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. 

 

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.

 

What Right to Abortion?

By Bill Muehlenberg - Used with permission.

Abortion is of course legal in many nations. Thus it is simply assumed that there is some sort of universal and binding right to an abortion. But this in fact is simply not the case. And a new document has appeared which proves this. A group of scholars meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica have made this quite clear.

In March of this year a team of international experts – lawyers, health workers, scientists, politicians, bioethicists, law professors, philosophers and others – produced the San Jose Articles to clarify what actual rights exist concerning abortion. As they state in their explanatory paper:

“It is now commonplace that people around the world are told there is a new international right to abortion. Those who receive this message are people who have the power to change abortion laws; parliamentarians, lawyers, judges and others. Those delivering this message are influential and believable people; UN personnel, human rights lawyers, judges and others.

“The assertion they make is false. No UN treaty makes abortion an international human right. Even so, the assertion is gaining traction around the world. The high court of Colombia changed their country’s abortion laws based on this false assertion. More are considering such a change.

“The purpose of the San Jose Articles is to provide expert testimony that no such right exists. The San Jose Articles were prepared by a group of 31 experts in international law, international relations, international organizations, public health, science/medicine and government. The signers include law professors, philosophers, Parliamentarians, Ambassadors, human rights lawyers, and delegates to the UN General Assembly.

“The purpose of the San Jose Articles is also to demonstrate that the unborn child is already protected in human rights instruments and that governments should begin protecting the unborn child by using international law.”

Although the nine Articles were drafted a half year ago, it was only this month that they were officially launched at the UN in New York. Ambassador Joseph Rees, former US Ambassador to East Timor and one time US representative to the UN Economic and Social Council and Professor Robert George of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute launched the San Jose Articles at a UN press conference on October 8.

Charles Colson offers some backdrop to the Articles: “Colombia has a rich Catholic heritage and so it’s no surprise that Colombians are prolife. Their laws once reflected that, but thanks to the U.N. and others, abortion is now legal. In 2002, Colombia was sued for violating international treaties that supposedly demand legalized abortion. Colombia’s high court responded by overturning the country’s abortion laws. More recently, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Health reported that abortion is an international human right and the highest officials at the U.N. including the Secretary General agree.”

It was to combat such myths that these articles were produced. They need to be widely distributed and promoted. Here then are the nine Articles:

San Jose Articles

Article 1.  As a matter of scientific fact a new human life begins at conception.

Article 2.  Each human life is a continuum that begins at conception and advances in stages until death. Science gives different names to these stages, including zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, child, adolescent and adult. This does not change the scientific consensus that at all points of development each individual is a living member of the human species.

Article 3.  From conception each unborn child is by nature a human being.

Article 4.  All human beings, as members of the human family, are entitled to recognition of their inherent dignity and to protection of their inalienable human rights.  This is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international instruments.

Article 5.  There exists no right to abortion under international law, either by way of treaty obligation or under customary international law.  No United Nations treaty can accurately be cited as establishing or recognizing a right to abortion.

Article 6.  The Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) and other treaty monitoring bodies have directed governments to change their laws on abortion.  These bodies have explicitly or implicitly interpreted the treaties to which they are subject as including a right to abortion.

Treaty monitoring bodies have no authority, either under the treaties that created them or under general international law, to interpret these treaties in ways that create new state obligations or that alter the substance of the treaties.

Accordingly, any such body that interprets a treaty to include a right to abortion acts beyond its authority and contrary to its mandate. Such ultra vires acts do not create any legal obligations for states parties to the treaty, nor should states accept them as contributing to the formation of new customary international law.

Article 7.  Assertions by international agencies or non-governmental actors that abortion is a human right are false and should be rejected.

There is no international legal obligation to provide access to abortion based on any ground, including but not limited to health, privacy or sexual autonomy, or non-discrimination.

Article 8.  Under basic principles of treaty interpretation in international law, consistent with the obligations of good faith and pacta sunt servanda, and in the exercise of their responsibility to defend the lives of their people, states may and should invoke treaty provisions guaranteeing the right to life as encompassing a state responsibility to protect the unborn child from abortion.

Article 9.  Governments and members of society should ensure that national laws and policies protect the human right to life from conception. They should also reject and condemn pressure to adopt laws that legalize or depenalize abortion.

Treaty monitoring bodies, United Nations agencies and officers, regional and national courts, and others should desist from implicit or explicit assertions of a right to abortion based upon international law.

When such false assertions are made, or pressures exerted, member states should demand accountability from the United Nations system.

Providers of development aid should not promote or fund abortions.  They should not make aid conditional on a recipient’s acceptance of abortion.

International maternal and child health care funding and programs should ensure a healthy outcome of pregnancy for both mother and child and should help mothers welcome new life in all circumstances.

We — human rights lawyers and advocates, scholars, elected officials, diplomats, and medical and international policy experts — hereby affirm these Articles.

www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/18110

www.sanjosearticles.com/

The pro abortion rhetoric "It is a woman's choice" ignores the plight of so many baby girls who do not reach womanhood because they are aborted, killed or abandoned - The United Nations estimates some 200,000,000 girls are missing due to sex selection as a result of family planning in China and India. 
It's a Girl Documentary here

Footage and information such as this is a big problem for groups such as EMILY's List who pride themselves on being pro "choice" and who claim to promote equal opportunity for women!

Australian Christian Churches are running an advertising campaign on WIN Television to highlight that both women and babies are casualties of abortion. 
The ads show a link to a website 'Hope for Women' where women suffering from abortion can seek help.
View ads on their website here. 

An Australian artist and director have created a magnificent Australian short film, titled 'I want to call her Stacey'. The film is "a journey of love, life and relationship lost, through the eyes of an unborn baby girl".
"A story never before told, ‘I want to call her Stacey’ follows the perspective of an unborn child developing in the womb. From the first sparks of her existence, all the joys of her young life are threatened by growing tension between her parents. A voiceless hero, Stacey’s journey is helplessly influenced by the choices and actions of others, until the very life that is so beautifully evident in Stacey’s character, is under threat". 

Read more and see images here: http://staceymovie.com/   
Available for purchase soon.

 Elam Ministries (Iran) has just released a four minute internet film entitled 'Interview with an unborn child'. It is a poem, originally translated from Persian, about a conversation with a foetus. It contains no graphic images, but is extremely powerful.
It can be viewed here: http://interviewwithunborn.com/?page_id=9