Ben Hood to Introduce South Australian Bill to Prevent the Abortion of Highly Viable Babies
Legislative council member Ben Hood will today introduce a bill into the South Australian upper house seeking to prevent the deaths of viable babies killed through late-term abortion.
Titled the Termination of Pregnancy and Live Births Amendment Bill, the proposed legislation would ensure that in pregnancies over 27 weeks and six days, babies are born alive rather than killed by a lethal injection.
The bill does not seek to prevent pregnancies from being terminated – even up to birth. Instead, it requires babies at 28 weeks gestation and older to be born alive and given up for adoption (if the mother chooses not to keep her baby).
At 23 weeks gestation, a prematurely born baby has around a 45% chance of survival, according to researchers at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and the University of Melbourne.
But the chance of survival increases dramatically during the following weeks. Howe states that for babies at 28 weeks gestation, their chance of survival is 96%.
Ben Hood’s bill seeks to ensure the survival and adoption of these highly viable babies.
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Justice for the 45
Statistics from 2022 and 2023 SA Health data reveal that 45 babies were aborted after 22 weeks and six days gestation during the 18 months since abortion up-to-birth laws came into effect in 2022.
BREAKING: in data just released by the SA government we can see another 37 babies who were perfectly healthy and viable (post 23 wks) were needlessly killed by late term abortions under our new laws pic.twitter.com/BbtAuGrIe1
— Dr Joanna Howe (@ProfJoannaHowe) September 17, 2024
Eight babies in 2022 and 37 unborn children in 2023 were aborted because of the “physical or mental health of the pregnant person”. In other words, these babies were healthy and viable.
In addition, the mother’s life was not at risk. SA Health data gives the number of babies aborted “to save [the] life of [the] pregnant person or another fetus” as zero in both 2022 and 2023.
This ‘zero’ figure is entirely expected.
If an urgent emergency arose that required the removal of the baby, a late-term abortion is a poor and dangerous medical option.
The reason is simple.
After 24 weeks gestation, the baby is too large for the abortion method of dilation and evacuation (D & E) to be used. (For an explanation of a D & E abortion, see here.)
Instead, ‘induction and stillbirth’ abortions are performed. This is where foeticide such as intracardiac potassium chloride is injected into the baby, which “causes immediate foetal cardiac arrest”. The dead baby is then delivered fully intact through induced labour.
But an ‘induction and stillbirth’ abortion takes two to four days to complete. In an emergency where the mother’s life is at risk, choosing an abortion would dramatically increase the danger as the method is far too slow.
In emergency cases, induced labour or emergency caesarean section is required – not an abortion.
Dr Joanna Howe, a Professor of Law at the University of Adelaide, is campaigning for these 45 healthy, viable babies killed in non-emergency situations.
She helped draft the bill, telling The Australian that it would strike the “effective balance between the competing interests of a mother and her viable child through ensuring that foeticide is banned and the child is delivered alive.”
Howe continued, “For SA babies in the third trimester who are at a gestation where they can feel pain and would have a 96 per cent chance of survival if born alive, the injection of potassium chloride is brutal, barbaric and wholly unnecessary.”
Responding to Misunderstandings
Hood’s bill has garnered a mixed reaction. But some objections were made out of misunderstandings.
The Adelaide Advertiser led with the headline, “Laws banning late-term pregnancy terminations to be put to South Australian parliament”.
The genius of Ben Hood’s bill is that it allows the termination of pregnancy at ANY point during pregnancy so why the misleading headline @theTiser ? pic.twitter.com/h4yk8Wrdio
— Dr Joanna Howe (@ProfJoannaHowe) September 23, 2024
But the bill does not restrict ending a late-term pregnancy. As Hood explained, “The mother still has the choice to terminate the pregnancy. But these babies will be born alive.”
The SA Abortion Action Coalition (which advocates for abortion) also strangely reposted a tweet alleging that Ben Hood “wants to force women to give birth to their unwanted pregnancies.”
But as explained above, a third-trimester ‘induction and stillbirth’ abortion involves the mother giving birth to a stillborn child.
Whether the mother gives birth is not the issue.
Whether the mother gives birth to an alive or dead (via an induced cardiac arrest) baby is the issue.
Ben Hood’s bill requires that these babies are born alive, given intensive neonatal medical care, and placed for adoption.
Those advocating against the bill need to argue why babies that have an extremely high chance of survival outside the womb should be killed before delivery.
The Bill is Close to Majority Support in the SA Upper House
The SA Liberal Party, led by Vincent Tarzia, agreed on Monday night to allow a conscience vote on the bill.
According to The Advertiser, State Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas is also expected to allow his party members a conscience vote.
For the bill to pass the upper house, at least eleven MPs must vote in favour of it to reach a majority.
