Australia Parliament Members Disassociate With Backing Abortions for Disabled
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 13, 2008
Canberra, Australia (LifeNews.com) — A group of Australian MPs are disassociating themselves with a statement the Australia Senate produced in their name which calls for taxpayer funding of abortions of disabled unborn babies. The statement says abortion is preferable to birth because it supposedly costs too much to raise disabled children.
The Parliamentary Group on Population and Development’s submitted the statement on behalf of the 41 MPs that belong to the caucus, but seven MPs say they don’t want their name on the document.
The statement, which mirrors one from the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance comes in the middle of a debate on whether abortions in Australia should be funded through the government’s Medicare program.
The program currently spends $180,000 annually funding the abrotions and pro-life lawmakers want that stopped.
The documents call for taxpayer-funding of abortion in the second trimester and says raising disabled children is a burden on taxpayers.
PGDP chair Senator Clair Moore wrote the statement, but the seven members emailed Moore in response saying they wanted their names removed.
MPs who disowned the PGPD submission include Dr Brendan Nelson, Senator Allan Eggleston, Julie Bishop and Philip Ruddock. Three other MPs have written as well including Senator Ron Boswell.
Boswell accused the group of thinking "typical of the Hitler regime" by targeting disabled people and saidit was "offensive."
"Its underlying premise that some lives are worth less than others because they will cost too much to support, this is the kind of thinking that was typical of the Hitler regime," he told the Senate.
Family First senator Steve Fielding said the rebate should be abolished.
"Disallowing item 16525 is unlikely to cut the number of abortions, but it would send a clear signal that the parliament is not willing to give direct financial support to the abortion of an unborn child," he said.
The Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee’s Inquiry held hearings on the abortion funding last month and its report will be submitted today.
Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce said he thought abortions should be abolished.
The inquiry heard about babies being left to die following botched abortions, the pain babies feel during the abortion process, and the methods used to kill unborn children during the second trimester.
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