Endeavour Forum’s Canadian associate, Denise Mountenay, is currently working on a new pro-life film, “Truth Matters: The Impact of Abortion”. This comes ten years after Denise co-produced the award-winning documentary, “Hush”, which exposed the links between abortion and breast cancer, premature birth and mental health issues.
A new pro-life film
Dear Friend in Christ:
This documentary exposes the falsehoods many pregnant women are told. It shines a light on the miracle of life before birth through ultrasound technology and features medical experts who reveal the truth about it. Specialists report on the increased breast cancer risk, preterm birth link, and the devastating mental health consequences.
You’ll hear from a medical researcher reporting on dozens of peer-reviewed studies proving legal abortion is not “safe” for women. And you’ll witness powerful testimonies from women who have been physically, emotionally, and spiritually harmed by legal abortion—women who now speak out to warn others and bring hope.
Please watch the trailer to gain an idea of what we have in mind for this film:
This film is more than information. It’s a mission. A warning. A lifeline.
It will speak to the body, soul, and spirit—and ultimately save countless precious lives created in the image of God.
A call to action
Become our partner for such a time as this!
We are coming against the spirits of death and murder. We urgently ask for your prayers and, if possible, your fasting.
But prayer alone is not enough—this professionally produced film needs your financial support to be completed. We are raising funds for:
Editing and soundtrack-$30,000.
Subtitles in multiple languages (abortion is a global epidemic)
Marketing and distribution to reach hearts worldwide $100,000.
Good news
Everyone who donates $1,000 or more will receive a complimentary copy of the documentary upon release. And yes—your gift is tax-deductible if you give online to
Upper-limit abortion legislation such as that currently being put forward in the UK is ultimately detrimental to the pro-life cause, warns John Smeaton, co-founder/co-director of Voice of the Family. Similar legislation is being considered in the South Australian parliament.
In my article last week, I explained how, nearly 40 years ago, British anti-abortion parliamentarians and campaigning organisations, including SPUC in which I had a leading role, paved the way for the catastrophic 1990 legislation which raised the upper limit for abortion to 24 weeks for most abortions in the UK while allowing abortions up to birth in cases of disability and for certain other reasons.
John Smeaton
The UK Government and parliamentarians were following the example set by the anti-abortion lobby, including by the Catholic bishops, which had backed David Alton’s1 Bill, published on 16 December 1987. The Alton Bill sought to introduce an upper limit of 18 weeks for most — so-called “social” — abortions, while permitting disabled babies to be killed up to 28 weeks.
The rationale for supporting Alton Bill-style legislation was presented in Human Concern, the flagship newspaper of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), of which I was general secretary, in these terms:
“SPUC will be stepping up its educational programme in the fight to win equal rights for the handicapped. The decision followed the results of the David Alton Bill in which an exception clause allowing abortion for severe handicap has been included.
“‘Of course we are continuing our support for the Bill’, said Phyllis Bowman, National Director. ‘It will save a considerable number of lives and will be the first step in the right direction.’” (My emphasis)
Tragically, it is more accurate to say that it proved to be a major step in the wrong direction.
Today, Right to Life UK is promoting another upper-limit bill which, if pursued, will result in similarly disastrous legislation. Support for exceptions for disabled babies is even more deeply entrenched in the parliamentary and public psyche and, as debates and votes in Parliament over the decades have demonstrated, politicians are likely to demand abortion up to birth for other reasons too.
The details of the bill backed by Right to Life UK have not been published but it’s reasonable to expect that it will be along the lines of one of two legislative measures which were under consideration in 2024, one proposed by Baroness Nuala O’Loan and the other by Sir Liam Fox MP. Both were backed by the Catholic bishops — with, no doubt, the same rationale as SPUC put forward in 1988, that they would be the “first step in the right direction”.
Both legislative measures expressly supported the killing of unborn children up to a certain number of weeks, while leaving in place abortion up to birth for disabled babies and for other reasons.
Baroness O’Loan’s Bill states: “In section 1(1)(a) of the Abortion Act 1967 (medical termination of pregnancy), for ‘twenty-fourth’ substitute ‘twenty-second’.
Parliamentarians backing Baroness O’Loan, therefore, would have been voting for the following provision to become part of the Abortion Act:
“1 (1) Subject to the provisions of this section, a person shall not be guilty of an offence under the law relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith
“(a) that the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-second week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family;
“Sir Liam Fox’s proposed new clause to the Criminal Justice Bill stated: “In section 1 (Medical termination of pregnancy) of the Abortion Act 1967, at the end of sub-subsection (1)(d) insert ‘provided that, where that chance arises from a foetus having Down syndrome, the pregnancy has not exceeded the gestational limit identified in sub-subsection (a).’”
Parliamentarians backing Sir Liam Fox’s measure, therefore, would have been voting for the following provision to become part of the Abortion Act:
“(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, a person shall not be guilty of an offence under the law relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith—
“(a) that the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-fourth week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family; or
…
(d) that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped ‘provided that, where that chance arises from a foetus having Down syndrome, the pregnancy has not exceeded the gestational limit identified in sub-subsection (a).”
Both legislative measures were inviting parliamentarians expressly to support abortions on babies up to a certain number of weeks — 22 weeks in the case of Baroness O’Loan, and 24 weeks in the case of Sir Liam Fox — just as David Alton’s Bill, back in 1987, invited parliamentarians expressly to support abortions up to the 18th week of pregnancy. The Alton Bill stated:
“1 (1) A woman’s pregnancy may be terminated in accordance with section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967 at any time up to the beginning of the 18th week of gestation.
“(2) Thereafter, up to the 28th week of pregnancy … [for various reasons, including in the case of disability).”
The Catholic Church teaches that a law permitting the killing of certain unborn children is an unjust law which, in the words of St Thomas Aquinas, “ceases to be a law and becomes instead an act of violence”. Pope John Paul II in this connection, citing the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and its 1974 Declaration on Procured Abortion, said:
“In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it.”
The meaning of this statement quoted in Evangelium Vitae (no 73) is 100 per cent clear, and yet during the past fifty years, pro-life leaders, myself included, have backed legislation which permits abortion in certain circumstances on the basis that such legislation is an improvement on an existing law and will save lives.
However, such permissive anti-abortion campaigning sends the message to friends and opponents alike that abortion can be the right thing to do. Is it not likely that one of the reasons why the evil of abortion is so overwhelmingly accepted in particular circumstances by our fellow citizens, including by our fellow Catholics, is that pro-life groups themselves have almost universally been prepared to accept legalised abortion in certain circumstances?
Since 1995, many of us have justified our campaigns in support of unjust laws by quoting another paragraph in section 73 of Evangelium Vitae, where Pope John Paul II famously wrote:
“A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on … In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.”
For the past 30 years perhaps the majority of pro-life leaders have interpreted this paragraph as meaning that politicians may vote for, and campaigners may campaign for, laws which of themselves expressly permit abortions. But this is contrary to the teaching of the encyclical, as shown by the immediately preceding paragraph:
“In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it.”
