WILL THE REAL ABORTION ISSUE PLEASE STAND UP?

There’s been plenty of drama in the past few days over Mr Troy Newman being denied a visa to enter Australia. Mr Newman, president of US anti-abortion organisation Operation Rescue, and one of the Board of Directors of the Center for Medical Policy, which exposed Planned Parenthood’s business model of selling aborted human body parts, was scheduled to visit Australia on a pro-life speaking tour right about now. However, Australian pro-choice advocates have lobbied the Australian government to deny Mr Newman a visa on grounds that his views could spark incidents of violence.

This is what Labor MP, Terri Butler had to say:

“Yesterday I wrote to Minister Dutton asking that he refer Mr Newman to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to determine whether his visa ought to be cancelled for failing the character test under section 501 of the Migration Act 1958 … I am very concerned that his presence in Australia will incite some to harass and intimidate women accessing reproductive services and those professionals offering them at medical clinics. … There is a real risk that Mr Newman’s conduct may cause discord within the community and disrupt the ability of women to access lawful reproductive medicine. … It is not hard to imagine that Mr Newman’s call for “abortionists” to be “executed” could lead to threats or the commission of acts of violence against women and medical professionals.”

I don’t know if Ms Butler’s fears are valid, but I’m sure that a bit of online research will easily confirm or deny whether Mr Newman is someone who can be held responsible for inciting people to violence.

Furthermore, I believe that Newman was not right in coming to Australia with full knowledge that his visa had been revoked. I’m with Justice Geoffrey Nettle who stated:

“Acting as he did means he does not come to this court with clean hands … Mr Newman had no right to treat the law as ‘nought’ …”.

However in all of this nobody seems to be asking a simple question — should human babies be aborted?

Quite a lot of research has been conducted on the subject of Australian attitudes towards abortion. Writing for The Drum online, Julia Baird says:

“Australians have already decided abortion should be legal and safe, and not a decision made by the government. … Support appears to have strengthened in the past two decades. … Of course there is room for further discussion. Many Australian laws are unclear and outdated; there is an argument that we should introduce a single, clear national law on abortion. But the debate has been had here.”

However, in the same article, the research paper she cites states:

“ … a majority of respondents indicated that doctors should not face professional sanctions for performing abortion after 24 weeks’ gestation”.”

She goes on to quote another research, stating:

“A 2003 study from Katharine Betts from Monash University – which cited the Australian Social Survey of Social Attitudes – found 81 per cent of Australians supported women’s right to choice and only 9 per cent definitely did not.”

And therein lies the problem.

The entire debate thus far has been framed in the context of women’s choice, which itself is evidence of a bias. After all, the debate completely ignores the other person involved — the unborn child.

Did anyone think to ask the question — should human babies be terminated in the first trimester of pregnancy?

Or would that be a stupid question to ask?

So if we can get past all the layers of complexity in this debate and get to the real issue, that would be fantastic for all concerned.

Especially the one’s in the womb whose voices are drowned by the cries of “Personal Choice! Personal Choice!”