Friday May 21, 2010
Hundreds of Late-Term Abortions Committed in Victoria, Australia
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
MELBOURNE, May 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – According to the most recent figures released in the annual report of the Australian Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity, 345 late-term abortions were committed in Victoria State in 2007.
Of these, the report states that 164 were performed at a Melbourne clinic on women with perfectly healthy unborn children who said they were suffering psychological or “social” problems.
Though most of the abortions were carried out on women about six months pregnant, two of the aborted children were older than 28 weeks. A further 181 late-term abortions were committed on babies diagnosed with genetic abnormalities. Fifty-four of these babies survived the procedure to die post-natally, according to the figures released in the state government report.
In Victoria, late-term abortions can be carried out for “psycho-social” reasons even if there is no declaration of a threat to the mother’s health.
The report says that many of the women given late-term abortions at the Melbourne clinic, one of the few in Australia willing to commit abortions on women 6 months or more pregnant, had travelled from other states or were foreign nationals.
One pro-life physician pointed out that these healthy children killed by abortion would find loving families if they were allowed to live and be offered for adoption.
Dr. David van Gend, of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life, told the Herald Sun, “These are babies that are older than some of the children who are born premature and who will thrive. There are literally thousands of upstanding Victorians who they could be adopted out to, but they’re being aborted.”
Dr. Mathew Piercey of Victoria Right to Life said babies surviving late-term abortion raises serious issues for medical practitioners.
“If there is a chance of life then resuscitation facilities should be there. People could be in serious breach of their duties,” Dr. Piercey said in the Herald Sun report.