Part II
DR DAVID GRUNDMANN: It's wedge politics. The abortion debate has been had. It's over and done with. It's been a dead issue for 30 years. The conservative right — the religious conservative right — is trying to create an opening to try to take the right of choice away from women in Australia and the only way they can do that is by trying to splinter people who are pro choice into those who find abortion late in gestation distasteful.
PETER OVERTON: Senator, why are we sitting here having this discussion? I thought it was sorted out 30 years ago?
JULIAN McGAURAN: Well, the line has shifted. Thirty years ago, the law just didn't contemplate late-term abortions at all.
PETER OVERTON: Look, is this wedge politics on your part? You are putting your hand up and saying, "Let's bring the emotive issue of late-term abortion into the public forum" and then hopefully that will lead to a ban on all abortions?
JULIAN McGAURAN: Look, this is far from wedge politics. This is a hot-button, moral, ethical issue. It's hardly wedge politics. It has nothing to do with politics, quite frankly. I don't see the political advantage for either side. This has everything to do with social values and the tenets we wish to run our society on.
PETER OVERTON: Abortion has always been controversial. But it's a decision no woman takes lightly. This woman is eight weeks pregnant and she's courageously given us permission to film her procedure. It's the first time a termination has been filmed in an Australian abortion clinic. And a warning — some viewers may find it distressing to watch. It's a relatively routine procedure, but nonetheless clinical and unpleasant. Abortions have been legal in some states of Australia since 1969, but if Julian McGauran has his way, the clock is about to be rolled back. So do you want a ban on late-term abortion?
JULIAN McGAURAN: I'd be more than happy to support legislation through the parliament to ban late-term abortions and certainly the methods by which they're undertaken.
PETER OVERTON: What techniques do you use to perform late-term abortions?
DAVID GRUNMANN: We use a range of techniques. I'm not going to go into the specifics because I don't believe it advances the debate on either side terribly much.
PETER OVERTON: Do you pierce the baby's head with a sharp instrument?
DAVID GRUNMANN: As I said, I'm not going to discuss details or specifics about procedures because I don't think that you or the public needs to know specifics about a very small number of procedures. If I'm talking to a medical audience I'll have no problem discussing procedures because they understand it.
PETER OVERTON: Is that because the procedure is so bad and so explicit and destructive?
DAVID GRUNMANN: It's because the anti-choice people like to create hysteria about certain aspects of late abortion which I don't think that the public really needs to debate.
PETER OVERTON: Only two percent of abortions are considered late term. But it's a potent weapon for anti-abortion protesters like Anne Dowling. Okay, you're now under arrest from state police...
ANNE DOWLING: If there is a baby on the road, you would jump on the road, stop the traffic to pick up the baby. I can't pick up the baby, but I can stop the traffic.
PETER OVERTON: Anne has seven children of her own but is prepared to go to jail for the cause. She's been arrested 25 times.
ANNE DOWLING: A baby's going to die. A baby's going to be killed. What do you do? You hand someone a leaflet about it? No, you block the door and that's what we do.
FIONA RICHARDS: We definitely did do the right thing because we weren't able to see that at the time, that it was the right thing, because we were so overwhelmed by feelings of guilt and loss and grief but once we were able to think about it, basically we had no choice.
PETER OVERTON: Isn't it about the woman?
JULIAN McGAURAN: Well, the women of course do not have an unfettered choice in this matter. If society is going to lead itself down that slippery slope where they will start aborting late term on the grounds of disability, then where do you draw the line? Where is the new line?
PETER OVERTON: But, Senator, we're not talking disability, we're talking severe abnormalities, abnormalities that specialists have told the parents will kill their child?
JULIAN McGAURAN: With modern medicine, a great many of these physical disabilities can be fixed up. It's a nonsense argument to say that you've been given evidence or a diagnosis by a doctor of a disability and that is exactly how it will be born. Quite often it does not.
PETER OVERTON: No, hold on, who's the expert — the senator or the doctor?
JULIAN McGAURAN: Well, I know of many examples and many doctors speak to me about it, that there's a prolifera of misdiagnosis. I mean, how close are we going to get to the point of infanticide?
PETER OVERTON: What if this woman is told by a cardiologist, by her obstetrician, that your child has no chance of surviving. Doesn't the woman have a right to make a decision about what she wants?
JULIAN McGAURAN: Well, it's my view that she doesn't. If she's been given those views, there are many equally case examples of survival. And that child ought to be given a chance to survive.
FIONA RICHARDS: I would have probably killed myself if I could not terminate that pregnancy. If I had to carry that baby for another four months, feeling that kicking and then knowing that this baby, once it's a fully grown baby, was going to die — I could not live with that. Excuse me, we'd like to speak to you if we can. We're a couple that did have to have a late-term abortion.
PETER OVERTON: When it comes to abortion, emotions run high on both sides.
FIONA RICHARDS: Whether it's a 16-year-old girl who decides to terminate her pregnancy for whatever reason, or a 30-year-old whose baby is dying, that is a very personal thing. No-one should butt in, not a politician and not you.
PETER OVERTON: The argument once seemed black and white — you were either for or against. But the focus on late-term abortion has brought shades of grey.
FIONA RICHARDS: You've got to decide what you think is right for yourself. No-one else could have decided that for me. I was the one carrying that baby. I was the one suffering. It was my loss, it was my grief, I had to deal with it the only way I knew how to.
PETER OVERTON: At a Melbourne cemetery, Natalie mourns the girl she never held. Four years on, the pain hasn't receded. At times the hurt so great she even thought of ending her own life.
NATALIE WITHERS: I really didn't want to live with the pain anymore. So ... there was ... probably times of thinking that I would've rather go and be with her. She looked pained when she was born. She was born with her mouth open. If I was confronted with it again, I could not do it again. I couldn't play God again.
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http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/sixtyminutes/stories/2005_04_17/story_1353.asp
That is a very good Thread there PurpleRose... I do not agree with what the Family decide I think that was very selfish and heartless what they did.
Get real.