NEWSVol. 12 No.4 - Summer Edition 1995/6 Print Post Approved - 33L385/00042
Pro-Life Victoria: Speaking Up for Humanity in the Nineties |
Contents:
- New Abortion Threat for
Australia
- Editorial
- Second Setback
for Australian Euthanasia Advocates
- Federal Government's
Abortion Services Review
- Piers Akerman on
Bishop Pell & Prof. Singer
- Push for UN to Recognise Five
Sexes
- World View
Exactly one year ago The Australian newspaper carried a front page report featuring a coloured photograph of a Dr Margie Ripper, Dr Barbara Buttfield and a Dr Lyndall Ryan authors of a so called "key study" We Women Decide, a 212 page report claimed to be the first "major study in Australia to record womens experiences and attitudes about abortion". The recommendations included:
· Remove references to abortion from the criminal law to allow its recognition and regulation as a normal health service
· Federal Health Department to fund Abortion Providers Federation of Australia training programs and improve training opportunities for general practitioners
· Decision-making responsibility for abortion to rest with women rather than health professionals
· Abortion services to be available within public health system
There followed an unprecedented number of articles over the Christmas/New Year period in The Australian, all pushing for the decriminalisation of abortion in Australia. The pro-life voice was all but drowned out. One response alone was reluctantly allowed. The warning signs were there. A big push to decriminalise abortion around Australia was clearly underway.
This push is now being helped by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the peak Government Advisory Body on Health with its Review of pregnancy termination services available in Australia. That the NH&MRC completely ignores the fact that South Australia is the only Australian state to have "legalised" abortion is an outrage. Elsewhere abortion remains against the Crimes Act. Abortion "services" should not be being "offered" to any women.
When you have read the comments of Professor Ted Watts of Right to Life Perth on the draft document sent out by the NH&MRC you will want to do something about this dangerous threat. Please write to:
The Rt. Hon. Paul Keating
Prime Minister
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
The Hon. Dr. Carmen Lawrence
Minister of Human Services & Health
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
The Hon. Kim Beazley
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
asking them to halt this Review. And to the daily and local newspapers embarrassing the Government and NH&MRC about "the state of mind of people who could write this". Professor Watts comments on some of the recommendations are in 'Federal Government's Abortion Services Review'.
Young
pro-lifers who attended August 6th Melbourne Rally Against French Nuclear Tests
with banners reminding other participants of the other French Holocaust - RU486
abortions
Reading the rash of responses to American feminist author Naomi Wolf’s admission of unease about abortion, I couldn’t help recalling the words of former Federal Minister, Dr Jim Cairns, in the recently released "The Last Right? Australian takes sides on the right to die". In all the responses I have read Dr Cairn’s words "Acceptance of euthanasia and abortion means that far more should be done than is done now to make them unnecessary" were what was missing, what was wrong with the convoluted rationalisation that has passed for a defence of the pro choice position.
As a woman I have never understood the feminist movement’s ready acceptance of abortion as being good enough for women. And noted how it left it to the pro life movement to really help pregnant women by establishing a worldwide network of Pregnancy Help services, providing emotional support, practical help, material aid, hospital referrals as well as post abortion grief counselling. One such English group "Life" has handled over for help in the past 25 years. It now handles , has 120 caring centres and runs 50 houses to cater for the needs of expectant mothers.
Twenty odd years ago the abortion lobby assured us that sex education and contraception would eradicate the need for abortion and the incidence of child abuse.
In 1995 we have more abortions, more teenage pregnancies, more sexually transmitted disease, more rapes, more child abuse and the highest incidence of youth suicide in the Western World.
