Crikey has done a great job covering one side of the abortion debate.
But it should not be assumed that the answer to perceived legal uncertainties in Queensland — as a result of the tragic Cairns abortion case — is Victorian-style open-slather law reform.
Pro-abortion advocates such as Crikey correspondent Caroline de Costa and Queensland Senator Claire Moore have used the police prosecution of 19-year-old Tegan Simone Leach for procuring her own abortion with illegally imported RU486 as emotional leverage to push for abortion on demand nationwide, and so obviate necessary debate.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, while holding a self-confessed liberal view on abortion, has rightly resisted this in her state, preferring to look at minor amendments to the Criminal Code, which would clarify the law with regards to so-called “medical abortion”.
Such an amendment seeks to retain the legal status quo and would not break faith with her election-eve commitment not to reform Queensland’s abortion laws. This position is much closer to the mainstream view on abortion than de Costa’s or Moore’s.
An example of how out of step Moore is was her over-reach at a Senate inquiry last year into Medicare funding of late-term abortion.
She told the inquiry on behalf of 41 of her colleagues that public funding of the abortion of disabled babies saved money later on from the disability services budget.
When made aware of these eugenic views, several of her colleagues on the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development immediately distanced themselves.
WA Seantor Alan Eggleston resigned from the PGPD in protest.
Queensland Senator Ron Boswell told Parliament that Moore’s views were reminiscent of the Hitler regime.
While recoiling from Moore’s eugenics, paradoxically Australians seem to support the right of a woman to terminate the life of her unborn baby but are nevertheless deeply uncomfortable with the practice.
One of the features of the RU486 conscience debate in federal Parliament in 2005 was the agreement by pro choice MPs and Senators that, at 100,000 per year, there are too many abortions in Australia.
The 2005 market facts survey in Queensland revealed that 67% of Australians were opposed to abortion in the second trimester.
This is why the Victorian Parliament’s decriminalisation of abortion last year, without allowing any amendments, was so controversial and in effect undemocratic. Victorian politicians legalised abortion for any reason up to 24 weeks. This is older than the premature babies being saved in our hospitals.
If two doctors sign-off, an abortion can occur in Victoria right up to birth including by brutal partial birth abortion — a practice banned by the US Government on humanitarian grounds.
When pro-abortionists appealed the ban in 2006, the US Supreme Court sided with the politicians and upheld the ban.
In Queensland, the home of long-time partial birth abortion practitioner and advocate Dr David Grundman, it is unlikely this would find its way into Queensland law reform as it did in Victoria.
Not content with open-slather abortion, the Victorian Parliament also took a jackboot approach to resistance.
It imposed a clause in the legislation forcing doctors and nurses who have a conscientious objection to refer patients to someone who will perform an abortion.
Bligh must know that what the Victorian Parliament did was draconian and out of step with Australians’ thinking on abortion.
It seems she also knows that the quality of debate on abortion is likely to be higher in the Queensland Parliament and that instead of achieving the holy grail of abortion on demand, advocates are likely to kick an own goal.
A debate in the Parliament, she says, would likely lead to greater restrictions on abortion than that which is allowed under the Common Law. (This is an interesting commentary on the pro-choice view of parliamentary democracy.)
The advent of ultrasound and now 4-D colour ultrasound and greater awareness generally of human life in the womb is leading to a turning of public opinion. (It seems a fetus is not just a blob of tissue after all).
For the first time a majority of Americans have told the Gallup opinion poll that they are pro-life.
Bligh’s integrity in seeking to honour the spirit of her election commitment — given at a time when her Government had been written off — is commendable. The political impasse on abortion in Queensland shows that there is still a debate to be had in this country about the human rights of the unborn.
Jim Wallace is managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby.
Who freaking cares what Americans think about abortion with respect to a debate over the changing of laws in an Australian state.
What an inane article. What relevance are Nazis, jackboots and eugenics in a debate about abortion? What is this tripe? This article is rubbish.
Crikey, please continue covering only one side of the abortion debate until the anti-abortion movement can conjure up a spokesperson who can construct an argument without desperate references to Nazi eugenics.
Utter drivel. If you oppose abortion, just say so. Don’t resort to misconstruing polls and events to make it seem like everybody is really, secretly, on your side. Like Daniel Ashdown says, who gives a shit what Americans think about abortion. The debate in this country was settled a long time ago – pro-choice. It’s only the legislature that hasn’t caught up with this fact, let alone fools like Jim Wallace.
Jim Wallace, Managing Director, Australian Christian Lobby – Not the same Jim Wallace who appeared on the 7.30 Report a couple of times a week leading up to and during the invasion of Iraq? Not the same person who supported the bombing of innocent Iraqi civilians, killing well over a million people by now, and who knows how many were children, babies – both in and out or the womb? Not the same Jim Wallace who hasn’t come out to condemn the assassinations, or the ‘mistakes’ by the occupiers (including us) that in one case meant, that a man saw the heads of his little ones blown off? What did your ‘Christian Lobby’ have to say about that?
Or due to the 13 years of sanctions, over-stressed and traumatized women gave birth in difficult circumstances without pain relief – because George W and others had banned them? Or babies died due to lack of electricity for their humidicribs, that’s if they could find them? The father who watched his twins die, and then put them in a little cardboard box to go and show his wife and then bury them? That most of the kids in Iraq and Afghanistan are traumatized and in need of psychological care that probably won’t ever happen, because the occupiers don’t give a toss about damaged kids. How many women went into premature labour and lost their babies, and what of the high number of pregnancies in Iraq(and probably Afghanistan) are caused by rape – either used by the occupiers as punishment for those critical of the occupiers.
I’d have some respect for your ‘christian’ views if you exercised them across the board. Or, if you came out and admonisihed those men who don’t, or refuse to exercise responsibility re contraception. If every sexually active man refused to engage in sexual activity unless he used a condom – the question of abortion would diminish hugely. But no, men like you come out with your hypocritical attitudes towards the so-called ‘sanctity of life’? Men like you never mention the irresponsible behaviour of too many men; don’t come out and speak about violence towards women and children, but just push this barrow for so called ‘high principles’? At best you’re arrogant and ignorant; you use this topic as a control instrument over women’s lives, or you’re a bunch of misogynists, who fundamentally hate women anyway. I’ve never heard you take the airwaves about domestic violence; wear a white ribbon on WRD, or speak out about the sexist comments from the bench re sexual assault? Why do you remain silent about wars; the ‘hows’ & ‘why’ and the ugliness and criminal aspect of causing so much death and misery! Where’s your PRO LIFE stance then?
How about the likes of Jim Wallace and his followers butted out of the debate about abortion and gave women back their bodies. It angers me that these religious nutters are selective when it comes to the taking of human life. What a shame they didn’t condemn the killing that is going on all over the world that they say has been given their gods blessing. Such selective hypocrisy shows the likes of Jim Wallace and the other nutters for what they really are, religious zealots.
Typical nutbag stuff from Jim Wallace. No-one expected anything else.