According to Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, “the principle (or law) of non-contradiction is the firmest … without the principle of non-contradiction we could not know anything that we do know”. On the basis of this foundational principle of rational procedure, it is not possible for this statement to mean both one can vote for an unjust law and one cannot vote for an unjust law — on the basis of one’s motives in doing so or for any other reason.
Imagine it was lawful in our countries to kill children up to 6 months after birth. Imagine a parliamentarian putting forward legislation to stop the killing of children after three months, while authorising killings of children up to the three month limit — and with exceptions for disabled children who could be killed up to 6 months or even later. It would clearly be wrong to vote for such a law or to campaign for such a law, however many lives, allegedly, such a law would save, on the basis that it would be “a step in the right direction”.
Regarding exceptions for the abortion of disabled babies, Rachel Hurst, vice-chairman of Disabled People’s International, has said that pro-life groups which tried to stop social abortions but not eugenic abortions were being “extremely discriminatory and obviously show[ing] eugenic tendencies, even though they would refute them”. She argued that the lower status given to disabled unborn children reflected a view that “disabled people are not seen as human beings”.2 This was absolutely not the attitude or intention of David Alton or the Catholic bishops SPUC’s national director or myself back in 1987, but we must face the fact that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
There is a crucial moral difference between, on the one hand, limiting, in an ethical way, the harm of pro-abortion legislation, such as we saw in the triumphant pro-life campaign to overturn the Roe v Wade decision; and, on the other hand, campaigning for politicians to vote for abortion in the case of rape, or in the case of disability, or in the case of a baby being below a certain number of weeks’ gestation. We will never defeat abortion by campaigning for politicians to vote for abortion in particular circumstances. As long as legislators accept that “it’s OK” directly to kill an innocent child in the womb, the defence against killing any unborn child is torn away.
by John Smeaton of Voice of the Family. Voice of the Family is an initiative of Catholic laity, formed to defend Catholic teaching on the family. Voice of the Family was founded in 2014 to offer our expertise and resources before, during and after the Synod on the Family 2014-15.
Voice of the Family is praying for Lord Alton who, last week, was being treated in hospital for injuries received in a road accident while on a bus in central London. ↩︎
Cited in Colin Harte, Changing Unjust Laws Justly (CUA Press, 2005) p 50. ↩︎
Although many have woken up to the immoral nature of IVF and to its inherent risks, low effectiveness rate and exorbitant cost, some conservatives unfortunately still believe it is a feasible solution for couples suffering from infertility.
Yet, only a little research is required to discover that, even if the procedure were risk-free and morally acceptable, it would remain problematic due to the amount of human error involved. A plethora of oversights are currently plaguing the industry, placing parents in unenviable situations and making IVF a highly defective product.
Embryo mix ups at the Queensland Fertility Group
The case of a mix-up by Australia’s Queensland Fertility Group exemplifies the problem of IVF’s inherently inadequate safeguards. A white couple who requested sperm from a donor in the U.S. made their selection based on the features of the future male parent: blond hair and blue eyes. It wasn’t until the baby was born that its parents realised it was of an entirely different ethnicity from theirs: the baby is part African-American.
A recent news report on the incident, by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), reveals that the mother involved wrote in an online parents forum: “I love my beautiful baby more than life itself [but] has anyone ever found out their IVF baby wasn’t theirs? Has anyone had a baby that looked like it came from [a] different ethnicity?”
The incident happened over a decade ago, but it was only recently made public as the IVF-provider and its Australian parent company, Virtus Health, ensured the scandal was kept quiet for as long as possible: the parents were made to sign a non-disclosure agreement in return for a settlement, and the mix-up was not even reported to the company’s shareholders.
Additionally, an ABC investigation revealed a significant conflict of interest existing between the Queensland Fertility Group and the industry regulator, RTAC (the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee). At the time of the incident, when RTAC claimed to have no knowledge of the mix-up, its chair was the scientific director of the Queensland Fertility Group. It is beyond belief that a senior employee of the fertility-provider would have no knowledge of such a devastating mix-up; yet he told the ABC that he had “no memory” of the incident.
It appears that Queensland IVF didn’t learn from its mistakes as other mix-ups have been recently reported. Two lesbians who thought their three IVF children were related were shocked to discover that one of their boys was not related to the other two. The anomaly was revealed after genetic testing of the children was conducted for unrelated reasons. The two women are also incensed that their children are suffering from health problems, including autism, and blame Queensland IVF for failing to properly screen the donor sperm. Unfortunately, had they done their homework, the two women would have known that IVF babies are more prone to developing a number of health problems over naturally-conceived children.
Multiple errors at Monash IVF
The mistakes being made at Queensland IVF are not limited to their company alone. Melbourne-based Monash IVF has this year been forced to apologise for embryo mix-ups on two different occasions. The first incident was devastating and traumatic. A Brisbane woman found that she had given birth to a stranger’s baby after a mix-up at the IVF laboratory. A lawyer specialising in “family creation” (donor conception and surrogacy) said that while this mistake was the first of its kind to happen in Australia, it was not unheard of in other parts of the world.
The second incident occurred on June 5 at its laboratories in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton. This involved the transplant of a patient’s embryo rather than the one she had requested: the embryo belonging to her partner. Consider the ramifications of this scenario: two lesbians each have at least one embryo, and see their potential family as a sort of mix-and-match affair!
An advocate for IVF patients, Lucy Lines, said that this second incident “rocked the industry to its core”, noting that more regulation is necessary as there is no legal requirement for embryologists to be registered with a central body. But is lack of oversight the fundamental problem? Is more regulation the answer to this morally problematic industry?
Embryo experimentation
Both of these incidents follow another controversy at Monash IVF, in which it was accused of using inaccurate genetic testing which led to the destruction of potentially viable embryos. More than 700 patients joined a class action lawsuit accusing Monash of secretly using embryos they had asked to be discarded. The parents’ decision to have the embryos destroyed was on the basis of the flawed testing which returned false positives for abnormalities. Monash subsequently used those unwanted embryos for scientific experimentation.
Repromed, a related Monash IVF company, was also accused of falsifying the results of a clinical trial, forging patient signatures on consent forms, and destroying documents to hide evidence of the illegal embryo experiments. Monash didn’t admit liability, but settled the class action out of court for $56 million.
IVF industry smear campaign
The entire reproductive health industry should be chastened by the many examples of malpractice that are occurring with alarming regularity; yet rather than question its own morality, it has taken to discrediting alternatives to IVF. A natural approach to fertility, known as Restorative Reproductive Medicine, or RRP, is the latest casualty in the IVF industry’s campaign to establish itself as the only solution to the problem of infertility.
RRM is superior to IVF for a number of reasons, including its more wholistic approach to human life, its moral procedures and its higher success rate. Additionally, children conceived using RRP techniques are without the health risks so prevalent among children born using IVF.
