The Labor Government’s decriminalisation bill announced today effectively will allow abortion at any stage of pregnancy and for any reason, according to Cherish Life Queensland.
“This extreme legislation will allow abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy – the earliest age of viability – with the approval of two doctors who can base their decision on a woman’s ‘social circumstances’,” executive director Ms Teeshan Johnson said.
“In recent years, almost half of the late-term abortions in Victoria, which has a similar so-called ‘limit’, have been performed on ‘psycho-social’ grounds.
“This radical bill is a con job to try to trick the Queensland public into thinking there will be an effective restriction on late-term abortions, when in fact it will legalise the killing of healthy viable unborn babies for social or financial reasons.
“Recent research by YouGovGalaxy showed that only 5% of Queensland voters support abortion after 23 weeks, with 73% opposed.
“Also, the price of endorsing decriminalisation is that abortion will be legal for sex selection.
“The inconvenient truth is that abortion for any reason means legalising the killing of unborn baby girls, just because they are female.
“Only 6% of Queenslanders support sex-selection abortions, with 85% opposed.
“There is evidence that gender selection abortions do occur in Australia, provided by a demographic study using ABS data from 2003 to 2013 showing ‘1,395 missing girls’, which was reported by SBS and Daily Mail Australia in 2015.
“And in 2013 Dr Mark Hobart of Melbourne faced disciplinary charges for refusing to refer a couple for a sex selection abortion in Victoria.
“Inevitably, the overall number of abortions in Queensland will increase after decriminalisation, as it will become freely available in public hospitals, which is not currently the case.
“The more abortions that occur, the more women will be harmed psychologically and physically.
“This bill is unnecessary, as under the current law, abortion is readily accessible in private clinics and there are about 14,000 terminations in Queensland each year. How many abortions are enough?”
ENDS