THE ABORTION DEBATE IN VICTORIA

We commend the Hon. Peter Kavanagh, MLC (DLP) for moving the following Notice of Motion in the Victorian Legislative Council on 19th August 2008:

That this House notes with deep concern the failures of the Victorian Law Reform Commission's Final Report on the Law of Abortion, in that the Report either ignored or dismissed a large volume of cogent, valuable scientific evidence showing physical and mental health risks of abortion to women and took no adequate or appropriate steps to provide the Government with that information, and further notes that the deficiencies in the Report include

(1) the failure to acknowledge the risks of psychological damage, depression, suicide, the abortion breast cancer link, infertility and damage to the cervix and uterus resulting in pre-term births in subsequent pregnancies with concomitant problems including cerebral palsy;
(2) opposition to mandated information provisions;
(3) opposition to mandatory counselling;
(4) opposition to any anti-coercion legislation thereby leaving women vulnerable to pressure by husbands, partners, family and others to have abortions which are not genuinely of their own choosing;
(5) the failure to recommend banning partial-birth abortion, now banned in the United States of America;
(6) the failure to seriously address the issue of fetal pain; and
(7) the failure to address the role of abortion in destroying evidence of the sexual abuse of young women and the obligation of all medical practitioners to report evidence of child abuse.