Horror of babies born alive mirrored in political hypocrisy
“By Steve Klomp
President, Right to Life Association of WA.”
WA Liberal Leader Libby Mettam had to do some political quick stepping this week when the Liberal candidate for Albany Dr Thomas Brough said that babies born alive after a failed abortion should not be left to die. She was forced to provide assurance that the party was not planning to review abortion laws.
It was a gutless comment designed to shore up support for the Liberal Party one week out from election day, and she said it to avoid addressing one of the most horrible acts our society allows to happen to our own children.
Mettam is also happy to be a hypocrite. She recently advocated for Perth’s new babies hospital to be built next to the Children’s hospital in Nedlands, arguing that newborns and prem babies needing surgery may not survive the trip from Murdoch to the specialist care at Nedlands if they were born at Fiona Stanley. It is probably a good idea – but Mettam is happy for children to be killed a day earlier if they are still in the womb.
Of course our politicians have always been more interested in being elected than in leading. We all know that. Mettam showed that when she ultimately supported the Labor Party’s most recent abortion law changes, even though she made a show of questioning the detail leading up to raising her hand in support. She showed that when she attempted to hound pro life Christians out of the Liberal Party soon after she was given the helm. She showed that when she demoted Nick Goiran.
Not that the Labor Party is any better. Whilst it was during the Richard Court’s Liberal Government that a conscience vote following a private member’s bill brought abortion into Western Australia the Labor Party has taken full advantage of its presence ever since. We now have abortions to full term and no real way an objecting doctor can avoid being a party to the abortion. It is true that both the Labor and the Liberal Party have some good people, good leaders, thinking people, people with a sense of morality. But these people are very, very thin on the ground. The majority simply want to get elected and stay elected, as if politics was a career rather than an opportunity to lead.
The truth is that our new law has not allowed for the possibility of children scheduled for death by abortion actually surviving the ordeal. In fact prior to the latest law Upper House member Nick Goiran had been campaigning for years to have the death of these children recognised, with no success. It was still illegal to allow children to die in this way and their deaths should have been investigated but the Coroner sat on his hands for five years without doing anything at all.
After five years the Labor Government removed the requirement to act on children born alive from the Coroner’s list of duties. So now there is nobody to investigate the deaths of these children.
Again, pretty gutless.
We now have the situation where neither their life nor their death is valued in any way. No acknowledgement of their existence, no acceptance of their humanity and what we have taken from them.
Amber Jade Sanderson – ironically our Health Minister – takes being gutless to another level. In an outrageous lie she stated, over and over again and in the media, that there were no babies born alive after failed abortions. This wilful denial is a symptom of the devastating reality of how far our government has embraced a pro-abortion culture, protecting a mother’s right to an abortion at all costs.
The truth is that there have been thousands of children across the country who were scheduled to die by abortion, who are born alive. And now that there is virtual open slather on late-term abortions in almost every state the number who survive is only going to increase.
How does this happen?
When a mother is in the later stages of pregnancy abortion becomes much more difficult and there are a lot less options open to surgeons. There is also more risk to the mother. The pro-death lobby will tell you when the child is humanely (humanely?) killed by Feticide, a procedure that involves injecting a lethal dose of Potassium Chloride into the baby’s heart babies are never born alive. The doctor also monitors the baby’s heartbeat with an echocardiogram to ensure his or her grisly work has been successful. Labour is then induced and a dead baby is delivered.
The truth is that feticide is only recommended after 22 weeks gestation, because a baby’s heart chambers are so small that only a doctor with a special skill set can perform this injection. It is a sub-specialty within a specialty, often occurring within a tertiary hospital. For babies born without Feticide, there is a high chance the baby will be born alive. This can occur when a baby is between 15 and 22 weeks, the more mature the more likely they will be born alive. In rural and regional areas, with less access to Feticide, babies may be aborted at gestations greater than 22 weeks, and in some areas of the country these children are offered resuscitation and admission into intensive care, if they are lucky.
The truth is that a child born alive in this way is left to die by the attending medical staff, to support a mother’s reproductive rights. They sit around waiting for the baby to die, and then it is thrown out with the medical waste. Incredibly, at least some of these children, particularly those born after 23 weeks and who have not been subject to Feticide, would go on to live if they were just offered standard care. But as the medical staff don’t do that, for fear of the repercussions associated with not supporting the mother’s request. Or perhaps they don’t care. Sometimes the child takes hours and hours and hours to die, crying and in agony.
But there is another truth.
The other truth is that in some cases an abortion will be performed on babies with a medical condition that’s considered ‘lethal’, i.e. where it is believed that offering intensive care isn’t in the best interest. So doctors sometimes deliberately induce labour when the baby is not old enough to survive outside the womb. They induce labour and the child is born alive, and then they wait for it to die. No surgery needed. No Potassium Chloride injection. This scenario ‘lethal condition’is quite uncommon, but pro-abortion doctors use the argument to support their position. And ass our laws.
At every election don’t think about the party a candidate stands for. Consider the candidate himself or herself. If they have a record of being pro-life, if they are active in the area, if they are prepared to help change our laws back to protecting our children then vote for them. Don’t think about any other issue because there is no other issue that is as important. In other words, vote for Dr Thomas Brough from the Liberal Party but not for his Leader Libby Mettam.
Similarly vote for Margaret Quirk from the Labor Party but not for Amber Jade Sanderson.
You don’t need to feel powerless. Anyone can help to get the law changed to save our children. And in the meantime pray that the Lord forgives us for what we are doing. Heed the words of Mother Theresa who said: if a society can abort its own children, there is no evil it will not do.