The National Catholic Bioethics Center in America approves of RRP, describing its goal as the treatment of “the root causes of dysfunctions that make it difficult or impossible for couples to conceive and bring to birth children”. RRP is also recommended by the Washington-based think-tank, the Heritage Foundation, which states,
“RRM succeeds even after IVF has failed, at a fraction of the cost, especially across multiple pregnancies. One study published in 2024 found that 40% of couples previously diagnosed with infertility conceived naturally after undergoing RRM-based treatments compared with a 24% success rate with IVF. Another 2018 study found that 32.1% of women who had an average of two failed IVF cycles conceived naturally following targeted medical interventions with RRM.”
Yet its success has made RRM a target by the IVF behemoth, which regards it as “an approach long confined to the medical fringe”.
Conclusion
It must be restated that even if IVF could be provided without numerous opportunities for human error to derail its effectiveness, it would remain immoral. IVF kills more babies than abortion and can lead to harmful results such as huge numbers of donor-conceived children being related.
Society’s reliance on IVF is predicated on the idea that anyone — in any kind of relationship or none — is entitled to a child if he or she wants one. It is this philosophy that has given rise to abortion and surrogacy, as well as to IVF. As American author John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, has warned,
“The reproductive marketplace is built on twin illusions of consumerism and control. In this world, the almighty ‘I’ should have whatever he or she wants. Those who want sex without children should not be ‘punished’ with a kid. Those who want a child without the trouble of giving birth can rent an incubator for their little accessories. Those who’ve chosen an inherently sterile union can insist, not only that they should be able to have kids, but that others should pay for it. Any future technologies will be utilised accordingly.”
A return to the traditional view of marriage and family is the only solution to the heart-breaking problem of children being perceived as commodities. Until that happens, IVF will remain a defective product sold with no guarantee of satisfaction.
About the author Kathy Clubb is an Australian mother and grandmother and has home-educated her children for the best part of 30 years. She has undertaken official pro-life work for 10 years, first in Tasmania, and then in Victoria. In 2016, Kathy was part of an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Victoria’s abortion exclusion-zones, which led to a constitutional challenge in the High Court of Australia in late 2018. Her articles have appeared at LifeSiteNews, Online Opinion, Family Life International, The Remnant Newspaper, Caldron Pool and Fidelity magazine.
Sex-selective abortion is legal in Queensland and other Australian states, particularly among immigrants from India, China and Vietnam. Yet, feminists and other pro-choice activists are silent about this lethal form of discrimination.
By Hannah Newton, Cherish Life Queensland
Sex-selective abortion, that is the practice of ending the life of an unborn child based on that child’s sex, is often thought of as a distant problem confined to other parts of the world like Asia. However, new research has revealed that this lethal form of discrimination is not only happening in Australia, it is also likely happening right here in Queensland. Devastatingly, there is currently nothing we are doing to stop it.
Newly released study
A groundbreaking peer-reviewed study published in PLOS Global Health analysed over 2.1 million births in Western Australia and New South Wales between 1994 and 2015.1 The authors found consistent, statistically significant patterns of male-based sex ratios at birth among certain population groups, particularly at the second or third pregnancy following one or more daughters.
In natural conditions, the sex ratio at birth (otherwise known as the SRB) is about 105 boys for every 100 girls. However, this study showed that the SRB exceeded expectations for children born to Indian, Chinese and Vietnamese mothers. For mothers from China, the SRB was 1.09 at second birth and markedly higher (1.34) at the third birth when the first two were female.2 This pattern was also observed for mothers from India. Indian and Chinese mothers had much higher induced abortion rates in early pregnancy than their Australian counterparts, which also coincided with the introduction of non-invasive prenatal testing. The authors concluded that this provided observational evidence that linked the male-biased SRB with prenatal sex determination followed by selective female-biased abortion.3
So what is non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT)? This is a semi-recently introduced blood test that can reveal the sex of a baby as early as 10 weeks gestation.4 This timeline also conveniently falls well within the legal window for abortion-on-request in most Australian Jurisdictions. What this means is that parents can find out the sex of a baby early enough to legally terminate the pregnancy if they are disappointed.
While this data came from WA and NSW, the same cultural and legal conditions exist in Queensland, meaning that there is every reason to believe that similar sex-selection practices are occurring here.
Permissive abortion laws fuel the problem
Since the passing of the Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018 (Qld), abortion in Queensland is legal for any reason up to 22 weeks gestation.5 Beyond 22 weeks, it can still be performed with the agreement of two doctors.
There is:
No requirement to give a reason for seeking an abortion
No restriction on terminating based on the sex of the baby
No delay in disclosing the baby’s sex via NIPT
No data collection or monitoring of why abortions are performed in Queensland
This legal environment effectively created the perfect storm for sex-selective abortions to occur undetected and unchallenged. Parents can learn the sex of their unborn child early, and if they are hoping for a boy but find out it is a girl, they can legally and quietly abort the baby. We must acknowledge this for what it is, gender discrimination.
Let’s be clear: this is gender-based discrimination
Sex selective abortion is not a fringe concern. It is a form of gender-based violence that targets girls at their most vulnerable stage: in the womb. It says to girls, before they take their first breath, that they are not wanted or valued.
This practice has contributed to millions of “missing girls” globally, especially in China, where widespread sex-selection has created dangerous demographic imbalances and human rights crises.6 The United Nations has even condemned sex-selective abortion as a violation of women’s rights.7 However, in Australia we are turning a blind eye.
We cannot claim to uphold gender equality while permitting a legal system that allows girls to be aborted for simply being girls.
A glaring double standard: IVF vs abortion
Here’s the irony: in Australia, it is illegal to select the sex of a baby through IVF unless there is a medical reason (such as avoiding a sex-linked genetic disorder).
The National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines, which govern reproductive technology, explicitly prohibit non-medical sex-selection. The reasoning is sound: allowing parents to choose the sex of their child for personal or cultural reasons would entrench gender bias and commodify children. And yet, while sex-selection through IVF is banned, sex-selection through abortion is entirely legal. This contradiction is staggering.
In one context, the government rightly says: you cannot choose your child’s sex – because girls and boys are of equal value. But in another says: you can end the life of your unborn baby if the child is not the sex you want – and we won’t ask why.
This is not just a loophole, it’s a fundamental failure of consistency and principle and it is costing baby girls their lives. How can we ban sex-selection in the lab while turning a blind eye to it in the womb?
The lies used to justify it
Pro-abortion advocates often justify unrestricted abortion laws by invoking tragic scenarios – claiming that if abortion were restricted in any way, women would be denied care for miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy. This is false.
In Queensland:
Miscarriage care is completely legal and is routinely provided
There is no law that prohibits health professionals from offering and administering life-saving treatment.
This argument is a scare tactic, used to distract from the fact that our current laws allow for abortion purely because the child is the “wrong” sex. This is not about reproductive healthcare, it is about ideological dishonesty and legal cowardice.
So, what needs to be done?
