Sydney
6 April 2003
Home
Archive
Subscribe
Links
Contact
Peace ... harmony
Rugby league scores a try in a GPS college
Passing the baton
Peaceful action for peace
Catholic Weekly takes a holiday over Easter
Tissue project wins archbishop’s grant
A voice for the disabled
Faith centre moves
Younger set is 50
Fr Chris is guest
Ecumenical Stations of the Cross in wetlands
US move welcomed on partial birth abortion
Project Compassion 2003 - Leyte farmers can face better future
Editorial - Victims of war
Letters - Ash Wednesday
Conversation - Fr Patrick Byrne, Rome-based head of Children’s Mission: Big project or small, ‘it must be for kids’
Voice of Youth - Renaissance of thinking about the Middle Ages
Celebrate Love? Live it to the ‘max’
Heading off conflict before it hits crisis point
Crucifixion story wouldn’t go away
New home for new breed of priest
Christian Brothers spread social justice net
Luke’s Story wins award
300 at social justice forum
Music lets Andrew ‘share my faith’ ...
US move welcomed on partial birth abortion
By Marilyn RodriguesPro-life advocates in Australia have welcomed a move in the US Congress to outlaw a type of late term abortion.
Catherine Cotton of NSW Right to Life hopes that news of the US Senate decision to ban partial birth abortions will help to raise awareness in Australia of the practice of late term abortions.
The Senate’s 64-33 vote to ban partial birth abortions is a big step towards the first federal law to limit abortion since its legalisation in the US in 1973.
It has gathered support, too, from the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee decision to pass the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act without any amendments.
The bill is now in position for a vote on the House floor and is expected to pass by a wide margin.
President Bush has vowed to sign the legislation into law.
Experts in obstetrics and gynaecology told the US House committee that the partial-birth procedure is “excruciatingly painful” for the unborn child.
Dr Mark Neerhof, assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare in Evanston, Illinois, also explained the health risks to women from partial-birth abortions.
Cathy Cleaver, director of planning and information for the US bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, said: “According to Dr Neerhof, partial-birth abortion exposes the unborn human to levels of pain that would fail the federal standards for humane treatment of animals in medical research.
“It is unconscionable that women and children have been made to suffer so needlessly from this procedure.”
Ohio Republican Steve Chabot, who introduced the legislation in the House, said a “moral, medical and ethical consensus exists that partial-birth abortion is an inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited”.
Partial birth abortion is a late-term abortion, performed in the second or third trimester.
It is more common in the US than in Australia, but it is used here by some practitioners.
Among the more controversial of these is Queensland GP Dr David Grundmann, who stirred up a hornet’s nests over partial birth abortions in 1994 when he announced in a conference paper he gave at Melbourne’s Monash University that it was his favourite late term method.
Catherine Cotton says that the medical boards of Queensland and Victoria then held inquiries into whether late-term abortions should be prohibited or restricted, but both declined to do so.
The average age of an aborted foetus is eight weeks.
However, Mrs Cotton says, in NSW abortions can be performed after 20 weeks of pregnancy if two doctors agree that not to do so would endanger the mother’s life.
A birth as well as a death certificate are required for the baby.
It is not known how many partial birth abortions are performed in Australia. However, in the nine months from July 2001 to March 2002, there were 473 second trimester abortions in Australia, 145 of them in NSW.
“Different procedures can be used for late-term abortions,” says Mrs Cotton. “Partial birth is just one of them.”
NSW Right To Life would nevertheless like to see it banned.
“We are against all abortion, but we would like to see at least partial birth abortion outlawed, because there is nothing clear to say that it can’t be done.”