Abortion law in Victoria is set to be changed. The Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) has just released its report on ways to proceed. The 191-page report argues that there are three main options, all of which involve the decriminalisation of abortion.
The VLRC wants abortion removed from the Crimes Act so that women and doctors need not fear any criminal prosecution for the abortion. The three major options are:
One. A doctor assesses whether the abortion is necessary, in terms of whether continuing the pregnancy would pose a risk of harm to the woman. The concept of harm is itself open to discussion, with several options available as to how it is defined.
Two. A woman can decide any time up to 24 weeks whether to have an abortion, for any reason. After that, one or two doctors will determine whether there is risk of harm if the pregnancy continues.
Three. A woman can choose to have an abortion at any period of pregnancy, provided it is done by a medical practitioner.
The VLRC also offers 16 recommendations, many of which are of real concern. Several of them recommend that no provision be made for informed consent, counselling or cooling-off periods in Victorian law. Another is that there be no regulations as to where an abortion can take place.
Reading the report leaves the clear impression that this could have been penned directly by the abortion industry itself. It reads like a pro-death wish list. All that is missing is a recommendation that abortionists be awarded the Order of Australia for their outstanding service to humanity. Or perhaps a recommendation that anyone voicing concerns about the unborn be imprisoned for life.
All in all this report is a declaration of war against the unborn. It is all about the rights of women to do whatever they want with the child they are carrying, and nothing at all about the rights and interests of that child. The abortion lobby could not have wished for anything better.
But of course we have come to expect such social engineering agendas from the VLRC. It is a tax-payer funded group which is a law unto itself, accountable to no one, and driven by secular humanist, leftwing interests. It has time and time again held bogus “inquiries,” feigning neutrality, independence and objectivity, but somehow always manages to ignore the great weight of opinion, and push instead the agendas of noisy minority groups.
In this case, 519 submissions were received by the VLRC. And it admits that some 80 per cent of those submissions were pro-life, and opposed the pro-abortion agenda. Yet what does the VLRC do? Predictably, it simply ignores the 80 per cent, and runs with what the minority radicals wanted.
It had its mind already made up, in other words, and had no intention of really listening to what the public thinks. The VLRC is made up of pro-death libertarians who are quite happy to ignore the majority of submissions, and to push their own radical agenda.
But I have documented the social engineering agenda of the VLRC elsewhere on this site. Suffice it to say that this report is totally expected. Of course now the Brumby Labor Government must decide what it will do with the report, and a Government Bill on this issue will be forthcoming. In the meantime all of us need to contact our local Victorian MPs and express our concerns about this report, and urge them to not seek for the decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria.
But of equal interest were some of the comments made by the politicians themselves. As would be expected, the Greens were all in favour of the most extreme position. Colleen Hartland said the Greens would run with the third option: “This is the only option that gives full agency to the woman having the abortion.” Let me translate that for you: “This is the only option that gives the woman the right to be judge, jury and executioner of her unborn child”. The unborn baby does not even enter into the discussion here. It is all about the right to kill babies, end of discussion.
Also quite curious – and disturbing – were the remarks of the State Opposition (Liberal) leader Ted Baillieu. He said, “I’ve taken a position in this day and age where I want to see women able to exercise their choice without the fear of unwarranted prosecution or stigma. But nor do I want to see any increase in abortions.”
Now let me see if I have got this straight. The leader of the “conservative” party is all in favour of a woman’s right to choose, yet he does not want to see more abortions? But why? If, as he assumes in his first remark, abortion is simply a woman’s right to choose – no more and no less – then why should he not want to see more choice, that is, more abortions?
If the ability to choose is the highest good, even if it means the ability to choose killing your own baby, then why would Baillieu not want to see far more such choices? His statement about not wanting to see an increase in abortion only makes sense if there is some reason why more abortions are not a preferable option – in other words, might somehow be wrong, or ill-advised.
But if that is the case, what exactly is wrong with more abortions? The pro-lifer can easily answer that question. Abortion snuffs out the life of a very young human being. Abortion is simply baby-killing. That is why someone would not want to see more abortions. Yet that does not seem to be the premise that Baillieu is operating from. He seems to think that abortion is fine. In which case, what is wrong with a million abortions a year in Victoria, instead of the current 20,000 a year?
Mr Baillieu’s logic here is as appalling as is his morality. Either abortion is wrong, and we should seek to curtail it altogether, or it is not wrong, and we should not be bothered with how many take place. But our Opposition Leader has simply bought into the moral relativism and sloppy thinking of our age, instead of showing strong intellectual and moral leadership.
The VLRC report is nauseating reading. And one suspects that our libertarian Attorney General Rob Hulls will accept most of the report, including its most extreme recommendations. But we can still have a voice in this matter, and I again urge all readers of this article – especially Victorians – to let their voices be heard loud and clear.
[1104 words]