If Queensland is serious about protecting women and girls, we must take urgent steps to end sex-selective abortion. At a minimum the Queensland Government should:
Ban the disclosure of a baby’s sex before 20 weeks unless medically necessary
Prohibit abortion on the grounds of a baby’s sex
Introduce mandatory reporting requirements, including collection of data on reasons for abortion and a baby’s sex at termination
Implement clinical protocols in line with ethical standards that prevent misuse of NIPT for non-medical sex-selection.
Equality must begin in the womb
Sex-selective abortion is happening in Australia. It is enabled by silence, fuelled by ideology, and ignored by the very laws that claim to protect women. If we care about gender equality, we cannot look away.
Every unborn girl deserves the same right to life and dignity as a boy. Equality must begin in the womb. It’s time Queensland faced the truth – and acted to protect all of our babies.
By Hannah Newton. Republished from Cherish Life with permission. Cherish Life Queensland was founded in 1970 (as Right to Life Queensland), to advocate for the right to life from conception until natural death and remains one of the largest pro-life organisations in Australia.
Gebremedhin AT, et al. (2025) Indirect evidence of sex-selective abortion practices to the imbalanced sex ratio at birth in Australian migrant populations. PLOS Glob Public Health 5(5): e0004672. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004672 Accessed 7 August 2025. ↩︎
Gebremedhin AT, et al. (2025) Indirect evidence of sex-selective abortion practices to the imbalanced sex ratio at birth in Australian migrant populations. PLOS Glob Public Health 5(5): e0004672. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004672 Accessed 7 August 2025. ↩︎
Gebremedhin AT, et al. (2025) Indirect evidence of sex-selective abortion practices to the imbalanced sex ratio at birth in Australian migrant populations. PLOS Glob Public Health 5(5): e0004672. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004672 Accessed 7 August 2025. ↩︎
The State Department claims that destroying abortifacients and contraceptives will avoid the violation of its policy forbidding support for abortion overseas.
The Trump administration confirmed reports that $10 million in contraceptives and abortifacients directed to Africa could be destroyed. Global abortion groups and the United Nations Population Fund were denied requests to purchase the contraceptives due to current U.S. policy that prohibits funding to organizations that promote and perform abortion overseas.
Tammy Bruce, State Department spokesman said the sale of such contraceptives and abortifacients would violate U.S. policy that forbids U.S. financial support for abortion overseas. She also said the material could be used “in a kind of forced sterilization framework that some nations do apply” that the U.S. cannot contribute to.
Bruce also stated that there were no HIV/AIDs drugs included and that the birth control was purchased by the previous administration.
The fact that the proposed alternative to destroying the contraceptive commodities would require a violation of the President’s expanded Mexico City Policy illustrates the near impossibility of separating family planning from abortion in international aid.
The pending destruction — reportedly to happen in France — has generated an outcry from abortion advocates and lawmakers in the U.S., Belgium and France. Yet, the discontent seems limited to the same western countries that have long underwritten population control policies in Africa, and the global abortion groups that campaign to decriminalize abortion.
Two such campaigning abortion groups, International Planned Parenthood Federation and MSI Reproductive Choices, that operate thousands of affiliate organizations throughout Africa, offered to purchase the contraceptives at a discounted price. Both organizations have reported recent loss of U.S. funding.
MSI Reproductive Choices formerly referred to as Marie Stopes, has been the main driver of legislation to decriminalize abortion in Sierra Leone for the past decade.
Sierra Leone Member of Parliament Rebekah Yei Kamara told the Friday Fax she agrees with the U.S. decision to destroy the contraceptives. Kamara and her Pro-Life MP colleagues have fought for years to keep the MSI-sponsored abortion bill from passing.
Kamara explained the need for international assistance to pivot from contraception to maternal healthcare. “Contraception has destroyed a lot of women, and they are now suffering from uterus problems,” she said.
Sierra Leone’s First Lady Dr. Fatima Madaa Bio has responded to the overwhelming need for genuine maternal care, by launching a fund for women suffering from uterus and fibroid issues. Kamara said a shift to maternal health will help women become pregnant, safely give birth and become the mothers they desire to be.
The dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and reorganization of foreign assistance under Secretary of State Marco Rubio could translate to a global health ethos that seeks to optimize health including eradicating preventable maternal deaths.
USAID’s approach to preventing maternal deaths in the past has been to prevent pregnancy by providing contraceptives. The concept of “unmet need” was created by family planning advocates to generate urgency for contraceptive funding, though the metric is misleading and does not equate to a lack of access or an actual demand for family planning. Nonetheless, the U.S. Congress has appropriated billions of dollars for overseas family planning which has made its way to organizations whose primary goal is to make abortion a human right.
Imposing Mexico City Policy to all global health by President Trump in his first administration was meant to prevent lining the pockets of these groups operating overseas and making the U.S. taxpayer complicit in global abortion. While pro-life advocates were pleased with the expansion, they hope the current policy will extend to all foreign assistance since abortion groups are now recipients of humanitarian assistance.
By Lisa Correnti
C-FAM:The Centre for Family & Human Rights was founded in the summer of 1997 in order to monitor and affect the social policy debate at the United Nations and other international institutions. C-Fam is a non-partisan, non-profit research institute dedicated to reestablishing a proper understanding of international law, protecting national sovereignty and the dignity of the human person.
Victorian MP, Georgie Purcell, has understandably drawn criticism from the public for including a promotion of abortion during her pregnancy announcement. She recently made the announcement via a lengthy post on the social media platform, Instagram. Her prominence as a politician as well as her large social media following mean she is well-placed to push her pro-choice agenda onto impressionable Australians. Ms. Purcell represents a new wave of abortion advocates who make no attempt to hide their discrimination against the unborn or against the pro-life community.
A former stripper and topless waitress, Georgie Purcell is no stranger to controversy, initially positioning herself as an advocate for sex workers and as a role model for young Australian women. After joining the Animal Justice Party and being elected to the Victorian parliament, Ms. Purcell drew on her own abortion experience to lobby for increased abortion access for all Victorian women, especially in rural areas.
A Political Pregnancy Announcement
When Ms. Purcell recently made public her latest pregnancy, initially announcing it to her 212,000 Instagram followers, it included the following reference to her abortions:
“If you’ve followed my work for a while, you’ll know that this isn’t my first pregnancy. But it’s the first I’ve chosen to continue. As I prepare for motherhood (beyond cats, dogs, horses and sheep) I carry with me the stories of my abortions. They are not only part of my advocacy as a politician, but also part of who I am. I am more grateful than ever before that I have had access to choice so that I could do this on my own terms and timeline, and will always fight for everybody to have the same.”
Rather than expressing regret for aborting her first two children, Ms. Purcell seemed to relish the fact that she possessed the power to have them killed.
Elsewhere on the social media account, Ms. Purcell unironically states that Gaza is “currently the most unsafe place in the world for a child”. Without playing down the humanitarian crisis occurring in Gaza. it must be said that the most unsafe place for a child these days is in its mother’s womb. This fact seems lost on Ms. Purcell even though her own experience provides ample evidence.