Having been part of the abortion debate for twenty two years, I have found it interesting to see how the defence of abortion has descended into the psychobabble and gobbledygook that has characterised the current pro abortion defence. Initially abortion advocates claimed legalising abortion was necessary to eradicate backyard abortions and corruption. That argument is no longer tenable. The South Australian Abortion Law Reform Association claimed in its submission to the South Australian Select Committee on abortion in 1968 that there were between 5,150 and 8,900 abortions performed on South Australian women each year. According to the Select Committee on abortion two years later, there were only 1,330 abortions performed on South Australian women. Indeed South Australia still has still not reached the minimum number of abortions per annum suggested by the Abortion Law Reform Association in 1968, even after 25 years of "legal" abortion in South Australia. The corruption associated with "backyarders" continues amongst the "frontyarders". Former Atlanta Georgia abortuary administrator Helen Pendley now confesses ‘At the end of each day I would go to the laboratory to see how many abortions we had performed that day We were required to piece the bodies back together - to identify all the parts and measure them. I was used to looking at the bodies but I didn’t really see them as bodies. It was all tissue to me and each tissue represented a dollar sign to my eyes. I was just glad we’d had a successful day; if we reached our quota or surpassed it I was eligible for a large bonus.
Abortion advocates then seized upon the "right to choose" argument. The lengths to which Rebecca Walker, contributing editor to Ms Magazine took this:
"(Y)our abortion can be a rebellious and empowering act. Indeed it is a surgical operation with a mission" have obviously disturbed Naomi Wolf To distract from such extremism abortion advocates have now resorted to over-population scare mongering. Abortion is necessary to save the planet! Why should the lives of preborn children be forfeited to save the planet when we don’t expect abortion advocates to forfeit their lives to save it?
Feminism is in disarray over the abortion issue. It’s time the wider community, including our elected governments, stepped in and helped women give live birth to their babies. As Dr Cairns says "Acceptance of euthanasia and abortion means that far more should be done than is done now to make them unnecessary.
Denise Cameron
For the second time this year a Euthanasia Bill has been defeated. In July, a private members right-to-die bill was defeated by 30 votes to 12 in South Australia and on the 22nd November Michael Moores euthanasia bill was defeated in the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly 10 votes to 7. The Australian pro-life movement experienced great anxiety before the A.C.T. debate because the local A.C.T. branch of the Australian Labour Party had a policy of legalising euthanasia and there was doubt about Legislative Assembly members being allowed a conscience vote.
A.C.T. Right to Life Association and Right to Life Australia who conducted the campaign against this bill, along with pro-lifers all over Australia who wrote letters urging both a "conscience" and a "NO" vote deserve thanks and great credit for "holding the line". It was a setback for the death lobby. Whilst Michael Moore has declared his intention to re- introduce his death bill" as often as it takes to pass it" and we all know such wins may turn out to only be a "respite" not a "deliverance" we can all end 1995 on a joyful note. Two euthanasia bills have been defeated, the earlier "successful" Northern Territory Bill may even yet be repealed, and our own Premier Jeffrey Kennett has told the seven euthanasia doctors his Government is not considering changing the law against mercy-killing. Since letter writing has obviously proved so persuasive in these two campaigns we ask you to take out your pens and please write now to: The Hon. Shane Stone, Legislative Assembly, Parliament House, State Square, Darwin, NT, 0800; asking him to repeal Marshall Perron’s NT Euthanasia Bill.
The infamous National Health and Medical Research Council review of abortion services in Australia is the most blatant endorsement to date by any government in Australia past and present of our current "abortion holocaust".
The list of recommendations of the draft document sent out by the NH&MRC make ones hair stand on end. Professor Ted Watts of Perth comments:
Membership of Committee includes all three women who wrote last year’s pro-abortion ‘study’ We Women Decide: Barbara Buttfield, Margie Ripper and Lyndall Ryan. No dissenting members. Corresponding members include Jo Wainer, former abortion clinic proprietor in Melbourne, Edith Weisberg, FPA medical director and abortion publist in Sydney, and notorious late-term abortionist David Grundmann in Brisbane. How can this be called a representative committee?.
Government Responsibility and Funding: NH&MRC is publicly funded. The Federal Minister of Health is responsible, so that it can be the subject of parliamentary questions.
