Mail also quotes the website as saying, “Pregnancies can be terminated at any gestation by administration of misoprostol."

Misoprostol induces labour in pregnant women. It is used for medical abortion throughout Australia, generally in combination with methotrexate which causes the baby to die first. Where approved, it is also used in combination with mifepristone as RU486.

Medical abortions can be particularly distressing due to the drawn-out nature of the process which often takes up to a week. This fact is all too well known following Angela Jackson’s RU486 abortion which she ‘live-tweeted’ to the world earlier this year.

The Sunday Mail goes on to quote Ms’ Freeman: “Women have the right to choose when and where to terminate a pregnancy.” Freeman doesn’t even bother to make a statement about whether a mother has the right to terminate a pregnancy in the first place. She also conveniently neglects to mention that her services also terminate a child.

Ms Freeman goes on. "No matter how careful people are in their lives there will always be a need for pregnancy terminations.”

It is indeed very sad that Ms Freeman simply accepts that Australian women “need” abortion. Unfortunately, in many ways she is right. Social norms, lack of support and unsupportive families often leave women with no good options. It is tragic that Freeman’s solution is to provide an easily accessible means for the coercion to run it’s course. So much for choice.

It appears the abortion industry is set to provide backyard abortions to women who have no choice. Surely women deserve better.

The tragic news that almost one late-term abortion is performed every single day in Victoria and that many of these abortions are carried out on healthy babies for “psycho-social” reasons must cause a rethink on Victoria’s abortion policies, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) said today.

ACL Victorian Director Rob Ward said that late-term abortion figures from the 2007 annual report of the Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity paint a picture of ‘unspeakable cruelty’.

“If it is not enough that Victoria’s abortion laws have allowed 345 late-term babies to be killed in 2007, then surely the fact that 54 of them were still alive after the procedure and then left to die should cause the Government to take stock,” Mr Ward said.

“The situation is even more horrendous when you consider that the 2007 figures reflect the situation before abortion was decriminalised in Victoria in October 2008.

“There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the number of late-term abortions being carried out in Victoria has increased significantly since the State’s open-slather abortion laws were passed.”

Mr Ward said that it is time for the Government to come clean and release all the information it has about the effects of its abortion legislation – including more recent statistics about late-term abortions.

“To its shame, Victoria appears to be solidifying its reputation as the abortion capital of Australia. There is an urgent need for the Government to review its abortion policies and we call upon them to do this immediately,” Mr Ward said.

“Every abortion is a tragedy and Christians will not remain silent on this issue, especially while babies old enought to survive outside the womb are being aborted regularly in our State."

On May 4, Life Network Australia President, Sonja Couroupis, spoke on national Christian radio. In an interview by the Australian Christian Lobby, Sonja commented on the recent case in Italy where a baby boy was left to die after a botched late term abortion. She exposes Australia's terrible track record of live births following abortion. She also mentions the increase in late term abortions in Victoria following the passing of legislation in 2008 which allows for abortion on demand in that State. Have a listen to the interview on the ACL website (May 4, starts at about 8:30 minutes).

 

 The Age (April 9, 2010) has reported that an anaesthetist is likely to have deliberately infected 12 patients with hepatitis C at an abortion clinic in Croydon, Melbourne.

This is a tragic situation for the women concerned (the loss of their unborn baby and now their own physical complications) but is a reminder of the significance of abortion procedures, which are frequently described as "simple" and "safe". This is not the case. Women considering abortion need to fully understand the nature and risks of the medical procedure, including longer term implications.  

ACL has called on the ACT Government to investigate allegations that a Canberra Hospital patient was pressed to terminate her baby at 31 weeks gestation following failed treatment for an earlier misdiagnosis.

ABC radio this week reported that Canberra Hospital had recommended a late-term abortion for a baby who was later born healthy. Read the full report.

