Campion: ’Inhumane deaths’: Aborted babies born alive are being left to die

A parliamentary inquiry has heard hearing gut-wrenching testimonies and facts like at least one aborted baby is born alive every seven days and left to die, writes Vikki Campion.

During a debate calling on Senate to condemn the practice of leaving babies of failed abortion to die, Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young made vomiting-gestures as UAP Senator Ralph Babet spoke to his urgency of this motion, while independent David, who is happy to save koalas, voted against painkillers for a baby dying on a table.

When Black Caviar’s foal – a colt sired by Snitzel – passed away this week, there was a virtual day of mourning.

He received “around-the-clock, world-class veterinary care, but unfortunately could not be saved”, and headlines lamented devastation, with even ABC reporting that “late Black Caviar champion racehorse’s final foal has died”.

As the world mourned the loss of a baby horse, a parliamentary inquiry in Queensland, sparked by Katter Australia Party MP Robbie Katter, was hearing gut-wrenching testimonies from frontline midwives like Louise Adsett. They revealed the tragic story of a baby boy, fighting for his life for five agonising hours devoid of any care, let alone that given to a colt.

A motion in the Senate, which sought to “recognise that at least one baby is born alive every seven days following a failed abortion and left to die and that Australia’s health care system is enabling these inhumane deaths, and for the Senate to condemn this practice, noting that babies born alive as a result of a failed abortion deserve care,” went strategically unrecognised in most media, save for Weekend Telegraph columnist Peta Credlin on Sky.

UAP Senator Ralph Babet spoke to his urgency motion, saying there was a need for the Senate to recognise that at least one aborted baby is born alive every seven days following a failed abortion and left to die.

This was not a debate about women’s right to abortion but only pertained to what to do when an aborted baby is born alive.

The colt gets the world’s best medical care; the baby gasps for breath without so much as panadol.

As UAP Senator Ralph Babet spoke to his urgency motion, the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young made vomiting-gestures behind him for the cameras.

Care for babies in the Greens stops at Gaza. Climate 200-funded independent David Pocock, who fights to the marrow in his bones to save koalas, voted against painkillers for a baby dying on a table.

NSW Liberal Senator Maria Kovacic, who has never won an election in her own right and who took the spot of a giant in the history of the Senate, Jim Molan, (whose life was not just about protecting the innocent, but in protecting all Australians in the Australian Defence Force), accused her colleagues of manipulating the process of the Senate and then went on to Meta and claimed it was “trying to take away women’s rights to their own health care”. Her page has since been inundated with threats.

Queensland MP Robbie Katter has introduced a bill to ensure the rights of babies born alive in his state. Picture: Shae Beplate.

Senator Kovacic voted with the Greens, Teals, Labor, and three other moderate Liberals, arguing, “the complex issues that arise from the contents of this motion are challenging for most people but particularly for women, and they are deeply personal”.

Once the baby is outside the woman, that infant is its own person and has its own rights.

If this were a koala struggling to breathe and dying with no pain relief, these same politicians would vote for the koala. However, their compassion evaporates when it comes to a baby.

Worse again was the media, failing to stand up for the powerless against the powerful.

You can’t get any more powerless than a 21-week-old aborted baby being denied the care that, if these senators were denied it, someone would end up in court on charges.

Regardless of the circumstances, every child born alive deserves care and comfort.

The motion was never a preclusion to a woman’s right to abortion; once a person is alive and dying on the table, we are talking about a completely different set of rights.

As one senator pointed out, an aborted baby would likely experience “shocking injuries that will not make them viable in the sense of a long-term life”.

When ambulances go to car accidents, do they drag the poor souls onto the side of the road and leave them there because they would die anyhow, or do they do their best to help them?

All the motion asked for was palliative care and essential pain relief, just as we would with anybody else towards the end of their life.

Senator Maria Kovacic argued “the complex issues that arise from the contents of this motion are challenging for most people but particularly for women”. Picture: NewsWire / John Appleyard.

Is the reason people look the other way because it’s too confronting to admit innocent lives are being left to perish in a metal tray for hours with no pain relief? Spare us the faux compassion on refugees, on the horrors in Gaza, when you pretend to gag for the cameras behind a person talking about the horrors of Australian babies dying in our hospitals. Spare us the faux compassion for the koalas, when you deny a dying baby painkillers.

And as for the Labor and moderate Liberal members who voted against it, how will this help their vote amongst swinging voters with no faith but find it abhorrent on a purely human level?

Some question the worth of the life of an abortion survivor, due to potential disability in their life.

How can you say that a physically imperfect person does not deserve to live?

Others question, who would look after the abortion survivor. It belittles so many couples spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to have a child with IVF.

Queensland MP Robbie Katter has introduced a bill to ensure the rights of babies born alive in his state. It’s a crucial step, which means the duty of a registered health practitioner to provide medical care and treatment to a person born as a result of termination would be no different from their duty to anybody else.

I’ll help with some transparency, a link to how they voted. You’ll find every so-called “caring”, “ethical” party, including Teal, Labor, the Greens and the four soft-moderate Liberal faction Senators, voted against pain relief for a baby dying in a dish.

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