Australian Health Ethics Committee: There is no mention of this report having gone to the Australian Health Ethics Committee, which would seem appropriate. Should there be a call to refer it to the Health Ethics Committee now?.
Stomach-turning Appendix on Abortion Procedures pg.65-72: Readers should be referred to this section to see abortion methods described and to marvel at the state of mind of people who could write this. Of their recommended procedure for second trimester abortion, they say. ‘The surgeon must be emotionally robust to perform a procedure requiring fetal destruction’ (pg.70). Heinrich Himmler made similar observations about the emotional strain on his SS men whose duties required them to shoot thousands of helpless people, one by one, at close range.
They Cite Only Studies that Support their Own Position. Studies by Philip Ney and associates on long-term adverse psychological sequelae of abortion are not mentioned. 1994 British Parliamentary Commission report on abortion is not mentioned. Other studies that cannot simply be ignored, like Janet Daling’s 1994 study on abortion and breast cancer in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute are minimised: even Daling’s conclusions about groups at particularly high risk of breast cancer following abortion, especially women under 18 aborting their first pregnancy, are dismissed as ‘premature’.
They Will Allow Nothing to Get in the Way of Abortion. Some of the time they deny the risks. At other times they take it on themselves to accept, on women’s behalf risks that would be regarded as grossly reckless
in any other elective medical procedure.
Aboriginal Women: The authors note (pg.52) that in the Northern Territory only 2% of aboriginal pregnancies are aborted, compared with 20% of white pregnancies, and they would clearly like to see the aboriginal rate increased (pg.15)
‘Low Peer Approval’ of Abortionists: They admit the ‘low approval’ of abortionists by other doctors and the falling number of abortionists. This has them worried. Even doctors who are prepared to refer patients to abortionists, may not respect abortionists. Who does respect abortionists?.
They Want to Compel Medical and Nursing Students to Undergo Abortion Training to keep up the numbers of staff in the abortion industry. (Recommendations 10-12).
They Want to Shield Women from the Reality of What They are Doing: they suggest that ultrasound be used ‘with the screen not visible to the patient’ because of the ‘possible emotional power of the images produced’(pg.32).
They Want ‘Post-coital Contraceptives’ to be Readily Available Without Prescription (Recommendation 24). The objective of Renate Klein and her associates that these early-abortion drugs amount to a risky experiment on women, is noted (pg. 68),but the report says nothing at all to answer this objection. Once again, would they advocate taking such risks if it were not a women s reproductive matter?.
They Recognise that ‘Danger to Mental Health’ as a Reason for Abortion is a Charade. In South Australia, over 95% of abortions are with the reason of anxiety or depression or both, but ‘this tells us little more than the pregnancy is unwanted’ (pg.54).
Aborted Women’s Experience:
Breaking the Silence. They say (pg.6) that there has been a great silence on the part of the millions of Australian women who have had abortions’, and they want this silence to be broken. It should indeed be broken - though not in the way the Report suggest - by more and more women telling openly of the harm abortion has done to them.
Foetal Abnormality Abortions: They admit (pg.34-5) that women who abort for this reason are ‘more vulnerable to negative post-abortion effects’, so much so that they even suggest that the option of carrying to term should be considered’ (for the mothers of course, not the disabled babies). And they show no sign of recognising what their acceptance of abortion implies for the acceptance of people with disabilities.
Pressure on Women to Abort: They admit that for all their talk of (women’s) ‘right to choose’, the reality is that many women are far from being free agents in this ‘choice’ but rather are subject to pressure, even coercion, particularly if they are near the beginning or the end of their reproductive lives (pg.33).
Australian Abortion Rate: they call the Australian abortion rate ‘low’ (pg.46), and seem quite content that it should continue at the rate of roughly one abortion for every three live births. But as their own figures show (pg.44-7), the Australian figures are low only by comparison with countries like Bulgaria and Rumania. New Zealand figures are much lower, Canadian and Scottish figures lower still, and Dutch figures well under half the Australian figures.