From Georgie Purcells’ Instagram account
Public Backlash
Understandably, members of the pro-life community responded to Ms. Purcell’s post by pointing out the inconsistency of joyfully welcoming some children while unashamedly disposing of others. This backlash was met with an article on the feminist website, Women’s Agenda, in which Ms. Purcell attempted to justify her position.
The article, entitled, Abortion will always be part of my journey, reiterated the content of her social media post and included her latest statements from the Victorian Parliament. Ms. Purcell told Parliament that her pregnancy “has only solidified [her] belief in reproductive choice” and went on to explain her gratitude for “access to options”. She decried the “anti-choice”, “anti-women activists” who criticised her promotion of abortion, saying that their comments renewed her passion for advocating for “reproductive rights”.
Yet, the backlash wasn’t only from the pro-life quarter: others, perhaps more closely aligned ideologically with the Animal Justice Party, have also criticised Ms. Purcell’s cavalier attitude to abortion. Ms. Purcell herself notes that many who believe in a woman’s “right to choose” one abortion may balk at the thought of two, considering that to be irresponsible.
Blaming Pro-Lifers
Ms. Purcell’s new-wave abortion advocacy includes laying the blame for any abortion-related inconvenience at the feet of the pro-life community. Despite being criticised by people who identify as pro-choice, Ms. Purcell prefers to aim her barbs at pro-lifers.
When speaking about the so-called “Safe Access” zones that operate in Victoria. Ms. Purcell openly states that her first abortion took place before the 150m exclusion-zones were introduced, and claims to have been “severely harassed” by pro-lifers as she entered the abortion business. Although that ‘harassment” allegedly consisted of being told she was “killing her baby”, was that not precisely the purpose of her visit? Is stating a fact synonymous with harassment?
No-one who is about to commit a grave error likes to be reminded of the fact, and experience shows that being told that one is about to kill one’s own baby has, in some cases at least, led mothers to re-evaluate their decision to abort their children. Unfortunately for Georgie Purcell’s first two children, that was not the case in her situation. Rather, she went ahead with her abortions, preferring to paint pro-lifers as the villains.
In an article she wrote in 2022, Ms. Purcell continued the blame-game, going so far as to accuse pro-lifers of forcing regional GP’s not to prescribe the abortion pills. She wrote that because there are fewer GP’s in the country they are “more vulnerable to being targeted by anti-choice activists.”
For someone who is so concerned about “choice”, Ms. Purcell seems reluctant to admit that some doctors live out their choice not to be a party to abortion. It is also doubtful that any doctor would appreciate being characterised as a weak, malleable personality who capitulates his or her pro-choice principles in the face of pro-life opposition.
Pro-life Hospitals Deny Care?
The discrimination by Ms. Purcell against conscientious objectors to abortion continues on the issue of abortion provision in hospitals. Like other abortion zealots, Ms. Purcell repeats the narrative that some hospitals, in refusing to perform abortions, are thereby denying women ‘lifesaving” care. She cites her own experience of needing a hormonal birth control device removed as it has dislodged and was in danger of perforating her uterus. She claims this led her to seek help at a non-religious hospital because “all over Victoria, there are hospitals conscientiously objecting to all reproductive healthcare services…”
It is difficult to believe that any hospital – even a Catholic one – would refuse to remove an IUD that threatened to perforate a woman’s uterus. Additionally, Ms. Purcell does not make it clear if she was actually turned away from a private hospital or whether she merely assumed she would not be helped. In any case, there is certainly no shortage of facilities where this kind of removal can be done and it seems polemical to suggest that religious hospitals should be accused of putting women at risk.
Dehumanisation is complete
It is Ms. Purcell’s references to animals that most blatantly indicate the direction in which abortion advocacy is now heading. By claiming that caring for cats, dogs and so on is no different from caring for children, the dehumanisation of the unborn is complete. In fact, the new narrative is that animals are actually superior to children in the womb.
For example, if an animal is too sick to continue treatment or is deemed to be unwanted, it is gently put to sleep, usually caressed lovingly in the arms of its owners or animal shelter staff as it passes away. Such an animal is assisted by caring, sympathetic veterinarians who do their utmost to provide a quiet atmosphere for the animal’s last moments.
Contrast this with the intentional death of a child in utero: it is either unceremoniously dismembered without sedation, as is the case with a first trimester surgical abortion, or it is starved via chemicals then violently expelled into a toilet. A baby in this situation is not held nor comforted and dies alone, surrounded by fear, rejection and cold calculation.
When it comes to the decision itself, of having an animal put down, this is usually the result of weeks or even months of consideration by a pet’s owner. Owners are usually grieved at the thought of having to make such a difficult choice. By contrast, an abortion, which we are told is “never an easy decision” is in reality often made without much hesitation or even forethought. Indeed, Ms. Purcell admits that as soon as she discovered her unplanned pregnancy at the age of 21, she “knew what she wanted to do.”
She explains, “I got an abortion because I didn’t want to have a child. I think that is important to say, because too often, we defend abortion by using the most extreme examples of why they’re necessary – such as sexual assaults and unviable pregnancies. But when it comes to making the decision to have an abortion, no one needs a justification or an excuse.”
Next-generation abortion zealots like Georgie Purcell are to be greatly pitied, since their lives eventually become one continuous justification of their abortions. They do untold damage to their living children who grow up knowing that they are lucky to be alive, yet are forced into imitating their mothers’ zeal for abortion. We must hope that Ms. Purcell soon realises the grave damage her example is inflicting on impressionable young women and men and that she somehow acknowledges her errors and finds a way to make up for her moral crimes – something that is never out of the scope of God’s mercy.
There is renewed scrutiny of the decades-old practice of the federal government paying mothers who have their babies killed by late-term abortion.
The Albanese government is now paying mothers for killing their healthy babies before they are born. Incredibly, this means that an Australian mother who aborts her baby — after 20 weeks in her pregnancy and up until birth — can choose between a Stillbirth Parenting Payment of $4,255 or a Paid Parental Leave Payment of $20,147!
Not even Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom, or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World could have envisaged such a grotesque inversion of meaning. But such is the time in which we now live.
Late-term abortion is an horrific and barbaric practice. Not only that, but it is a pre-mediated act of murder to take the life of another human being. As pro-life lawyer Dr Joanna Howe explains:
Killing a baby after 20 weeks and up until birth entails injecting the baby’s heart with potassium chloride or digoxin and is followed by the early induction of labour of that now stillborn baby.
This is a deliberate and wilful act to kill a healthy baby very late in pregnancy and deliver them stillborn.
In South Australia, 80% of late-term abortions kill healthy babies.
The Corruption of the Baby Bonus
Australia has a very generous policy for families to have a child. But the Albanese government is now extending that financial provision for their murder as well. Indeed, it not only supports but also encourages the termination of pregnancies after twenty weeks. As Dr Howe argues:
The Howard Government’s Baby Bonus was criticised because it incentivised teen pregnancies. This is far, far worse. Instead of receiving a $5,000 cash payment for birthing a baby at full term, the Albanese Government is now incentivising late-term abortion in half the time.
