The Case Against Abortion

A courageous Victorian GP, Dr. Mark Hobart, has spoken out against abortion for gender selection purposes, describing his own experience of refusing to refer on those grounds. Read more here .

The public's response has generally been one of disgust that anyone would seek an abortion because they didn't want a girl or boy (see vote poll  and comments following the article here).

Click the image above to see the Letters to the Editor in full size

But now Dr Hobart could face tough sanctions.

According to another Herald Sun article, "Dr Hobart admits he has broken the law and could face suspension, conditions on his ability to practice or even be deregistered. But he was willing to risk punishment in pursuit of principles".

The article also mentions another doctor "who was brought before the Medical Board in January for airing his views against abortion was cautioned and warned he could be deregistered if it happened again".

Christian Agenti host of 'Talking Back the Night' on FM Mix 92.7 spoke with Dr Hobart and got feedback from callers on their views. You can listen here

Dr Hobart was interviewed this morning by Neil Mitchell. You can hear the interview here

It will be very interesting to follow what happens from here - we will keep you posted.

President and co-founder of Life Network Australia, Sonja Couroupis, has written about sex selection abortions in Australia and her piece has been published by Opinion Online. Please leave a comment on the Online Opinion website (see link below) and support Senator Madigan's courageous efforts.

"The reaction to Senator John Madigan preparing a bill, to remove federal funding for sex selection abortions has been telling. The old tricks of the abortion lobby have been dragged out to avoid much needed consideration of the implementation of abortion in Australia – these tricks include undermining men who do not agree with their position (playing the exhausted misogyny card), assuming they represent all women and avoiding the issue at hand – in this case, sex selection.
 
What many don't know is that internationally, millions and millions of baby girls are, in fact, being killed in the womb and after birth…just for being girls!"

 Read more (and add your comment) here:

 

By Bill Muehlenberg, Culture Watch - Used with permission.

You may have seen on the news the past few days the ongoing saga about some trapped killer whales in Canada. The ice around them was closing in, and a dozen whales were trying to get some breathing space. All the mainstream media was agog with the story, and you could almost see tears in the face of some of the news announcers.
 
It was one of the more emotional news items going for a few days. And the champagne was likely flowing when the story finally ended with the whales freeing themselves. One news report covers the story as follows: “About 12 killer whales trapped under sea ice in Canada’s Hudson Bay appear to be free after the ice shifted.
 
“However, people who fear the whales will get stuck elsewhere have hired a plane to find them. The whales’ predicament in the frigid waters of Hudson Bay made international headlines. Locals had been planning a rescue operation with chainsaws and drills before the mammals slipped away on Thursday.
 
“Tommy Palliser said two hunters from remote Inukjuak village reported that the waters had opened up around the area where the cornered whales had been bobbing frantically for air around a single, truck-sized hole in the ice. Officials said shifting winds might have pushed the ice away. ‘It’s certainly good news – that’s good news for the whales,’ said Palliser, a business adviser with the regional government.
 
“But fears remain that the whales may be trapped elsewhere by the ever-moving ice. Some villagers were sceptical the killer whales had escaped harm, so the community hired a plane to scan the region on Thursday for signs of the pod. Mark O’Connor of the regional marine wildlife board said the aerial search did not locate the orcas but he noted that large swathes of ice-free water were seen in the area. ‘So as far as I could tell, the emergency, for sure, is averted,’ said O’Connor, the board’s director of wildlife management.”
 
Another news item added these remarks: “Over the last few days, 80 people at a time had gone out on the ice to watch the whales. ‘We were all trying to find out how we can save them,’ he said. ‘We observed the wind, the moon, everything.’ The whales’ escape was cause for celebration elsewhere in Canada, where there had been a desperate campaign to push the government to send in ice-breaking ships to crack open the ice and help the animals find open water.”
 
Wow, that is a lot of time, attention and money being spent on a bunch of killer whales. Of course I, like everyone else, never like to see animals suffer, and if reasonable measures can be taken to help some animals, then that may not be uncalled for.
 
But to have a worldwide panic over this “emergency” with plans to get governments sending in ships and planes, just to help out a few killer whales seems a bit much, especially if we highlight another inconvenient truth. Every day in Canada something like 300 trapped creatures are mercilessly killed.
 
This too is an extreme emergency, yet I see no global media campaigns erupting over this, and I do not notice any local community worrying itself to death about this fact. Indeed, there is complete silence about these poor trapped creatures who will die if no one intervenes.
 
I of course refer to the unborn who are slaughtered each year in Canada. Abortion accounts for around 100,000 dead babies each year there. Yet where is the outcry about all this? Why not the same moral outrage and concern about even more worthy life worth living?
 
Why the double standards all over the West? Why mega-concerns about a bunch of whales, and zero concern about the mass slaughter of our own children? That makes no sense to me whatsoever. That is an indication of a culture which has lost its way big time.
 