Pain - Foetal Animals Treated Better Than Humans: the NH&MRC’s guideline on animal experimentation recommend scientists experimenting with animals to assume that foetal animals have the same pain threshold as adult animals undergoing experimental procedures that may be painful. Should we ask NH&MRC to classify humans as animals, so that unborn humans would have to be anaesthetised before being subjected to the possibly painful procedure of being torn to pieces by a suction abortion machine?
Professor Ted Watt, R. T.L.A. W.A.
Reprinted from Daily Telegraph Mirror October 10 1995
It is a horrifying measure of this country’s moral decline that no prominent politicians have yet condemned Greens Party Candidate Dr Peter Singer for his recent proposal that babies could be killed up to one month after birth.
The suggestion, which appeared in an article in the Spectator of September 16th, has however been aggressively addressed by Bishop George Pell, the Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, in a broad-ranging attack upon all of those who appear to be engaged in the destruction of our society.
Dr Singer, often called upon for comment by the Australian Broadcasting Corporations thoughtless talk back wireless hosts, is the Professor of Philosophy at Monash University and a prolific writer and propagandist.
He prepared the entry on ethics in the Encyclopaedia Britannica but is better known for his extraordinary views on animal rights published in his 1975 book Animal Liberation, the handbook of the animal rights activists.
The reluctance of politicians to engage Dr Singer is most regrettable but somewhat understandable.
Discussions about abortion and the sanctity of life are ducked by most people and as our politicians are more cowardly than most of their countrymen it is a debate they would go to any lengths to avoid.
In his Spectator article Dr Singer argues his belief that infants aged one month or less intrinsically have no greater sense of self awareness than the foetuses currently aborted and that a month of life outside the womb would enable a further determination to be made about their suitability for further existence.
He even suggests that a special ceremony might be held at that point at which the baby would acquire the same rights as an infant several years old might not have any greater awareness, opening up the possibility that infanticide of 2 and 3 year olds might also be acceptable in his view.
It sounds repulsive and it is. But then Dr Singer, an atheist, holds a number of very repugnant ideas which he communicates effectively to his young and impressionable audience, students in the main without the maturity, experience or skills to effectively refute them.
Just the sort of people who might be manipulated into voting for the Greens.
Bishop Pell, who is extremely highly regarded by the Vatican and is possibly the Roman Catholic Church’s most serious thinker in this country, has no difficulty dealing with the juvenile polemics of Dr Singer’s arguments.
He sees right through the Greens spokesman and correctly identifies him as one of those who appear determined to erode the moral foundations of our society.
According to Bishop Pell, Dr Singer and his
associates use euphemisms 
-abortion
becomes "the interruption of pregnancy" or "not carrying on with
the pregnancy" and euthanasia becomes "dying with dignity" rather
than mercy killing - to soften and disguise the full meaning of their policies.
They carefully highlight the hard cases which exist at the boundary of every
good law, rare and tragic examples (e.g. of a mother in childbirth dying to save
her baby) and then draw extensive and unwarranted conclusions as though these
exceptional circumstances are the norm.
In a forthright denunciation delivered on Sunday at the University of NSW, Bishop Pell denounced those "keen to debunk the very notion of moral truth, indeed any notion of objective truth "as neo-Pagans".
"Because he (Singer) denies the existence of God, there can be no purpose to creation, no natural law, no universal human rights no key role for humans". Bishop Pell said "He writes ‘the differences between us and nonhuman animals are differences of degree not of kind’. "Indeed Dr Singer’s colleague at the Monash Centre for Human Bio-ethics, Helga Kuhse, in 1988 compared the human embryo to a lettuce leaf
Bishop Pell notes that " the moral decline would need to slip a few more notches" for Dr Singer’s "brazen endorsement of infanticide" to be acceptable, but points out that the arbitrary cutoff point for infanticide one month after birth is "consistent with Singer’s gradualism; grotesque but still more plausible than seeking immediately to legitimise the killing of babies up to two or three years of age until they do develop self-awareness.