In a subsequent media release ACL ACT Director Nick Jensen said serious questions had been raised about why a Canberra Hospital senior obstetrician had in the past recommended that Fiona Vanderhook abort her now healthy 14-month-old baby son in marked contrast to six other specialist opinions, and that these allegations needed to be properly investigated.

“This issue raises wider questions about whether or not abortion is the solution of choice for some doctors. How many expectant mothers are being pressured into having abortions in the ACT without properly being counselled about other options?” Mr Jensen queried.

“In this instance one can only imagine just how hard it would have been for Mrs Vanderhook to go against the repeated advice of her hospital obstetrician to continue with the pregnancy. However, if she hadn’t taken the risk of disregarding his advice Mrs Vanderhook would not today be the mother of a lovely baby boy.

“Instead, as Mrs Vanderhook put it herself, she would have had to see ‘a baby induced and to watch him die and not do anything about it’. A recent Senate Inquiry heard evidence of this late term abortion practice happening in other states.

“How tragic when abortion is pressed on ACT women in such a way. How many other times, for example, are women being encouraged to have abortions in the ACT for suspected or relatively minor physical abnormalities, or because of social or economic concerns?

“We need to remember that children’s lives are at stake in this issue, and that women need to be given greater choice in dealing with an unsupported pregnancy or if there are perceived complications with the baby.”

Mr Jensen said the Canberra Hospital incident highlights problems that can easily arise as a result of the ACT having the most liberal, or open-slather, abortion laws in Australia – with abortions able to be performed at any stage of a pregnancy (right up until birth) for any or no reason.

“We shudder to think how many times the abortion of completely healthy babies has taken place in the ACT and how many women have gone on to regret what has happened – and the lack of real choice they felt they had,” Mr Jensen said.

Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, has received constant criticism by the pro abortion lobby for her Government's concern about the use of abortion drugs, particularly those unapproved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (many also argue that abortion does not come under the category "therapeutic").

Life Network Australia has been following the case of Tegan Leach, a 19 year old Cairns woman who was charged earlier this year for procuring her own miscarriage, while her partner Sergie Brennan, 21, was charged for procuring a miscarriage and supplying a drug, misoprostol.

The ongoing exploitation of this young couple by the pro abortion lobby is inexcusable. The young couple were charged with importing an illegal drug, not approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, to induce an abortion, which raises issues of safety. The situation of this young couple in crisis has been splashed on newspapers all around the world in what can only be described as a heartless campaign by those pushing for liberal abortion laws in Queensland.

Another recent case, in Texas, near the Mexican border, further highlights the dangerous use of drugs to procure abortion, in this case, again misoprostol. According to LifeNews, Ruby Lee Medina, 31, and her boyfriend Javier Gonzalez, 37, allegedly placed the remains of a seven-month-old unborn (aborted) child neatly in a box and, as some reports indicate, set the box under their Christmas tree. The couple have been charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.

According to LifeNews, "an anti-ulcer drug not meant for pregnancy or abortion purposes was used to procure an abortion". Medina used the anti-ulcer drug, which she obtained from friends who reside in Reynosa, Mexico, for the self-induced abortion. Gonzalez said that Medina called for an ambulance after she began bleeding and told paramedics she did not know the location of the unborn child.

The couple attempted to flush the body of the baby down the toilet but were unable to do so - they had then planned to "bury the baby's body in their backyard but police found them out first".

"Apparently they cleaned up the fetus and they placed it inside a gift box under the Christmas tree," the police chief said.

Medina’s mother, Marina Perez, was surprised by the news and couldn't understand what had happened. She said "the couple had already planned to name her grandson Noel". She said "the drugs caused Medina to go into labor to deliver the baby, whose remains were cremated at an area morgue on Monday".

The article went on to say that "Medina and Gonzalez appeared in court on Monday and had their bail set at $20,000. Officials waited until Monday to formally charge the couple so Medina could recover in an area hospital". Medina has four other child, who are reportedly staying with their grandmother, and police suspect that Medina has engaged in a self-abortion in a similar manner as this one once before and that she was using illegal drugs at the time.

