The Case Against Abortion

Three teenage girls - Mary, Hayley (interviewers aged 15 and 16) and Georgina (movie maker aged 18) have put together a fourth youtube clip, which reveals concerning aspects of the abortion laws in Victoria and which highlights the lack of knowledge Victorians have about these laws.

Research shown in this clip reveals 'what women want '...and it is NOT what the (former ALP) Victorian Government has delivered and what the Liberal Baillieu Government continues to endorse. 

See their latest clip here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgOcOJ1OYtg&feature=related 

Other youtube clips created by our dynamic trio:

The trail of destruction in Victoria following the 2008 law reform in Victoria:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p4LVSmKx5M&feature=related 

Late term abortion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOkPX9c_964&feature=related 

Parental consent for minors not required: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1VOnrXLT-U&feature=related 

Stay posted for upcoming action to oppose these laws - beginning early February.

The Age have reported that "A 42-YEAR-OLD woman died days after attending a controversial abortion clinic in Croydon last week".

It goes on to say that "Authorities have confirmed that the woman was taken to the Box Hill Hospital where she died on Sunday, after earlier having ''a procedure at a private Croydon clinic''.

According to the article,  the Coroners Court of Victoria's spokesperson said that "the death of the woman, from Sunshine, would be investigated".

This is the fourth investigation involving this particular clinic in six years.

Life Network Australia has been supporting a campaign for the month of December, following the tragic abortion of 32 week old twin boys. In light of yet another tragedy, we urge you to please email and phone Premier Ted Baillieu and Health Minister David Davis, as well as your local member - to voice your objection to the current Victorian laws that allow these situations to occur.  

1. Call Premier Baillieu (            03 9651 5000      ), the Health Minister, David Davis (            03 9096 8561      ) and your local member.

2. If you have access to a fax machine, please fax at them today

 Premier Baillieu - fax no 03) 9651 5054 and  David Davis fax 03) 9096 3373

Written by Anna von Marburg - Used with permission.

T'was the week before Christmas when all through the state,

No one seemed to care about the unborn babies' fate.

Parliament had recessed without even a mention

Of the "twins" at the hospital killed with intention.

The Premier claimed it was a private matter

David Davis retreated, refusing to chatter.

In 2008, Emily's list shrieked "It is settled.

Abortion up until birth, don't you dare meddle!"

When out on the street there arose such a clatter,

They sprang from their apathy to see what was the matter.

Young people filming, asking the electorate just what they knew,

Tragically uniformed with absolutely no clue:

School excursion? You'll need parental permission.

Not so for abortion, in this law's edition.

You can have an abortion, Mum will never know,

Parents have no rights, that's just the first blow.

Suspected sexual abuse, all professionals must report

except an abortionist, who you can't take to court.

No counselling, no information, and no support

The only real choice you're given is where to abort.

No pain killers when aborting babies, no not a gram

but a chicken requires it, or behind bars you'll slam.

Nurses and doctors with a conscience, you now have no voice.

You must participate in an abortion, you don't have a choice.

Hippocrates stated, "Doctors first do no harm."

But pressuring mothers remains the sad norm.

Late term abortions are all the new rage,

Dismemberment, heart injection… just depends on baby's age.

From conception he's human but that's just for kicks.

Three months, four months, five, months, six

Seven months, eight months, in fact up until birth,

Is the time you can kill him while he lives on this earth.

Stay with me, don't vomit, we're nearly there

The last of the atrocities is coming to bear.

54 babies, aborted but failed,

Born alive and left to die (in a cold metal pail?)

The Victorian government voted to NOT investigate these deaths.

EMILY's list, Early Money Is Like Yeast

Is the group of women who created this beast.

Now charging to Queensland with their yeast infection,

Spreading destruction before their election.

Save the babies, help the mothers, before it's too late,

If we don't change this law, consider our fate.

Like dominoes, states will fall in Victoria's path,

Mindlessly drowning in a Baby Blood Bath.

Politicians, relax and have a good rest

Because when you return, we'll give you our best.

The Victorian Abortion Law must finally fall

because a person's a person no matter how small.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

ACTION:

1. Share the AbortionActivistAnon videos with everyone you know. Post them on your fb page (and prepare to be un"liked.") Here and here and here. More videos are on their way.

2. Find your Vic MPs , contact them here, the Premier here and the Victorian Health Minister

3. Sign up for action alerts on lifenetwork.org.au 

• Used with permission from an author who wishes to remain anonymous.

  
  

  "I wrote the following from my personal experience. I think it captures all that I felt back then, and still feel today".
  
  Missing You Already ©
  
  We never got to see,
  Your smile break the morning sleep or
  the sound of your cry
  Announcing your arrival.
  
  The sounds of little feet
  when you’d learn to walk,
  and the gargle of commentary
  that you’d consider to be talk.
  
  The cry for help when you
  first hurt yourself,
  and your tears, as we’d leave
  you at the school gate.
  
  The pains that you’d endure
  as your heart gets broken,
  the pride we’d feel
  when you’d graduate.
  
