Dave Pellowe interviews Teeshan Johnson, the Executive Director of Cherish Life Qld, about this insidious organisation that has an invisible hand in every Parliament in Australia. What extreme agendas do EMILY’s List members have for Australia’s future? What have they already achieved without the general public knowing who was behind it?

While this may not qualify as a ‘victory’ in the sense that it’s the result of a targeted campaign by pro-lifers, it certainly is a victory for life, as Australian mothers will now have more restricted access to dangerous tele-med abortions. The harmful drugs used in the medical abortion protocol have led to serious side-effects and even death among women worldwide. And, in yet another example of the abortion industry’s dishonest approach, women who access medical abortions are not told that reversal is available.

NEW YORK, February 15 (C-Fam) Hardly anyone will have noticed that the United Nations, at least a part of it, was involved in the controversial New York State law that codified the U.S. Supreme Court decisions imposing abortion on demand up to birth.

The Australian Labor Party today announced a new campaign policy: their intention to make abortion on demand legal & free across Australia. With this single policy they have made it impossible for any authentic Christian to vote for them, much less stay silent on the sidelines of this impending federal election.

‘Safe, legal and rare’ is out the window – now it’s free abortions for everyone. Labor’s Deputy Leader, Tanya Plibersek, has given details of a $9 million National Sexual and Reproductive Health Strategy, aimed at increasing abortion services throughout Australia, should her party be elected this year.

It's evident that among those who identify as 'pro-life' there exists a great variety of positions. At one end of the spectrum are those who defend life from the moment of conception, while also condemning contraception, and at the other end, there are those who agree with abortion in certain circumstances such as rape or severe foetal abnormality.

(NEW YORK - C-Fam) The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued medical guidance on abortion intended to reflect the latest scientific evidence in the field. However, its most apparent change was cultural rather than medical. This new report began by insisting it is not only females who can become pregnant, but so can women who think they are men, that is, “those with varying gender identities.”

On the 46th anniversary of Roe v Wade- that infamous law which legalised abortion in the US - the state of New York expanded its own abortion legislation with the 'Reproductive Health Act'. According to LifeSiteNews:

The bill declares that “Every individual who becomes pregnant has the fundamental right to choose to carry the pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child, or to have an abortion,” erases the state’s recognition of preborn babies older than 24 weeks as potential homicide victims, removes abortion from the penal code entirely, and allows licensed health practitioners other than full doctors to commit abortions.

New York's Governor, Andrew Cuomo, called the new law a 'a historic victory for New Yorkers and our progressive values…' and directed that the state's landmarks be lit up in pink to celebrate the occasion. Jonathon van Maren, of The Bridgehead, wrote what many were thinking: ' ... it seems as if New York’s landmarks are lit up to commemorate the passing of untold nameless ones.'

At midnight on New Year's Day, the Republic of Ireland's new abortion law was enacted, following a referendum which showed massive support for legalisation. Despite a huge campaign to save the 8th Amendment - which had previously protected Ireland's pre-born babies -  and courageous opposition from pro-life politicians, years of poor catechesis coupled with injections of cash from pro-abortion globalists meant that the majority of the Irish people were ready to embrace legal child-killing. Irish doctors are outraged, since they are now obliged to refer for abortions, (and possibly to perform them!) and shockingly, will earn more for aborting babies than for caring for pregnant women throughout their pregnancies.

Queensland

Exclusion-zones went into force yesterday in Queensland, along with the state's new act that moved abortion into the health code. Queensland is the fourth Australian state to enact the zones - this includes New South Wales, where abortion is still technically illegal; both territories also have the so-called 'Safe-Access' zones. Pro-lifers who wish to pray outside abortion mills and offer help to the women entering them will now have to stand 150m away from the entrance or risk huge fines and potential incarceration.

Ireland's pro-life politicians have been facing ferocious opposition in trying to push through amendments that would mitigate the impact of that country's disastrous new abortion law.  The Eighth Amendment - the part of the Irish constitution which had protected pre-born children from abortion - was repealed in September of this year. The Eighth Amendment was replaced by the phrase, "Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy", allowing abortion on demand in the first trimester, and potentially to full term on certain conditions. Ireland's Lower House has been debating the terms of this change in law.  

This message is so dear to my heart. It was given at the launch (4 Nov 2018) of ‘Christians In Politics’, a grass roots self-organisation of some Christians in Newcastle concerned about how we can be better informed about and involved in the future of our nation – our neighbours. Here’s what one person had to say after the event…  

In addition to being an author, speaker, and blogger at The Bridgehead and other websites, Jonathon van Maren is part of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform, an organisation best known for their pioneering use of abortion victim imagery. A few months ago, Jonathon approached me to give him a rundown of the Australian pro-life scene for his website, (you can read that here) so it seemed like a good opportunity to ask him to use the same questions to describe the landscape in Canada. I also asked Jonathan to elaborate on something that stuck with me from his book, The Culture War: in it, Jonathan wrote that addiction to pornography was holding men back from involvement in pro-life work.