Life Network Australia maintains that no abortion is safe, the life of an unborn baby is taken and the procedure holds serious risks for the mother, which are to be (responsibly) highlighted by the Queensland Government (see our article). 

A growing number of induced babies are born alive following failed late-term abortions.

New Queensland Health figures show 19 babies were aborted at 20 weeks or more in 2007, but rather than dying at birth as intended, the newborns were able to breathe unaided. The babies, some as advanced as 26 weeks, were aborted using drugs to induce labour. Once born, no medical help was offered and they died soon afterwards.

Former Queensland Health obstetrician Dr Caroline de Costa, now a professor at James Cook University in Cairns, said it was extremely distressing for parents and medical staff when terminations went wrong. "If babies are born alive after this they are likely to die within a few minutes, although it can take up to half an hour," she said. "We can only keep them wrapped up warm. It is up to the parents whether they want to see the child."

The figures - obtained under the Freedom of Information Act - reveal one in four abortions performed at 20 weeks and more went wrong in 2007, up 20 per cent on 2003. The number of abortions carried out at 20 weeks and more is also increasing, up from 27 in 2003 to 75 in 2007. Medicare funds terminations up to 26 weeks. In the same five-year period, there were 55 babies born alive after a termination procedure and not given medical treatment. Ninety per cent of the 2007 terminations were due to congenital abnormalities. Some were life-threatening, but they also included cleft palates and club feet.

By Hannah Davies, used with permission
From The Courier-Mail,September 01, 2009
 

ACL - Media release
Sunday September 6, 2009

Australian Christian Lobby Managing Director Jim Wallace said Dr Grundmann’s entry into the abortion debate praising Queensland Premier Anna Bligh yesterday for “letting sleeping dogs lie” (Weekend Australian, 5/6 Sept) should send a shiver up the spines of civilised people everywhere.

“Dr Grundmann wants to ‘let sleeping dogs lie’, but the most vicious sleeping dog in this debate, the practice of partial-birth abortion, still needs to be destroyed”, Mr Wallace said.

Dr Grundmann is Australia’s most prominent advocate of “partial-birth abortion”, a technique developed in the US but banned in 2003 by the United States Congress as “a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary.” The method involves half-delivering the baby – often older than those in our hospital nurseries – before piercing its head and crushing the skull. The baby is given no pain relief. The US Supreme Court, which contains a majority of pro-abortion judges, upheld the ban in 2007 – but there is no ban on Dr Grundmann practising this “gruesome and inhumane procedure” in Australia.  

Asked on Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes on April 17, 2005, “Do you pierce the baby’s head with a sharp instrument?” he replied, “I’m not going to discuss details of specifics about procedures because I don’t think that you or the public needs to know.”

In November 2005 Dr Grundmann was confronted again on the SBS’s Insight program. “I’m not sure that the debate would in any way be enhanced by descriptions of fairly explicit surgical and destructive procedures,” he said.

Mr Wallace said, “Dr Grundmann clearly does not want his practices exposed to the light of media investigation or parliamentary scrutiny, because he knows the only response of civilised and compassionate parliamentarians would be to impose appropriate regulations.”

Mr Wallace challenged the Health Minsters of Queensland and Victoria – where Dr Grundmann has clinics – to act without delay.

“The Health Ministers have authority to stop this gruesome and unjustified practice immediately, without needing another Parliamentary debate, by making it a condition of licensing for private clinics that they cannot perform partial-birth abortion”, Mr Wallace said.

“This is unfinished business, a ‘sleeping dog’, more important that the small legal technicality dealt with by the Queensland Parliament last week. The practice publicised and practised by Dr Grundmann is ‘gruesome, inhumane and never medically indicated’ and no Government can allow another baby to be mauled to death by this ‘sleeping dog’ of partial-birth abortion”, Mr Wallace said.

 

Contact: Glynis Quinlan 0408 875 979 or Jim Wallace 0402 341 755