The Advertiser revealed last night that eight upper house MPs had pledged to support the bill. These included Liberals Jing Lee, Nicola Centofanti, Heidi Girolamo, Laura Henderson and Dennis Hood. One Nation’s Sarah Game and Independent Frank Pangallo also declared their support.
Three upper house Labor Party members are undecided, reserving judgment until they see the legislation. But Labor members expected their colleagues Tung Ngo and Clare Scriven to vote for it. This effectively leaves the success of the bill in the upper house hinging on the support of undecided Muslim MP Mira El Dannawi.
Led by Dr Joanna Howe, a public rally is being held on the steps of the South Australian Parliament House from 5–6 pm today (Wednesday 25 September).
“It WILL make a difference if you attend this rally”, she stated.
“A strong showing of public support will communicate to MPs that this Bill does matter to all South Australians.”
“Signs will be provided (so please do not bring signs), there will be activities for kids (I’m bringing my 5!) and you will hear from Ben Hood, myself and leading advocates for this landmark reform.”
Members of the public wishing to attend can register for free here.
___
Image via Dr Joanna Howe.
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Great article!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Hoodwink Bill is NOT prolife. Prolife is about condemning every single abortion, no exceptions, from those caused by contraceptive devices such as the Pill, IUDs and “emergency” contraception to the late, later term, born-alive-and-left-to-die abortions.
It is foolish to try and sneak concessionary legislation past the pro-abortion cohort in the vain hope they won’t notice your and incredulous hope of saving the baby.
The Bill Not about preventing abortion? No, and that is what is also grievously wrong with it. Every procedure with the intent to extinguish the infant’s life is an abortion. Why do you think a baby born alive after induction is left to die? THAT IS DELIBERATE ABORTION. To expect a hospital committing abortions to then turn around and put a frail, discarded, aborted infant on a battery of machines to save the life they just tried to take is insane. No, this Bill is all about trying to reverse a late term abortion (which these prolifers are not condemning!)
If Mummy doesn’t want you, you are not really human, is the insane premise by the parent, the doctors, the nurses, the hospital board, and much of society.
Prolifers should never let slip a millimetre of rope to the pro-aborts, because there is NO co-operation, assent, or “partial abortion consent” permitted in the moral natural law.
The medical literature is replete with evidence of how even induction or caesarian late in the pregnancy puts the baby at risk. Look it up. A Hoodwinked baby is virtually permitted by the authors to be rejected, ejected violently from his/her mother’s womb, as long as he or she, poor, tragic little baby, is hooked up to his-her AI mother-machines, facing months in NICU, also facing a probable lifetime of disabilities, psychological and physiological, and then what? Adoption?
Instead … “But the bill does not restrict ending a late-term pregnancy. As Hood explained, “The mother still has the choice to terminate the pregnancy. But these babies will be born alive.”.”
Are you crazy?
NO to abortion at any stage. Tell those who don’t recognise a baby as a human being until he or she is born, that each of us begins life as a single cell, fertilised and with an immoral soul; unique, unrepeatable and perfectly designed by God. But why? What makes the proabort so special they survived, but billions of innocent babies have been executed?
Why on earth didn’t you make a plea to everyone concerned to look after the mother until she naturally gives birth to the baby, and THEN relinquish him/her for adoption? Tell her how her life will change forever, for the worse, if she aborts?
When I was young, there were numerous homes run by Christian organisations for single or at-risk pregnant mothers, who could choose adoption or to keep their babies. Abortion was still an option, but not lauded and encouraged and tax-payer funded as now. But the proaborts hate adoption almost as much as they love abortion.
The holocaust of abortion globally is the root cause of the demolition of western society, wars and unprecedented moral depravity in “civilised” societies which have approved it. Uncontrolled, unregulated immigration is the desperate response to a shrinking demographic in the west. We’re officially an anti-natal “society” of savages, sacrificing our children to the idols of comfort, money and sexual licence.
Prolifers should be putting pressure on the media, schools, parent organisations, Churches and Christian organisations and Governments to fund education in secondary schools about the misery, fear, disease and myriad dangers caused by pre-marital sex. At the same time, educate kids and young couples about the joy, peace and happiness of the virtue of chastity. Get the parents of large Christian families to come and witness what their virtue, fecundity and self-restraint look like: holy marriage as God intended; life abundant.
This imprudent Bill – like every single other attempt to legislate any restriction whatsoever of taxpayer funded murder of the innocent child in the womb, will be ferociously, gleefully, rejected by the sisterhood and their craven male cronies in Australian Parliaments. Satan himself, their lord and master, ensures this.
Babies left alone in witch’s hats (how appropriate), struggling to breathe in the sump rooms of killer hospitals, are the visible sign of the anti-sacrament of abortion. That’s all. They’re just as evil as early, later and late, late abortions like these.
Immortal soul, That should have read.