Indeed, just contrast our whale story with another story which broke in Canada not so long ago. To me this is far more horrific, but I never heard a peep about it from the MSM. The story goes like this: “Figures from Statistics Canada, a federal government agency, show 491 babies were born alive following botched abortions during the period from 2000-2009 and left to die afterwards. The numbers have pro-life advocates up in arms.
 
“Andre Schutten, legal counsel for ARPA Canada, noticed the numbers and blogged about them recently. The blog Run with Life has reported that, from 2000 to 2009, 491 babies have been born alive following a failed abortion procedure, and subsequently left to die. And those are only the ones that are recorded by Statistics Canada.
 
“The blog explains that ‘there were 491 abortions, of 20 weeks gestation and greater, that resulted in live births. This means that the aborted child died after it was born. These abortions are coded as P96.4 or “Termination of pregnancy, affecting fetus and newborn”.’
 
“The question that should immediately present itself is, why has there not been 491 homicide investigations or prosecutions in connection with these deaths? Section 223(2) of the Criminal Code (the accompanying subsection to the now infamous subsection that Mr. Woodworth’s motion 312 was examining) reads ‘A person commits homicide when he causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being.’
 
“That is to say, anyone who interferes with a pregnancy such that the child dies after it is born alive due to that interference, is guilty of homicide. So again, why have there been no criminal prosecutions? Why no outcry? And why are the provinces funding this explicitly criminal activity?”
 
Good questions indeed. And here are a few more: Why did I not see this reported on ABC news? Or Ch 9 news? Or in the Australian newspaper? Or on SBS radio? Or in the Sydney Morning Herald? Every single one of these media outlets would likely have covered the whale story, and more than once.
 
Yet on something far more important all we get is complete silence from these guys – a total media blackout. Not only does that tell us much about the warped values and priorities of the MSM, it also tells us that the MSM does not report the news, it determines the news and censors that which it does not want aired in public.
 
It is about censorship, propaganda and ideology, in other words. It only covers that which fits into its secular left agenda. That means whales will hit the front pages any day of the week, but butchered babies will not even rate a mention.
 
Thus if you want to know why a website like mine exists, here is your answer. As long as the MSM censors the news, I will be around to present it. And especially when it considers baby killing to be un-newsworthy and a non-issue, then I will run with it far and wide, day in and day out.
 
www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/shifting-canada-ice-frees-trapped-whales/story-fn3dxix6-1226551689091
 
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/10/stranded-killer-whales-break-free-hudson-bay
 
www.lifenews.com/2012/11/23/canada-491-babies-born-alive-after-failed-abortions-left-to-die/

Used with permission.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the vilest evil of our time!

Dear Abortion, forty years ago today you were swept under the rug and allowed to become legal. Women ignored or didn't understand the holocaust of damage you do, and called it "choice". The "right to privacy" was deemed more important and valuable than a human life.

Today, you're all grown up. You're forty years old now, and you are a lean, mean, killing machine. You have perfected your art - you kill not only bodies, but souls. And not once have you felt remorse.

You defy the psychiatrists, legal eagles, feminists, people who "say" they care about women. You even managed to bamboozle alot of people in the Church. You are smooth and slick. You take no prisoners and you call it "freedom". You're better than Jim Jones, baby girl. You're what they call a "femme fatale", seducing and beautifully hypnotizing millions - until you destroy them. And the only one left standing is you, as you laugh over their scarred bodies and souls.

You've got women hypnotized from one end of this country to the other, women who are so orgiastically enamored with their "rights" that they lost sight of their souls and their bodies - and their sisters' bodies and souls, too.

You seduced a president who has sold his soul to the temptation of your power. You sold a cheap bill of goods, you hawked a lie. But someone came around the back of the building and caught you hiding and laughing up your sleeve at the utter gullibility of even the most select and intelligent.

We caught you. We see you. And we know you. We have seen your fangs bared, dripping the blood of little girls. We have seen you howl at the moon, claws flexed, as you seek new flesh. My, but you know how to clean up pretty; I'll give you that. You walk alongside women as they angrily clench their fists and demand the legal right to destroy their own bodies and souls and kill the child inside them. You fooled them. You once fooled me, too.

But there is something you didn't count on, baby girl - I woke up. And there are many of us who, bearing the scars you laughingly inflicted, are now wiser than before. And we stand before you and tell you, quietly and to your face, that we will destroy you. Did you know that education is more effective than the bullying power of Roe v. Wade? Did you know that, for all your bullying-in-the-playground legalized fun you've had for forty years now, that your bark is actually worse than your bite? That the ground you stand on is becoming more tremulous by the day?

Feel the ground beneath you trembling? That is the rumble from the millions of broken souls you thought were gone. That is the vibration of bodies and souls that you thought you conquered. That is the ground shifting, the sound and sensation of a battalion of truth coming towards you.