He points out with some irony that Dr Singer who was prevented by public hostility from giving three lectures in Germany and Austria in 1989-90 is now confident enough to seek public office here.
"It is no coincidence that Singer has been most successfully opposed in Germany which saw the most terrible Nazi programmes of eugenics and euthanasia and that he labours mightily to distinguish his doctrines allegedly inspired by compassion from the Nazi doctrines of racial purity social utility". Bishop Pell said. "He is not entirely successful. Like the Nazis he clearly believes that there is "life unworthy of life" in many cases his compassion is still lethal.
The Bishop has thrown down the gauntlet to those on the other side of the cultural war who support the "me" generation with its clamour for self-interest and its desire to weaken the moral foundations of our society in a bid to make its selfish purpose more acceptable. He is armed with the Pope’s most recent encyclical on morality, The Gospel of Life, as well as his own intelligent vision.
Those who call themselves leaders in our society should identify their position in this critical cultural war.
Islamic countries must do everything possible to nail the lies regarding deaths through abortion and childbirth of women in the developing world" said Dr Majid Katme, President of the Islamic Medical Association and the Coordinator of SPUC Muslims. He was explaining the aim of a letter which is being sent to heads of states in Islamic nations signed by over fifty scholars, community leaders and religious authorities from the Muslim community in Britain.
"I have been deeply involved in three United Nations Conferences on population, on the family and on the status of women - and it has become increasingly obvious that a powerful faction, formed by wealthier nations, have manipulated the proceedings for their own benefit", he continued. A number of delegates from the poorer countries have also become aware of what is happening and it is now essential that all are adequately informed so that they can unite to fight this new form of tyranny. The manner in which the preparatory session for the UN Conference on the Status of Women in New York was deliberately mismanaged was scandalous. It was scheduled to end on April 4th, but when the majority of delegations from poorer nations left at the due time, a motion was pushed through extending the closing date, after which further motions were rushed through which would never have been passed had Third World countries been present in force. A number of British MPs are now seeking to obtain a debate at Westminster to force the whole scandal open.
"The developed nations are quite unscrupulous in the manner in which they distort and misuse figures to promote policies which they know will undermine the development of poorer countries - but they present their aims as if they were seeking to improve the welfare of the developing world rather than their own best interests. Thus we see them fighting for liberal abortion policies, claiming that all they want is for such operations to be carried out in safety; to justify their calls they use outlandish figures on abortion deaths and maternal mortality which they know will shock people.
"But, the whole campaign is used by the West to justify the United Nations imposing abortion on demand on countries which were repelled by any such policies.
"The only way to get at the truth is for the Governments of Islamic countries to demand the actual figures for abortion and maternal deaths for their individual states. The WHO, the UNFPA and the IPPF simply put forward global figures, claiming that it is impossible to obtain actual numbers.
"Unlike statistics for under-five deaths for total fertility, estimates for maternal mortality are not usually based on national surveys. They are drawn up by piecing together evidence from community studies and hospital records.
"Each government must, therefore, demand to see what records from their country were used in assembling the figures for the world. From what we have personally witnessed at the United Nations we no longer believe that any figures exist to justify the exorbitant claims which are made.
"At the April meeting of the United Nations in New York - which was to prepare the document on the status of women they are aiming to ratify in Beijing in September - there was quite deliberate gerrymandering. During the scheduled programme we would find that sometimes Chairmen did not arrive, with the result that the meetings were cancelled, and the whole event appeared to be ending in disarray. Towards the end, however, we became more and more certain that it was quite a deliberate strategy to outmanoeuvre developing countries who had come together in opposition to a number of the items being put forward. One glaring example was in connection with the use of the term ‘gender’.
"Extremists seeking to undermine the family claim that the terms man and woman are simply social concepts. They wanted to introduce the term ‘gender’ into the document on the grounds that there are five different sexes; male, female, homosexual, bisexual, and hermaphrodite. When the session was scheduled to end and delegations from poorer countries could no longer afford to stay in New York the UN Authorities extended the debates and a Motion to include the word ‘gender’ in general document was passed. It was valiantly opposed by Iran, Sudan, Guatemala and Honduras - but they were, of course, outnumbered.