  The happiness of seeing
  your wedding day,
  And the birth of your first child.
  
  We never got to see you
  for long at all.
  Yet, the breaking of our
  Hearts is so intense.
  
  The tears we cry
  fall not from memories of past,
  But from thoughts of
  what could have been.
  
  But what hurts the most,
  is that we never had
  the chance, just to say
  We love you.
  

  
  

  For anyone wishing to learn about the impact of abortion on men, the Real Choices Australia conference will be held in Melbourne in May 2012. Click here for more information

When does learning begin? Food preferences, attachment to mother, emotional development, clues to prevailing conditions and familiarisation of mother's voice are all developed in the womb.

This presentation by science reporter, writer and mother, Annie Murphy Paul, dispels the myths of pre born babies being merely "a cluster of cells", "a blob of tissue" and of babies having no consciousness before birth.  View here

Two teenagers hit the streets of Melbourne to find out what people know (...or don't know) about the current abortion laws in Victoria. Check out their responses! 

In part one, Mary and Hayley asked the public "How far into pregnancy is it legal for a mother to abort her baby in Victoria?"

In part two  - They asked "Is parental consent for minors required by law in Victoria?"

Please phone now (and again tomorrow) to express your dissatisfaction with the current abortion laws in Victoria 
Premier Ted Baillieu               (03) 9882 4088       

Email ted.baillieu@parliament.vic.gov.au 

Victorian Health Minister David Davis            03 9096 8561      

Email david.davis@parliament.vic.gov.au   

Written by Lyn Bender - Eureka Street. Used with permission.

 When it comes to grasping the right to life of any unborn or even unconceived living being, we are a dramatically split society. We celebrate conception, and, with compassion for the infertile, supportIVF programs. We also sanction, at a conservative estimate, 80,000terminations a year. 

This dichotomy was tragically brought home by the ghastly medical error that occurred last week at Melbourne's Royal Women's Hospital. A decision was made to terminate, at 32 weeks gestation, one unborn twin, who was diagnosed with congenital heart problems. In a horror medical error, the 'wrong' (healthy) twin was killed. An emergency caesarian was then performed to terminate the surviving twin.

This case is troubling, and the trauma and grief to all involved must arouse our empathy. We may also ask why a decision would be made at such a late stage of gestation to terminate a foetus.

The event highlights the extent to which medical advances allow us to decide who shall live and who shall die; who we shall mourn and who we shall discount. On what basis do we decide? Do we need to re-examine our views and values regarding the taking, denying or promoting of new life?

These decisions are made not only in consideration of health or emotional needs, but are influenced by socio-economic factors, social constraints and many other pressures and medical possibilities, including the rejection of disability.Late term abortions present us with a particularly shocking paradox. At 23 weeks we may place a premature newborn in intensive care to fight for its life, or terminate another foetus who may indeed have survived to full term.

The debate about abortion has reflected another split. On one side are those who champion the mother's right to choose. On the other are those who elevate the rights of the child.

Leslie Cannold, president of Pro Choice Victoria, and Margaret Tighe, veteran founder of Right to Life Victoria, personify these opposing positions. Cannold argues unflinchingly in favour of the pregnant woman's right to choose. Tighe argues on behalf of the unborn child, declaring that we must protect the rights of the vulnerable unborn above all other considerations.

The community vacillates between these views and often practices a form of denial. 'We' (society), by attitude and by law, discount the 'equality' of the unborn. We make it a lesser entity.

Ending a pregnancy becomes a 'decision', rather than an almost insoluble dilemma between two opposed sets of rights: those belonging to the already-born, especially the mother, and those of the voiceless unborn being.

In my view we can only come close to an authentic place in this moral quagmire by affording equal rights to the foetus.

Many will be horrified and see this as a promotion of the old order, of the enslavement of women to the birth-life cycle. But to say we should award human rights to the foetus is not to say we may not sometimes decide in favour of termination. However we must afford the foetus the right to be heard.

It is especially true for a foetus that could survive outside the uterus, albeit with medical intervention. If our decision rests on pretending that the unborn child is just a cluster of cells, or that some can be deemed fit and others unfit for life, we run the risk of a kind of moral madness.

I am not writing this from lofty heights. I had an abortion at age 30, which I deeply regret. The prevailing wisdom was that this was not a person, and that to have a baby in adverse circumstances was irresponsible. Had my unborn child been given the status of an equal being I may have been able to make a different choice. 

It is time that we face up to the inconvenient truth and grant rights to the unborn. This may be the last unexplored frontier in the implementation of human rights. 

---

Lyn Bender is a Psychologist and a former member of the Suicide Prevention Australia Board. 

 

By Nicole Watson - Used with permission.

Yesterday I was checking the Sam's Heart website, and as I did I listened to the interview I had done with 89.9Light Fm.  Sam was having morning tea at a small table next to me as I worked and listened.  In the beginning of the interview I am asked by the radio broadcator what the options were for Sam's treatment after diagnosis of his heart condition.  I proceed to give the three options that were given to us, termination, palliative care and surgery.  After the interview had finished Sam stood up and walked over to me and put his hand on my leg.