Almost ten years to the day after Victoria created the most liberal abortion laws in the world, Queensland has followed suit and decriminalised abortion there. While many thought the change was a foregone conclusion due to the reigning Labor government's self-avowed love of baby-killing, there was hope that the law could be voted down by the many pro-life parliamentarians, notably from the LNP. But the final vote was 51 to 41 in favour of abortion law reform. Three LNP members crossed the floor to vote for the bill: Tim Nicholls, Jann Stuckey and Steve Minnikin. Remember those names. This law passed despite months of intense campaigning from pro-life groups and individuals, including many fora held to educate voting MPs about the reality of abortion.

Blue skies and plenty of sunshine – a great day to march for the babies again. The ninth annual March for the Babies in Melbourne just finished. Several thousand passionate and peaceful marchers – men and women, children, grandmothers and grandfathers – marched to remind Melbourne, Victoria and the world that we do not accept the mass slaughter of the unborn. Since the horrific abortion on demand law was passed here ten years ago, there have been over 200,000 babies killed with official state sanction. Some 20,000 poor preborn children are taken to their slaughter each year thanks to one of the most liberalised abortion laws in the world. But we were not alone. Prolifers also marched this afternoon in Brisbane because they are about to vote on a similar nasty piece of legislation.

[ON 19 September the ACT Legislative Assembly voted 15-4 to allow the abortifacient drug RU-486 to be prescribed and dispensed in the ACT. The four MLAs opposing the move were Mrs Vicki Dunne, Mrs Elisabeth Kikkert, Mr Alistair Coe and Mr Andrew Wall. The new legislation allows “medical abortions”, as distinct from “surgical abortions”, to be conducted away from a medical facility in the privacy of one’s own home.

This article is taken from the Western Australian Legal Theory Association and is reproduced here with permission. The entire document can be downloaded at the WALTA website here: Dr Joseph Turner (B Med Sc (Hons), MBBS, Ph D, FRACGP, FARGP, FACRRM and DRANZCOG (Advanced)* Debbie Garratt (BN, Grad Dip Counselling, B Ed, M Ed (La Trobe), PhD candidate (UNDA)** Dr Simon McCaffrey (MBBS (Hons Class II), MRCOG, FRACOG and FRANZCOG)*** 

The High Court will consider in October the constitutionality of Victorian and Tasmanian laws prohibiting protesting, offers of assistance and other types of communication around abortion clinics. Those supporting the laws claim that they are needed considering the significant harm that may be caused by this conduct. There are, however, substantial problems with the medical evidence provided to the High Court in support of such claims. This article critiques this evidence and highlights key questions that remain unaddressed by the expert medical opinion.

It is the best of times. At no other time in human history has there been less war or invasion, plagues or pestilence, slavery or poverty. There has never been more knowledge, education and instant availability of information literally in the pockets and at the fingertips of more people than there is now. We are empowered, free and masters of our own destiny. We are civilised and enlightened and the major problems which plagued humanity for millennia have largely been solved.

But it is the worst of times.

We boast of social progress from the pagan ignorance of slavishly worshipping idols crafted by human hands. Instead, we cast aside the lofty ambition of discovering natural law or objective Truth and claim that the morality of whatever is legislated is derived from the mere authority to legislate it. We are worshipping precedents & laws crafted by human hands as somehow holy or sacred. Regardless of all their other virtues or accomplishments, we pull down statues of slave owners who had the callousness of heart to treat any fellow man as mere property to be acquired or disposed of, ignorant of the infinite worth & inherent dignity of every living human. We stand in condemnation of those who barbarically cast their own babies into the fires of Molech in vain hopes of personal prosperity millennia ago. Discarding the progress of centuries before us, our social enlightenment has not progressed.

Once again we are barbaric, treating certain classes of human life as second class or worse, disposable property. We may not be able to hear the heart-breaking screams of newborn infants in the searing hot hands of a stone idol, but we are a society that deliberately terminates the lives of many, many more unborn children each year. As many living humans as fill the stadium for the AFL Grand Final each year are sacrificed in the sterile abortion clinics of Australia. We enjoy blissful ignorance of the actual procedures used to kill little humans and take comfort that surely no practitioner of the honourable trades of medicine or law would betray our trust in them to do no harm and defend the innocent. We actively censor and ban all knowledge of the fact that children are sliced and diced in the womb before being vacuumed out like garbage, or when more developed, have their skulls crushed and are torn limb from limb before the bloody gore is reassembled on a stainless steel surface to ensure no piece of this new person was left inside her mother.

There is no independent counselling for the poor women or girls who find themselves in incredibly difficult circumstances, no compassion for the numbers of them there without free choice but by the abusive coercion of their partner or parents or rapists. There is no informed consent with full disclosure of the many well documented risks, balanced presentation of the other choices she may prefer, or cooling off period to consider the weight of the consequences of termination of life. We lie without flinching when we call ourselves “pro choice” and offer no funding or encouragement for more than one choice. The manifest truth is we are only pro the abortion choice.

