South Australian Upper House Liberal MLC Ben Hood has introduced a radical pro-life private member’s bill into State Parliament. In what would be world-first legislation, his Termination of Pregnancy (Terminations And Live Births) Amendment Bill 2024 says: “a medical practitioner may only end a pregnancy of more than 27 weeks and six days, if the intention is to deliver the baby alive.” Mr. Hood said that would ensure a baby born at 28 weeks would “receive neo-natal care” after an induced birth, and the mother could choose to put the child up for adoption.
More than a thousand supporters rallied behind his bill outside the state’s parliament last week. Pro-life campaigner and University of Adelaide law professor Joanna Howe said the purpose of the rally was to “talk about the implications” of current abortion laws and “to demand change.” She told the ABC: “The question is, as South Australians, do we want her to deliver that child stillborn, or do we expect that child to be delivered alive? That’s all this is about. This is not an anti-woman, anti-abortion piece of legislation.”
Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) State Director Ashlyn Vice noted that “since mid-2022 after South Australia removed all gestation limits on abortion, 45 healthy and fully formed babies have been needlessly killed when they could have been delivered alive.”
She added: “The question that has been put to the Parliament, and the question ACL asks is: Why must the baby die? In the third trimester, babies have a 96% chance of survival. While it would be ideal for the mother to carry the baby to term, this bill strikes a compromise in circumstances where the mother would otherwise choose to end the child’s life.”
“Under existing legislation, a mother who has a late term abortion must endure the traumatic experience of delivering the child dead, through labour, after a lethal injection. [This] is not a “forced births” bill as pro-abortion activists have suggested. All it does is require the child who is delivered, is not killed first. This is an important step for the humanity of the unborn and clearly has the support of South Australians — with over 1,000 showing up to support it,” Miss Vice asserted.
The ACL is supporting the bill, stating it is a “no-brainer” to require that healthy, viable babies are delivered alive and adopted or fostered, rather than killed.
Liberal Upper House MLC Michelle Lensink, who helped spearhead SA’s laws that decriminalised abortion in 2021, said Mr. Hood’s bill is trying to “correct a wrong that doesn’t exist”. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) is also opposed to the push.
The state Liberal opposition has said it would allow its MPs a conscience vote on the issue, while the ruling Labor party is yet to declare whether it will do the same.
Photo: Facebook – Australian Christian Lobby (Rally in support of Ben Hood’s bill.)