One midwife relays the traumatic situation of assisting a woman to terminate her child, only to be then told that she is looking forward to using the Stillborn Parenting Payment to fund her upcoming trip to Bali.
In the dystopian classic 1984, George Orwell coined the term ‘newspeak’, a fictional language for the totalitarian state of Oceania. By re-defining the meaning of words, the government could exert complete control over its citizens. Hence, the Ministry for Truth was the government agency responsible for propaganda, historical revisionism, and controlling information. Alternatively, the Ministry of Love was responsible for perpetrating violence through fear, torture and brainwashing.
As we can all see now, Orwell was not only a brilliant novelist, but also very prescient in what he perceived would soon occur. But not even he could have envisioned a situation where a “baby bonus” would be paid to a mother for killing her baby or a Paid Parental Leave payment be given after one decided to not actually be a mother. And the fact that the political party responsible for this perversion is called the ‘Labor’ Party just beggars belief.
Appendix: SA Pregnancy Advisory Centre Form
The below form from the Pregnancy Advisory Centre outlined how to claim the maternity payment for “termination of pregnancy at or over 20 weeks gestation”. In 2013, Catholic pro-life advocate Bernard Gaynor published this on his website which was given to him “by a family hurt by abortion”. For more information, see the article, “Is the Australian Government Really Paying Women $4,200 to Abort Their Babies? Here’s the Evidence“.
This article first appeared at The Daily Declaration and is reproduced here by permission.
Mark Powell is a passionate advocate for faith, family, freedom and life. He is a gifted communicator and has made various appearances on radio and TV. Mark is unafraid to graciously speak the truth about contentious issues. He contributes to numerous online publications including The Spectator Australia, where his articles often appear in the most popular list.
The Daily Declaration is Australia’s largest Christian news site. They are dedicated to providing a voice for Christian values in the public square. Their vision is to see the revitalisation of our Judeo-Christian values for the common good.
A pre-teen mother has been deemed by the Queensland Supreme court as able to consent to an abortion, after a hospital requested permission to abort her child.
The case was brought by the unnamed hospital under a Queensland law prohibiting a parent from consenting to an abortion on behalf an underage child. This triggered parens patriae jurisdiction, which allows the court to act as a ‘parent of the country’ and assess the child’s ability to consent. The goal of parens patriae legislation is to protect children and those without full mental capacity, ending in a decision which is supposedly in the “best interests” of the child or child-like person.
Staff from the hospital sought orders from the court after they were concerned that the young mother, known by the pseudonym, ‘E’, was not mature enough to consent to the abortion. E was 9 weeks pregnant at the time, and both she and her 13-year-old boyfriend had requested an abortion.
The court was told that E had already tried to commit an abortion using the abortion pill, as she was apparently very fearful of her father discovering the pregnancy. Her plan was to have the baby aborted before any signs of her pregnancy showed.
In her judgement, Justice Catherine Muir wrote that “Historically, children have had no capacity at all to consent or refuse treatment. This was always within their parents’ remit. Now the law recognises that there are certain developmental stages relevant to a young person’s ability to consent to medical care.”
Despite testimonies from a gynaecologist, an obstetrician and a psychologist questioning E’s ability to comprehend what was going to happen to her, the judge deemed that E could, in fact, understand the abortion procedure and its inherent risks. Justice Muir also took the opportunity to repeat the progressive talking point regarding the procedure’s safety, noting that “… the proceduralist assesses those risks as not being significant in this case.”
Justice Muir’s main concern seemed to be that E understand the physical process involved in having her baby terminated. She wrote: “Critically, E was able to explain to me what she understood she was doing by choosing to terminate the baby, and also that there were risks with this procedure, including bleeding, risks for future pregnancy, cramping and infection.”
A closer look at this section of the judgement shows that the medical professions who assessed E twice concluded that her knowledge of an abortion procedure was “rudimentary”, a view they believed to have been “consistent with that of a 12-year-old.” So while E may have understood in basic terms that her baby was going to be killed, it isn’t at all clear that she understood that her child had a heartbeat and brainwaves, that it was almost old enough to suck its own thumb, or that it was fully human.
The girl’s mother was very supportive of the abortion, and requested that her daughter be fitted with a contraceptive implant afterwards. From this we can glean that the young girl has no intention of avoiding, nor will she be encouraged to avoid sexual activity at the conclusion of this sad affair. It also sheds some light on the contrast between the girl’s attitude towards babies and that which is more commonly held by girls of her age that babies are to be protected and cherished. Almost a child herself, it is surprising and sad that E did not empathise with the plight of her baby, despite the difficulties associated with motherhood at such a young age.
In this scenario, we see that those who should be relied on to support a young mother through her crisis pregnancy convinced her to take the route that was simplest for them. Knowing that they would have a significant role to play in helping her through pregnancy or care for a newborn, they steered her towards abortion, out of either a misplaced sense of compassion or out of concern for their own time and energy.
While the medical professionals did raise some concerns in court, they were not against the abortion in principle. Rather, it appears that they desired that the responsibility for making the decision be lifted from their shoulders. This is an example of the danger of the parens patriae doctrine being used by ideologically-driven courts. Just as courts may confuse an abusive household with an impoverished one, so they may use an ostensibly compassionate law to further a pro-abortion agenda.
A testimony given by a midwife seems to have been the only voice of reason in the case. She said “that the girl required assistance to understand some of the questions put to her about the termination,” and thought “she did not demonstrate sufficient insight into the operation’s risks and benefits.” It’s difficult to understand how the opinion of this experienced medical professional was ignored by a judge who gave only a cursory evaluation of E in the courtroom.
It should be noted that Justice Muir had little care for the psychological impact the abortion will have on the young girl. Although it may be years before she comes to terms with her decision, E, like many other mothers, may find that this is a decision she will regret for the rest of her life.
One of the most questionable elements of the case is the rationale for keeping the decision from the girl’s father. Court records state that he wasn’t notified due to an apparent threat of violence. If this claim is true, then we can only wonder why the girl could not be protected from this threat and supported to continue her pregnancy. Surely enough legal protections exist to guarantee the girl’s safety so that she didn’t feel compelled to inflict the ultimate form of violence on her unborn child: killing it in the womb.
This sad case is not the first time that Queensland courts have allowed an abortion to be performed on a 12-year-old. A similar case took place in 2016, when Justice McMeekin gave permission for a young mother with the pseudonym ‘Q’ to have her baby terminated.
Writing about the latter case, the progressive Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) explained the Court’s recourse to parens patriae jurisdiction, again citing the “best interest of the child.” The HRLC statement then goes on to give the brutally honest caveat: “This does not include the interests of an unborn child.”
An examination of what has ensued in the 10 years since the release of damning videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s illegal foetal tissue harvesting trade.
