A parliamentary committee has recommended the Queensland Government reject a bill that would protect babies who survive late-term abortions and are left to die. Source: The Catholic Leader.
Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter introduced the Babies Born Alive Bill earlier this year to protect these newborns under the law.
But a parliamentary committee last week recommended the Government reject the bill.
Under the current law, there is no obligation on health practitioners to provide care to unwanted, though otherwise healthy, babies.
From 2018 to 2022, 161 Queensland babies past the 20-week mark were abandoned to die after surviving their abortion.
If babies born alive after abortion who are younger than 20 weeks are included, the number of abandonments leading to neonatal deaths expands to more than 200.
Cherish Life executive officer Matthew Cliff said the committee’s recommendation was deeply saddening.
“Here is the real issue – this report confirms once again, in Queensland we have different guidelines and laws based on whether a child is wanted or unwanted,” Mr Cliff said.
He said the ambiguity of the recommendation was alarming and it demonstrated a “desperate lack of real empirical evidence”.
The recommendation mentions “some health practitioners” being reluctant to provide abortions because of the requirement to provide care to babies who survive.
Mr Cliff wanted to know the specifics – who these practitioners were, how many raised this opposition and why.
The recommendation also said the duty to care for babies who survived abortions would “disproportionately impact women for whom access to health services is already challenging,” something Mr Cliff said was equally vague and uncompelling.
“Pragmatically, surely it is better to pass the bill and then quantify this later rather than risk putting hundreds of babies through immense distress and trauma in the final stages of their life,” he said.
Queensland Australian Christian Lobby director Rob Norman said the committee “deceptively conflated women’s access to abortion with the provision of best practice care for all babies born alive”.
FULL STORY
Queensland committee rejects bill to protect babies born alive after abortion (By Michael Howard, The Catholic Leader)
