Historic Victory
On Thursday 11th May the New South Wales parliament voted against a proposal to decriminalise abortion. The Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi’s reform bill sought to have offences relating to abortion removed from the Crimes Act and common law. However, it was defeated 25 to 14 by Parliament with no member of the government voting for the bill.
As a result, abortion will still remain an offence under the NSW Crimes Act, including unlawfully procuring abortion or supplying a drug or instrument for an abortion. Isaac Spencer, Campaigns Manager for Right to Life NSW, outlined the “huge number of people – 56,559 – signed an official parliamentary petition in just two weeks, calling on politicians to reject both the Faruqi bill and another pro-abortion bill proposed by Labor MLC Penny Sharpe.
On the other hand, GetUp’s national campaigns director, Emily Mulligan, said the decision represented “a betrayal of women in NSW” and Ms Faruqi said the decision was “completely out of step with modern medical practice, community expectation, and laws in almost all other states”.
It is clear that it is abortion that is the real betrayal of women and every unborn baby who is stripped of their fundamental human right to life. As Alice Paul, a women’s right activist, said abortion is the “ultimate exploitation of women”. Modern medical practice provides women with support and care throughout and after a pregnancy for as long as required, particularly crisis pregnancies. Women deserve the right to know all the alternatives to abortion to make an informed decision. Furthermore, the risks of so-called safe and legal abortions should be made very clear as 100s of women have died due to the adverse effects of abortion and many deaths are under-reported.
Ms Faruqi went on to say that, “The genie is out of the bottle now, more people than ever are awakened to this injustice and I am confident that under a less conservative parliament, less dominated by conservative men, abortion will be taken out of the Crimes Act and women will be able to access reproductive health clinics without harassment in future.”
There is no doubt that the real injustice is denying human beings of their right to life and the reality is abortion is not healthcare. It is the intentional killing of innocent unborn children.
A former pro-abortion obstetrician gynaecologist of 37 years’ experience, Dr Anthony Levatino, said, “If you let this genie out of the lamp you will not be able to put it back.” He also says, “You know you did it right if you crush down on the instrument and a white material runs out of the cervix. That was the baby’s brain and then you can pull out skull pieces.” He speaks of the “little face that comes back and stares back at you. Congratulations you just performed a second trimester abortion. You just affirmed her right to choose. You just made $800 cash in 15 minutes.” He also emphasises, “I have terminated 100s of pregnancies in my career to save women’s lives and I didn’t have to kill a single baby in the process.”
The proposed legislation for New South Wales would have also involved installing 150-metre safe access zones around abortion clinics to prevent the so-called “harassment” of staff and patients. If passed this proposal would havegaged pro-life activists and anyone who opposes abortion by preventing them from exercising their right to freedom of expression and assembly. This actual bill can be compared to the recent motion that was passed by the Belfast City Council and Green Party Claire Bailey’s proposal for “buffer zones” that would prevent pro-life people in Northern Ireland from going anywhere near the premises of Marie Stopes abortion clinic.
Isaac Spencer emphasised that NSW’s pro-life petition is “one of the largest petitions Parliament House has ever received.” He emphasised that “women don’t gain anything from unregulated abortion on demand.”
He went on to say that this historic victory “only happened because we got out into the NSW community and made people aware of this bill and the horrendous effects it would have, both for women and their unborn children. We have to continue engaging with the public, and remember that we are the pro-life majority.” This highlights that every pro-life person in the UK must also go out into their communities and reveal the brutal reality of abortion vs the beautiful humanity of unborn children. Let’s stand together, protecting and defending everyone’s right to life so pro-abortion legislation and slogans become a thing of the past.
We congratulate all those hard-working, passionate pro-life activists in New South Wales who have tirelessly campaigned to legally protect mothers and their unborn children from the scourge of abortion. We would also like to thank Archbishop Fisher who had asked “all Catholics in Sydney and others of goodwill to defend life by giving a voice to unborn and signing a petition to the NSW members of parliament.” New South Wales have voted for life, become the voice for the voiceless and proudly declared themselves pro-woman, pro-baby and pro-life.