"How can anybody possibly accept a document as an international agreement’ when it has been forced through only as a result of such dishonest manipulations?.
"Fortunately, Muslim countries are becoming more and more aware of what is happening at the United Nations where a group are set on destroying Islam as well as the Christian world".
Catholic" radical reveals agenda. In an amazing turnaround, Marjorie Reiley Maguire has publicly rebuked her former allies in the radical proabortion group called Catholics for a Free Choice.
Loved by the media, CFFC has had a high profile in the United States in spite of its small membership. Now Ms Maguire admits it had no right to use the name "Catholic".
As a young nun in the 1960’s she was studying at the University of America when she fell in love with Father Daniel Maguire. He was laicised and they married in 1971.
Both worked hard for pro-abortion causes. In 1983 she wrote a booklet entitled Abortion; A Guide to Making Ethical Choices.
It has been used by New Zealand abortion clinics to persuade Catholic women, and others with religious beliefs, that abortion is an "ethical choice".
Dan Maguire became a professor and was employed by the Catholic Marquette University, in spite of his well publicised anti-Catholic views. In 1991 he told Marjorie he was ending their 20 year marriage so he could marry his "nose doctor".
During their bitter divorce, her eyes were opened when the feminist CFFC supported Dan rather than her. She told the Catholic newspaper The Wanderer that CFFC stood by Dan because he was important to the group as its only "Catholic" theologian with a Catholic address.
When the United Nations accredited CFFC as a non-governmental organisation for the recent Beijing women’s conference, Ms Maguire wrote to the National Catholic Reporter exposing the group’s "anti-woman" and unCatholic roots.
She said CFFC’s purpose is "no longer simply to defend the legality of a women’s abortion choice against efforts to recriminalise that choice. Instead, now I see CFFC’s agenda as the promotion of abortion, the defence of every abortion decision as a good, moral choice and the related agenda of persuading society to cast off any moral constraints about sexual behaviour".
She revealed that CFFC has "only a handful of dues-paying members" and gets its funding from organisations like the Ford Foundation and Playboy Foundation.
By Mary O’Neill. Reprinted from ‘Humanity’ New Zealand’s national pro-life newspaper.
CHINESE prisoners as involuntary donors: Modern medical advances in China appear to be characterised by the same abandonment of ethical values which have surfaced in the Chinese coerced abortion and sterilisation program.
A great demand for human organs among high Communist Party officials as well as the development of traffic in human organs in Hong Kong and other countries, has fuelled the search for marketable organs in China. A convenient source of donors has been found among the executed death-row prisoners. A staff member at Number 7 People’s Hospital described the procedure: "We make arrangements with the executioner to shoot in the head so that the prisoner dies very quickly, instantly, and the survival rate of organs is considerably higher... .(Once) a prisoner is shot", he continued, "he no longer exists as a human being". Fees for a kidney have been reported as high as $30,000 at Number 7 People’s Hospital.
Police Commander, Yang Guang, in Beijing said executed prisoner’s families are not allowed to pick up the bodies. Almost every corpse is cut open, organs removed and the bodies cremated". (A Grim Harvest in China’s Prisons (World Press Review, June 1995, 22-3).
NEWS WEEK and RU486: A three page account of two women s experiences with the French abortion pill appeared in the September 18 Newsweek. It described in exquisite detail the experiences of two women who had aborted with this drug. Both women came face-to-face with the graphic reality of what was passed, including "little hands curled into tiny fists". For those who read the article, it seems that Newsweek did the pro-life movement a favour. How anyone who read these gory details, could conclude that this was a positive experience and a good thing is hard to imagine. Newsweek probably meant this to be a boost for the pill. Possibly, it may have been counter-productive to the pill’s future.
© The Official Newsletter of Pro-Life Victoria, Edited by Denise Cameron |