In Queensland, whose unaccountable government is currently railroading the parliament into grossly liberalising abortion, there are about 14,000 children killed every year in abortion clinics and a mere handful, not even a dozen, adopted by the many families desperately wanting a child, offering those unwanted by others a permanent, safe home with them. Qld offers no government support or services to pregnant mothers choosing to permit their babies to live with the choice of adoption. But the bad Jackie Trad abortion bill, already rejected twice and overwhelmingly opposed in polling, petitions and parliamentary submissions, ignores the needed solutions and seeks only to offer more children on the fatal altar of personal autonomy and prosperity.

Our social conscience has buried the objective reality of the science and the ethics which demand acknowledgement that every single successful abortion kills a living human and significantly harms his or her mother. We use confected outrage and evasive language to change the topic and camouflage the facts. We prefer to talk about secondary issues which require us to assume there is only a woman’s body and woman’s rights to be considered. But that assumption is grossly ignorant of the inescapable fact that science conclusively observes that every human life began at conception. From the moment the spark of life occurs, when sperm & egg fuse to create a new person, that embryo is human by species and living by scientific definition. The term fetus is not an escape from the inconvenient reality: its definition acknowledges it is a “little one”. Like a stowaway on a ship at sea, whether the passenger is there with or without permission of the captain of the vessel, the captain has a moral obligation to fulfill her duty of care to that person, little or large, until they can be delivered to a safe harbour.

It is said truly that in this age of information ignorance is a choice. Resources like AbortionProcedures.com fully empower us to be informed about the reality of what really goes on in first, second and third trimester abortions. I challenge you to open your eyes and watch all three and still insist it’s just a woman’s body, a woman’s choice. The lawyers and legislators who scorn the fight for the universal human right to life desperately try to hide the evidence of the humanity being rejected by even denying the mercy of pain relief for the little lives being extinguished in late term abortions, even though at the same stage of development children being operated on in utero would be given anaesthetic.

On 12^th September Dr Carol Portman, one of Queensland’s only later term abortion providers spoke at a Committee Hearing for the Termination of Pregnancy Bill.  When asked if she had ever experienced a woman attending for termination who may be experiencing her coercion, her response revealed all that typifies abortion discourse.  A discourse that upholds the concept of ‘abortion rights’ above all else, even a woman’s right to be free from coercion, to be entitled to the highest standards of ethical medical care and the right to say ‘no’.

The latest QLD abortion law reform effort was introduced on 22 August 2018, by the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Yvette  D'Ath. This is the third such attempt to decriminalise abortion in the state in recent years. Organisations and individuals, including medical professionals, counsellors, and members of the public made submissions to a government-appointed committee, which will evaluate them and release a report on October 5th. The bill will then be debated in mid-October.

Philip Ney MD FRCP(C) MA RPsych is an academic and clinician of over fifty years, has done research into child abuse for more than forty years and has published many papers and books on this subject. In his early research, he became increasingly aware of the connection between child abuse and abortion. Dr. Ney and his wife have also studied children who are survivors of abortion. From their experience conducting therapeutic groups for women and men suffering from the effects of child abuse and/or abortion, Philip Ney wrote "Ending the Cycle of Abuse" (Taylor Frances, New York) and "Deeply Damaged" (Pioneer Publishing, Victoria, BC). The extract below is taken from the 1997 book, 'Deeply Damaged." [Bio: the Hope Alive Australia website.]

This is the second part of a briefing paper prepared by Debbie Garratt of Real Choices Australia. The first part critiques a recently-released draft White Paper from Marie Stopes Australia, which deals with the topic of Reproductive Coercion. Click here to read part 1. The majority (>95%) of terminations in Australia occur for psychosocial reasons including not having enough resources, whether financial or material, not feeling able to cope with a baby due to age or lack of support, fears about the impact of pregnancy and parenting on other life choices, as well as consideration for the needs of other people a woman cares for.

This is the first part of a briefing paper by Debbie Garratt, of Real Choices Australia, on the topic of reproductive coercion. This article critiques a draft White Paper by Marie Stopes on reproductive coercion, while the second article examines the society's many subtle and coercive influences on pregnant women. Click here to read part 2.   Marie Stopes, one of Australia’s biggest abortion providers recently released a draft White Paper entitled Hidden Forces: Shining a Light on Reproductive Coercion.

The late Professor of Law at the University of California, John Noonan, stated that " once or twice in a century an issue arises so far reaching in its consequences and so deep in its foundation that it calls on every person to take a stand". He contended that in 19th century America slavery assumed those proportions and that abortion has become one of these issues. Saint Teresa of Calcutta gave the following powerful message during her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize - " the greatest destroyer of peace in the world is abortion. For if a society can allow a mother to kill her own child in her own womb, how can we tell other people not to kill each other.Any society which permits abortion is not teaching its people to love but to use any violence to get what they want".

26 years ago, I had an abortion here in Melbourne. Even back then, it was quite easy to obtain an abortion. I told the abortionist I was about to buy a business so I couldn't have the baby. That was enough reason for the abortionist to classify my reason for the abortion as ‘mental health’. The business deal fell through a few weeks after the abortion. The irony of this didn’t dawn on me until many years later. I sacrificed my baby’s life for a business that never eventuated. There were no 'sidewalk' counsellors back then. 26 years later, I have suffered indescribable psychological trauma as a result of that abortion.