Because it took us a little while, but we finally figured you out. We learned a few things about you - - that girls and women have souls and they don't like it very much when their souls are destroyed by you. And each one of us, are walking proof today of your spirit of the black widow. We are telling people about your homicidal seduction. What's the thing a bully fears the most? A secret becoming known.

We whisper in your ear, "We KNOW your secret. You have nothing left."

We are telling your secret to the world and there is nothing you can do to stop us. The world, the very order of humanity, cries out for justice. And we are here to see to it that it will be done. You and I, personally, have a destiny. I will stand with head held high and I will not shrink from seeing your destruction. I will not laugh. I will shed tears over the souls and bodies you have destroyed, over the minds you have cast a hypnotic veil over.

I will see you destroyed. The greatest enemy of a lie is the truth. I AM the truth of abortion. I AM your greatest enemy.

So enjoy your birthday today. You and I have a date with destiny, and there is no dark cave in this world or any other world, you can escape to. I am coming for you.

- Mary Anne, your survivor

In recent facebook discussions, I have been surprised by the number of people who argue that "unwanted babies (in the womb) become abused/neglected children." There is just no evidence to support this. In fact, research shows that  "Compared to women with no history of induced abortion, those with one prior abortion were found to have a 144% increased risk of engaging in child maltreatment."

While this claim is incorrect, there are pro life advocates who do have histories of abuse. One such person is Bob Brewer.

Read Bob's story here.

I am a 22 year old male from NSW. My parents were unmarried when they conceived me, they were extremely poor and essentially unable to look after me. Virtually uneducated, my dad was officially a truck driver, but received very little income, and was also partly disabled. They had many other problems but had me (and over the next few years, my brother and sister).

When I was born, I had a blood condition known as anaemia, I was in hospital for some time because of this.

After my sister was born, they split up, so my mum then became a single mother.

After numerous complaints to the NSW Dept Community Services we were removed from the care of mum when I was about 4 years of age - this was in my best interest. I was officially in foster care until I was 18 (though I'd been living on my own with support from DOCS from 16 y.o.).

My time in foster care was not overly pretty. I moved between 14 "families" in as many years, I was transferred to many schools, I was sexually abused when I was 10 years old and was bullied for most of my life (there were many other things that occurred as well).

Despite all the issues I faced and overcame growing up, I still feel very blessed that my parents at least gave me a chance at life. I have a world of opportunities available to me for the future, many of which I am working on achieving. I have some very amazing friends, who help me through a lot of issues that I still face today, but I do not regret being alive for a single day.

Because of my own life, the lives of my siblings, and the lives of many other people I've seen, who have overcome some extraordinary challenges during their lives, I am 100% pro-life. I do not believe that there is any justification for abortion. Every single child, no matter how bad their situation seems, has the ability to have a very fulfilling life, and it is not our decision to make, as to whether a child should live or die.

Yesterday we posted a youtube clip of 60 Minute's story about selective reduction. It has since been removed for "copyright reasons".  Many have contacted 60 Minutes asking for them to post the story on their own website and facebook page. They have not responded to these requests or explained why it has not been added to their site.

A brief transcript of the story can be found here: http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/8469618/the-impossible-choice

We are grateful 60 Minutes ran this revealing segment and for the impact it has had on viewers who continue to talk about it.The overwhelming feedback has been outrage at the abortion procedure and that babies can be aborted for any reason a mother might give - or no reason at all.

60 Minutes 'Mail Bag' and snippets of the segment can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GKii5v90l4

 

 

 

 

Perth Now has reported that the Western Australian Health Department is investigating the deaths of 14 babies who were born alive after abortion attempts and were left to die.

According to the article, hospital records show that no resuscitation or medical treatment of any kind was provided to these babies, one of whom was over 26 weeks old.

Labor MPs, Kate Doust and Ed Dermer have called for a Parliamentary enquiry into their deaths.

 In response to a petition of 5,000 signatures, submitted by the Coalition for the Defence of Human Life, Health Minister, Kim Hames said the deaths would be investigated. He has said that a baby's attempts to breath after birth "do not necessarily indicate viability".

The article reports that "the committee closed its inquiries into the deaths despite no further correspondence from Dr Hames of the investigation".

Related articles and footage about babies born alive and left to die in Australia:

Queensland - http://www.lifenetwork.org.au/BlogRetrieve.aspx?PostID=49050&A=SearchResult&SearchID=2591914&ObjectID=49050&ObjectType=55

Victoria - http://www.lifenetwork.org.au/BlogRetrieve.aspx?PostID=104954&A=SearchResult&SearchID=2591914&ObjectID=104954&ObjectType=55

Melissa Ohden - abortion attempt survivor and Vic legislation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3WHP7Q5dp8

 

 

  

 

 

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. 

 

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