Today, Operation Rescue President Troy Newman celebrates the ten-year anniversary of a ground-breaking undercover project that shook the abortion industry to its core.
On July 14, 2015, the first of a series of undercover videos was released showing Planned Parenthood executives discussing the gruesome details of their program for harvesting organs and tissue from babies aborted at Planned Parenthood facilities nationwide. The tiny livers, hearts, brains, and limbs were then sold to middle-man organ distributors and/or research laboratories around the world.
The investigative exposé was the work of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a group of pro-life citizen journalists and activists, including Newman. From day one, Newman served as a founding member on the CMP’s board and provided advice and funding to the undercover fact-finding project.
Together, they stunned the world and left America’s largest abortion purveyor in a state of turmoil.
“I am honored to have been a part of this historic investigation, even though it came at great personal cost to those of us involved in revealing the horrific truth about the illicit trade in human aborted baby parts,” said Newman. “Today’s Planned Parenthood organization is vastly different from what it was in 2015. Most of its politically powerful leadership has quit or moved on due to our shining the light of truth on their ghoulish secret side business peddling human flesh. This has left a weaker Planned Parenthood with waning political influence that is now collapsing from within.”
Shocking videos expose foetal tissue harvesting
The series of videos depicted abortionists describing in their own callous words the illegal practice of altering abortion procedures – not for the health of women – but to obtain the most marketable organs that would fetch the highest price.
The sale or purchase of human foetal tissue is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000 (42 U.S.C. 289g-2).
Operation Rescue released the initial press announcement with a link to the first video showing Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Deborah Nucatola, casually chomping on a salad and sipping wine while discussing the popularity of baby livers, hearts, and heads with middle-man organ procurement companies such as StemExpress (now known as CGT Global).
The second video, released a week later, showed abortionist Mary Gatter, Medical Director of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, articulating a profit motive in the baby organ harvesting scheme. She was heard haggling over the price for each specimen while indicating she did not want to get “low-balled” by the undercover pro-life journalist posing as a representative of a fictitious organ procurement company.
Planned Parenthood abortionist Mary Gatter haggles over her compensation for aborted baby organs in one undercover video. Why? She wanted to buy a Lamborghini.
“But, you know, the money is not important,” she states. “But it has to be big enough that it makes it worthwhile for me. . .It’s been years since I’ve talked about compensation, so let me just figure out what others are getting and if this is in the ballpark, that’s fine. If it’s still low, we can bump it up. I want a Lamborghini,” Gatter laughed.
The videos only got worse from there for Planned Parenthood. Subsequent releases showed dishes containing dismembered aborted baby remains with clinic workers pointing out body parts for a prospective buyer. An organ harvesting technician was interviewed. She described how later term babies were born intact – many with their tiny hearts still beating as the desired organs were cut from their chests.
Aftermath
These videos sent Planned Parenthood’s then CEO Cecile Richards into a tailspin. Her attempts to blunt the edge of the sharp condemnation inspired by the video exposés only backfired.
Eventually, Planned Parenthood hired a politically powerful Washington, D.C. crisis management company to persuade the mainstream media to stop covering the story, and enlisted a team of attorneys to sue Newman and the rest of the CMP Board under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in a hostile San Francisco Civil Court. In 2019, the pro-lifers were ordered to pay Planned Parenthood and its attorneys an estimated $17 million, a judgment that still hangs over the heads of Newman and his CMP associates.
Team Troy: Newman (second from left) is pictured in front of the San Francisco Federal Court with his legal team from the American Center for Law and Justice.
Planned Parenthood also hired a company called Fusion GPS to conduct a “forensic analysis” of the CMP videos for the purpose of discrediting them. Fusion GPS turned out to be a political dirty tricks group with no expertise in video analysis. Their findings were completely discredited. Fusion GPS was later involved in producing the fictitious “Russian Dossier” against Donald J. Trump during his first presidential campaign and administration, which has also been debunked.
Meanwhile, criminal charges were filed against two CMP undercover journalists in Texas and California.
In Houston, Texas, Operation Rescue’s investigation into corruption within the Harris County District Attorney’s office helped get a dismissal of all charges against pro-life journalist David Daleiden. Operation Rescue uncovered collusion between the DA’s office and
Planned Parenthood that illegally flipped a grand jury that should have been tasked with investigating Planned Parenthood’s baby parts trafficking scheme to one that investigated Daleiden. The District Attorney involved, Devon Anderson, was later defeated for re-election.
In California, Kamala Harris, then the State Attorney General, initiated an investigation into Daleiden and Sandra Merritt related to their undercover investigation after meeting with Planned Parenthood in 2015. Both were criminally charged by Attorney General Xavier Baquera, Harris’s successor. The criminal cases dragged on for nearly a decade.
In January 2025, Daleiden and Merritt accepted plea deals that ensured they would receive no jail time or fines. Merritt’s attorney, Matt Staver, Founder and Chairman of the Liberty Counsel, maintains that Merritt’s prosecution was baseless, and that she did nothing wrong.
Legacy of the undercover investigation
The undercover project was inspired by Newman’s close friend and colleague, the late Mark Crutcher, Founder of Life Dynamics Inc. In 2000, Crutcher was the first to document Planned Parenthood’s grisly trade in aborted baby body parts at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Kansas City.
Newman sought to build on Crutcher’s work. He emphasized that the goal of the undercover investigation was not simply to document Planned Parenthood’s participation in the illegal trade in human body parts. It was, more importantly, to prompt criminal prosecutions for violations of State and Federal laws and, ultimately, use the evidence to persuade Congress to defund Planned Parenthood.
Ten years later, Newman was informed that findings from the undercover investigation contributed to the inclusion of Planned Parenthood’s complete defunding for at least one year in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. This is already leading to the closure of Planned Parenthood clinics, with as many as 200 predicted to close nationwide due to the cessation of tax-payer money.
In 2016, U.S. House and Senate committees investigated the allegations that Planned Parenthood illegally trafficked aborted baby remains for profit. Both the Senate and House determined there was evidence that Planned Parenthood broke the law and made criminal referrals to the U.S. Department of Justice under pro-abortion President Barack Obama. Unfortunately, no action was taken at that time.
A new Congressional investigation into Planned Parenthood was announced in June 2025, by pro-life Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The use of foetal tissue for government research became increasingly controversial after the undercover investigation revealed the immoral nature of procuring, profiting from, and researching with aborted baby tissue.
In 2019, President Donald J. Trump halted the use of foetal tissue in government research. Unfortunately, under the Biden Administration, such experimentation was allowed to continue. However, since President Trump began his second administration, he tapped Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institute of Health, which oversees research using government grants. Dr. Bhattacharya has stated he is “absolutely committed” to ending the use of foetal tissue in government research.
“Our work exposing Planned Parenthood’s exploitation of human aborted baby remains for profit has led to positive results,” said Newman. “It has been quite a ride over the past ten years, and our investigations have continued to yield fruit.”
