The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) says a recent Senate Inquiry into abortion access was “deeply flawed.”
Its report on reproductive healthcare which was handed down last week made 36 recommendations which seem likely to be adopted by the government.
The aim is to make abortion, contraception and pregnancy care more accessible.
The ACL’s Christopher Brohier told Vision Radio he believes the inquiry’s committee ignored hundreds of pro-life submissions.
“In a very flawed process it disregarded the majority of submissions that were put in. We know that about 1600 individual detailed submissions, not pro forma letters, were put in and they (the committee) cast all of those as really part of one campaign. They put up a few examples and that masked the fact that the majority of Australians who contributed to this inquiry didn’t want a further proliferation of abortion. The committee tried to hide that.”
“That in our view, is disrespectful for a Senate committee to call for public submissions. People take time. I read some of these submissions. Some of them were two pages that people had put in work and just to have them lumped is, in my view, disrespectful. Some of the submissions they have published had organisations with certain names. But who knows what they are? They could just be names. So there clearly was a bias in the approach of the committee,” Mr. Brohier asserted.
He noted that the inquiry did clarify how many abortions are carried out in Australia.
“That’s a very important fruit that comes out of this inquiry. It puts it out there that there are about 88,000 in Australia annually. That is 1,800 this week. 1,800 unborn children are going to have their lives ended. 1,800 mums are going to be carrying that memory in themselves, physically and emotionally for the rest of their lives. 1,800 potential fathers will have that in their minds. You can’t get away from it”.
Mr. Brohier had an anecdotal story that backed up that view.
“I just want to tell this little story about when we were having some renos done at our house and we engaged a professsional who did great work. I met him a little while later at the local footy oval. And we were just chatting and he said to me: We had to do it. We were going to have twins, but we couldn’t handle it. So we had to abort. I’ve never forgotten that because this was a man who I only knew briefly, and totally unprompted, he said that was on his mind. It was on his heart. And so 1,800 children, 1,800 mums and potential fathers are going to carry that. That is a shame. That is a tragedy for Australia.”
Christopher Brohier also observed that the inquiry rejected the view that taking abortion pills is a simple, easy process.
“This inquiry says that it’s a painful and confronting process especially at home because a young woman is going to see the body of the infant in some shape or form. That’s a tough, tough gig.”
He added that appeared to contradict a recommendation for more telehealth abortions.
“There was a complaint made that lots of doctors weren’t getting involved in the prescription of these drugs. The evidence was that it takes a lot of time and follow up and care and some doctors just don’t have time to do it. That’s very significant, particularly in Queensland, because there’s a push now to have tele-abortions in Queensland. So you consult a doctor on the phone perhaps, and you’re sent the pills. That lies exactly contrary to this evidence that a medical abortion has got to be carefully supervised. And it’s not a simple process. It’s a complicated process because you’re poisoning the foetus in the woman’s womb. This is complicated and tough stuff. And this inquiry brings it out.”
Mr. Brohier explained what the ACL had even seeking in its submission to the inquiry.
“We should be providing pregnancy care for mums who want to continue with their babies because there’s evidence that some women, a significant number perhaps, choose an abortion because they think they don’t have the wherewithal to see the pregnancy through to birth. That should never happen in a country like Australia. We should be providing pregnancy care and information. Why should we not at least promote those pregnancy help centres which are doing that completely voluntarily now? It is an unbalanced view and it is a push by government to promote abortion and that should never be the case.”
