Does it matter if abortion kills babies?

At a public meeting on April 17, 2019, at QUT in Brisbane I asked the following question of a panel of medical personnel which included two abortion practitioners:

“When was it conclusively established that abortion does not destroy the life of a child?”

The panel members hesitated to answer so I took the opportunity to point out that the Queensland Criminal Code, the Queensland Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018, and the new Queensland Human Rights Act 2019, all acknowledge that the entity carried by a pregnant woman is a “child”.

When panel member, Brisbane abortionist Dr Carol Portman, took the microphone she readily conceded that she does not dispute that abortion kills babies. She said that just that day she had seen a woman who wanted an abortion. The woman acknowledged that she was carrying a baby and Dr Portman herself recognised the woman was carrying a baby. Nevertheless, Dr Portman had been willing to give the woman the abortion.

And Carol Portman is far from the only abortionist or pro-choice advocate to state that abortion kills babies.

For a start, it was interesting to note that none of the other panel members that night expressed a view contrary to that of Dr Portman’s.

More pointedly, British abortionist, Judith Arcana, who had an abortion herself, has said, “But we should never disregard the fact that being pregnant means that there is baby growing inside of a woman, a baby whose life is ended. We ought not to pretend this is not happening”.

Abortionist William Harrison stated that: “No one, neither the patient receiving the abortion, nor the person doing the abortion, is ever, at any time, unaware that they are ending a life”.

The late Australian abortionist, Dr Bertram Wainer: “Abortion is killing. Nobody can argue with that”.

Dr Curtis Boyd, abortionist: “Am I killing? Yes I am. I know that”.

Abortionist Diane M. Gianelli: “I have angry feelings at myself for feeling good about grasping the calvaria [head], for feeling good about doing a technically good procedure that destroys a fetus, kills a baby”.

Dr Mary Calderone, former Director of Planned Parenthood wrote: “Abortion is the taking of a human life”.

Indeed, a Planned Parenthood advertisement from 1964 (Planned Parenthood is now the largest abortion provider in the USA) stated: “An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun”.

Pro-choice advocate, Kathleen McDonnell wrote: “Abortion is in some sense an act of violence and indisputably results in the termination of a life”.

Penny Lane, creator of ‘The Abortion Diaries’ said: “I remember feeling conflicted about the magic of being pregnant. I felt electricity running through my body. Not for a minute did I not think of it as a life. I knew it was a baby”.

Australian pro-choice author Leslie Cannold wrote: “Any woman who has felt a baby stir inside her [and] any man who has seen the tiny heart pulsing on an ultrasound screen knows that abortion is about ending a life”.

Some pro-choicers and abortionists use even blunter language.

American feminist, Camille Paglia wrote: “Let’s take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter. I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful”.

Dr Robert Jones: “One has to start with the attitude that you accept the criticism that abortion is murder. . . You’re extinguishing life and if you don’t face up to that you are not being honest with yourself”.

Even the Queensland Criminal Code indirectly affirms that abortion destroys the life of a child. Section 313(2) Killing unborn child, states that an assault on a pregnant woman may result in the destruction of the life of the child before birth. (maximum penalty – life imprisonment). If such an assault can destroy the life of a child then, on those terms, the act of deliberate abortion must most certainly destroy the life of a child.

So, what is going on here? The killing of innocent human beings is usually regarded as being a very serious moral offence, if not the most serious of moral offences. And surely no human beings are more innocent than babies.

Yet, abortionists and pro-choicers (not just the people who are opposed to abortion) are prepared to say that abortion kills: in particular, we have this recent public admission by Dr Carol Portman that she herself kills babies. Few though of the 70 or so people who heard her say that that night seemed even to blink an eye at her remarkably candid statement. A media release, drawing explicit attention to what Dr Portman had said, was issued immediately after the event but that too did not arouse a response.

Is this a good thing, a sign of a maturing society, that we are prepared to face directly what abortion does to babies – kills them – and then just calmly go on with our lives? Move along, nothing to see here.

Or, is the acceptance of the deliberate destruction of young human lives a sign of a society in serious moral collapse?

If a person were to stand outside Dr Portman’s abortion clinic with a sign saying, “Abortion kills babies” they would be arrested and potentially fined $10 000 and/ or jailed for up to 12 months for having done so. Yet Dr Portman can openly say that it is true that abortion really does kill babies and she can then go ahead, on those premises, and do the killing.

And nothing is done about that.

What is going on here?

Perhaps the last words can go to, of all people, Margaret Sanger, who was the co-founder of Planned Parenthood. She wrote in her autobiography: “ . . . abortion was the wrong way – no matter how early it was performed it was taking life”.