Today, Planned Parenthood is imploding. The government is crafting laws and policies that respect the lives of babies in the womb. There is a new Department of Justice that will not slam the doors on new criminal referrals from Congress, should their current investigations yield any.
“Despite the successes of the baby parts investigation, I understand we have a long way to go to ensure every innocent prenatal baby is protected by law,” said Newman. “It is good to celebrate our victories, so today, I celebrate. Tomorrow, we get back to work exposing the Abortion Cartel and holding them accountable through every legal means available.”
“This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America. The author, Cheryl Sullenger, is Operation Rescue Sr. Vice President Emeritus.”
Australia has loosened restrictions on chemical abortions yet new data proves they are less safe for mothers than the authorities would have us believe.
The abortion pill has become the preferred method of terminating a pregnancy for most Western women, including in Australia. Legally available since 2006, it now accounts for up to 60% of Australia’s 90,000 abortions.1
This increase has been exacerbated by a loosening of restrictions around who can prescribe the pill. Yet a new study from the US should be raising the alarm among those who believe that medication abortion is a safe option for women.
Chemical abortions in Australia
In Australia, the abortion pill is produced by Marie Stopes International under the name MS-2 Step and was formerly known as RU-486. The new name reflects the two-stage protocol for a chemical abortion: first the drug Mifepristone is consumed to stop progesterone production; this effectively stops the unborn baby from accessing nutrition from its mother. Then 36-48 hours later, the drug Misoprostol is taken to expel the dead child.
If the second pill is not consumed and high doses of progesterone are given to the mother after the first pill, then there is a good chance that the action of the abortion pill can be reversed and the baby saved.
Doctors previously required special certification in order to prescribe MS-2 Step, but since August 2023, the Therapeutic Goods Act has allowed any GP to do so. Additionally, nurses, midwives and other medical professionals are now legally able to prescribe the abortion pills, as explained in our previous article.
New South Wales’ new bill
The state which most recently jumped on the abortion access bandwagon is New South Wales. The bill, put forward by Greens MP Amanda Cohn, brought NSW into line with the other states except Tasmania, enabling chemical abortions to be prescribed by endorsed midwives and nurse-practitioners.
Major amendments saw the most controversial sections of the bill scrapped, including a section that would force health professionals who had a conscientious objection to abortion to facilitate the termination of pregnancies and another that would have forced pro-life doctors to refer women for abortions.
There were concerns that parts of the bill could have led to the closure of Christian and Catholic hospitals for refusing to perform abortion procedures. Even though the bill’s authors said it referred to public institutions and contained no mechanism to enforce compliance, the possibility for amendments to be made in the future caused a huge backlash.
One upside to the new law is that the section related to data collection was expanded – something sorely needed in all those Australian states which currently do not collect data, ie all states and territories other than South Australia and Western Australia.
A timely new ctudy
Yet a new study, released by the American Ethics and Public Policy Centre (EPPC) in May of this year, could throw a spanner in the works of this expanded access to the abortion pill. The study, the largest of its kind, analysed the insurance claims related to more than 800,000 mifepristone abortions over a period of six years.
The results were startling, with almost 11% of women reporting a serious adverse event within 45 days of their abortion. The study did not include ‘mild’ or ‘moderate’ adverse events in its conclusions; mental health consequences were included in the category ‘other abortion-specific complaints.’
Serious adverse events included: repeat surgical terminations due to an incomplete abortion; haemorrhage, including some requiring a blood transfusion; sepsis and ectopic pregnancy. A staggering 5% of women required a visit to a hospital emergency department. The findings call into question the existing FDA statistics of adverse events after Mifepristone occurring only ‘0.5%’ of the time.
The EPPC is calling for a thorough investigation of the drug by the FDA, which is still using data from its original decade-old studies, and in recent days, the Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration has committed to conducting a review of Mifepristone. However, without providing any details or an official statement from the FDA, a review remains to be seen.
Those studies relied on a relatively small number of cases, whereas the EPPC study uses data from 28 times as many abortions. Additionally, the EPPC is calling for the FDA to return to its original, more stringent guidelines for dispensing Mifepristone, such as physician-only prescription in a clinical setting with ready access to high-level medical intervention, if required.
Those guidelines may be contrasted with the current ones, in place since 2023, which mean that women can access a mifepristone abortion after only one telehealth consultation with any approved healthcare provider – who doesn’t have to be a physician. Additionally, healthcare providers have no obligation to report an adverse event unless the patient dies. In the US, the drug is also available by mail-order pharmacy for those living in states which have banned abortion.
Ineffectiveness of chemical abortions
Included among the serious adverse reactions to the abortion pill is a high failure rate. The American study found that more than 5% of chemical abortions fail – somewhat higher than the rate currently quoted by the abortion industry of around 3-4%.
The EPPC study found that “According to the insurance data, 5.26 percent of women undergo a second abortion attempt within 45 days of the first, indicating that the first mifepristone abortion attempt failed.” Not only that, it was also reported that1.58 percent of mothers were given a second dose of misoprostol but not a second dose of mifepristone, suggesting that the baby was killed by the first drug but not completely expelled from the mother’s body.
The extra dose of misoprostol therefore increases the likelihood of adverse reactions specific to that drug, including effects such as shivering, chills, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, hyperthermia, nausea, vomiting, flatulence, constipation, dyspepsia, headache, breakthrough bleeding, menstrual irregularities, syncope (fainting), lethargy, weakness, and vertigo.
By including the number of repeat abortions in their data, the EPPC concluded that a massive “13.51 percent of women—roughly one in seven—experience at least one serious adverse event or repeated abortion attempt within 45 days of first attempting a mifepristone abortion.“
A second recent study, this time from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, looked at over 28,000 emergency room visits that followed a chemical abortion. The ER visits took place within 30 days of the abortion and it was found that during the 5-year study period, 84% of the admissions were wrongly classified as being ‘miscarriages’ rather than ‘adverse abortion events.’ Additionally, around half of the miscoded cases were high-level medical emergencies.
These findings underscore the fact that the true number of adverse reactions to the abortion pill are not known. The vice president and director of data analytics at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Dr. James Studnicki, commented on the findings:
“When abortion-related emergencies are disguised as miscarriages, it impairs a doctor’s ability to make informed, evidence-based decisions. That isn’t just a documentation error—it’s a public health crisis. The abortion industry’s push for concealment is unethical and dangerous. Women deserve honest guidance and proper medical care, not advice that jeopardizes their health.”
Conclusion
The recent death of the inventor of mifepristone, Étienne-Émile Baulieu, has helped keep the topic of chemical abortions in the news. After Baulieu’s passing, his widow commented, “His research was guided by his commitment to progress through science, his dedication to women’s freedom and his desire to enable everyone to live better and longer lives.”
Obviously missing from this glowing tribute is concern for the millions of babies who have been put to death via Baulieu’s chemical abortions. As we are learning, chemical abortions are also harming far more women than previously thought – all in the name of “freedom.”
by Kathy Clubb
Due to limited data collection, most Australian abortion statistics are estimates. ↩︎
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