I sit there in silence.  A million thoughts race through my head but one was most clear. 

I would love to have put a professional medical practitioner in my place just now, so that my son can lay a hand on their leg and tell them.

You wanted to die me.

I wonder if it would make a difference to the need for this abhorrent 'choice' in pregnancy.  I wonder if those poor parents that lost their babies this week would have gone along with the advice they were given, if they could spend a day with my son, and take a few steps in our shoes.  I don't pretend to know the circumstance surrounding the loss of two little lives this week.  I pray for their everyone involved, that they would receive mercy from God, and that they would know his forgiveness.  Read the story here.

What I do know is that it makes me even more passionate to reach who ever I can and tell them that there is always hope, God keeps his promises, and every life is precious no matter how long it is lived.

Ruth Lamperd's article, 'The best doctors are only human', has been welcomed by pro life advocates who remain concerned that our society has only expressed outrage at the loss of one of the twin boys aborted two weeks ago today. It has become obvious that the outrage is because of a  "bungled abortion", that claimed the life of the "wrong baby". 

But what about the other baby boy - the "unhealthy twin"?

In her article, Ms Lamperd describes a contrasting outcome for a boy called Kush, who also had a serious diagnosis similar to that of the "unhealthy twin": "At 19 weeks gestation, medics discovered he had a serious congenital heart defect. They recommended termination because of the likelihood he would die early and painfully. But his parents would not consider abortion. When he was born prematurely at under 2kg they had no expectations. One minute? One day? One week? One month? A year was even too much to expect, even if they hoped".

The article says that "Kush will join classmates at a graduation dinner celebrating the end of his primary school years" and that "Last year, he qualified for his school's cross-country competition and he plays cricket every weekend. He's a kid who was never expected to live long enough to even start primary school, let alone finish it. This little chap functions on only three heart chambers. He's cheeky and smart and he has a mile-wide smile".

How is it possible to know what the possibilities may have been for babies lost to abortion - for our "unhealthy twin", who are simply not given any chance at life? There has developed a "cruel to be kind" mentality in our society that is fast removing any chance that these babies have to 'beat the odds'. And we can all tell a story of someone we know who has!   

Ms Lamperd closes by saying "You can't help notice the wildly contradictory ideas on what constitutes viable human life. Or human life full stop. People like Kush and his parents are in no doubt."

NB. According to the Victorian Health Department's Report - Infant Mortality and Morbidity, over half of the babies aborted late term in Victoria are performed on perfectly healthy babies - so the loss of "the healthy twin" is no different to what happens 'every other day' in Victoria.

Related article here.

 

By Debbie Garratt, Real Choices Australia - Used with permission.

This week we watched in horror as the story of the tragic death of two baby boys at the royal women's hospital  unfolded.  We are rightly horrified.  A healthy, viable, loved baby has been deliberately killed and the parents and other family members will have to live with the loss and grief for the rest of their lives.  It is a tragedy. 

One aspect of this story that will not make the news is that had the 'correct' baby been terminated he would have been simply a number in the 2011 Perinatal Morbidity Statistics.  We wouldn't have heard about him or his family. 

Is it because the baby was healthy that we are outraged and it made the news headlines? No, it can't be that because every year healthy babies are aborted after 23 weeks of pregnancy.  The Perinatal Morbidity Statistics reveal that of 328 late term abortions in 2008, 178 of them were performed on healthy babies whose mothers were experiencing psychosocial problems.  So it isn't that the baby was healthy that we are outraged, otherwise we would be outraged for all of these babies and their mothers.

Is it that the baby was apparently 'wanted' then?  Perhaps not, as research tells us that more than 70% of women having abortions do so feeling as though they have no other choice.  This suggests that if the women were provided social and emotionally supportive alternatives they would have continued their pregnancies.   It wasn't their babies that were unwanted, but the circumstances they found themselves in. 

Perhaps it is that the tragedy of abortion on the lives of babies, women and families has become so great that we don't really want to believe it when we hear it.  When something like this situation occurs it's a collective and cumulative outrage for all mothers and babies that we express.   We should be outraged with a society that continues to allow women to be told that their medically determined 'less than perfect' children are better off not being born or that their social problems are best 'fixed' by the termination of their child.  

The messages we send women and girls about their 'right' to pregnancy and motherhood are outrageous.  Teen mums in Wagga Wagga have been told this month that they must choose between their children and an education,  that abortion would have been a 'better' choice for them.  Instead of looking for ways to support young mums to build a positive future full of opportunities, local services fuss about the lack of surgical termination options available locally.  

Instead of getting the support and encouragement to embrace and love their 'less than perfect' child, even if he only lived a short while, a couple have now lost both their children.  

We should be outraged, but let's be outraged on behalf of every mother not offered what she needs to be able to hold her baby in her arms rather than an ache in her heart for the rest of her life.





Executive Director


Real Choices Australia