An Australian senator has referred to the revelation of 700 babies across two states over ten years being born alive after failed abortion and then ‘left to die’, as a “stain on the collective soul of our nation.”
Senator Ralph Babet, of the United Australia party, was sharing a discussion on Sky News Australia’s Late Debate programme which asked “How does a civilised society allow this?”.
Presenter James McPherson said that the numbers, presented at a Senate hearing on the issue, “should be a national scandal”. The figures were taken from Queensland Health and Victoria’s Consultative Council on Obstetrics and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity in the period between 2010 and 2020.
He described the figures as “outrageous” and said that while 700 babies were born alive after an abortion, they were “just left to die” because abortion providers were not required to do anything to help a baby that survives an abortion – “they are simply left there and time of death is eventually recorded.”
Senator Babet along with two Liberal senators Matt Canavan, Alex Antic and Ralph Babet have sponsored the private Bill – the Human Rights (Children Born Alive Protection) Bill 2022 – which “provides federal statutory protection for all babies born alive in Australia, a legal framework to ensure equality of care for babies born after termination and protect aborting mothers from prosecution”.
At recent hearings, Associate Professor Joanna Howe pointed to data that in Queensland and Victoria alone between 2010 and 2020, 724 babies have been born alive after abortion.
Pro-life groups argue that under the law of these States no medical assistance is recommended for these children.
Did you know that there are babies born alive as a result of a failed abortion and then left to die? It is a stain on the collective soul of our nation.
Help me protect the rights of all babies, Join The Movement – https://t.co/4pOujssPP5 pic.twitter.com/L03YKqXBTg
— Senator Babet (@senatorbabet) July 17, 2023
The Spectator Australia said that some jurisdictions “are more transparent with the relevant data than others”.
“We know that between 2010 and 2020 in Victoria, the cause of death of 396 newborn infants was listed as ‘Termination of Pregnancy’. In Queensland, the number is 328. In Western Australia, there were 27 confirmed abortions resulting in live births in which the child was left to die between 1998 and 2017,” the platform reported.
In Ireland, a recent government review of the operation of the 2018 abortion law confirmed that babies are being born alive after abortion – and may be denied even comfort care after the procedure failed to end their lives.
Gript’s Niamh Uí Bhriain wrote:
Discussing palliative care – where comfort care is needed for babies born alive after a late-term abortion – the review coldly notes that some paediatricians and neonatologists do not want to be involved in assisting these babies.
“However, the extent to which they are prepared to become involved is described as differing across settings and differing across the circumstances of the birth, with some not being prepared to offer comfort care where the birth is a result of a termination of pregnancy,” the review, authored by barrister Marie O’Shea, notes.
In 2020, this platform reported on a shocking paper published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology by researchers at UCC – who supported abortion, but who had gathered the experiences of those performing abortions in Ireland.
As we revealed:
In the UCC study, the authors note that the specialists carrying out abortion were frustrated by conflict with neonatologists and were “unclear” as to who will look after those babies’ if a baby was “born alive following an abortion by induction of labour and without feticide”.
This would leave the doctor who performed an unsuccessful late-term abortion “begging people to help” them provide palliative care if the baby survived, the study recorded.
The scenario is simply horrifying. Only the hardest of hearts, the cruellest of policymakers, would not find this deeply, deeply disturbing. A child, born alive after an abortion, likely struggling to breathe, left without care, with doctors – those who are meant to save lives – hoping they will die.
The Australian bill seeking to ensure care for babies surviving abortion may be voted on later this year.