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ACT Right to Life AssociationN E W S L E T T E R |
First Quarter 2000 January - March
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Inside This Issue ..........
The first of the Quarterly Reports from Approved (abortion) Facilities , required by the Health Regulation (Maternal Health Information) Act 1998 (the Act), was recently tabled in the ACT Legislative Assembly.
The Quarterly Reports for 1 July 1999 to 30 September 1999 contain statistics on abortions performed by the Reproductive Healthcare Services abortion clinic, John James Memorial Hospital, Lidia Perin Memorial Hospital, The Canberra Hospital and The National Capital Private Hospital, all of which are allowed to provide abortions in the ACT, within the hazy in-practice confines of the law.
The Reports reveal that there were 438 abortions in the ACT over the three months to 30 September 1999. This implies an annual abortion rate of 1752, a significantly higher rate than previously thought. Earlier figures quoted have been in the range of 1400-1600 abortions per year.
Ninety five percent of these abortions were carried out in the Reproductive Healthcare Services abortion clinic. All but nine of the abortions were carried out on unborn children in their first trimester of development, the balance in their second trimester.
Of the women who had abortions, 40% were aged 25-34 years of age, 30% aged 20-24, 18% less than 20 years old and 12% more than 35 years old. However, the Quarterly Reports do not appear to offer all the information required by the Act. For example, the statistics explaining the reasons why abortions were performed are limited to two almost meaningless categories: "for the health of the mother" and "for other medical reasons".
Section 15(1)(b) of the Act is not restrictive and asks for "the reasons for which abortions were performed". This is an important opportunity to understand why women in the ACT are seeking abortions so that these reasons can be addressed.
The annual report of the Committee Appointed to Examine and Report on Abortions Notified in South Australia uses the following categories to explain the reason for an abortion: specified medical condition, abnormality of fetus, assault on person, pre-existing psychiatric disorder and mental health of woman. These categories would be more appropriate and would allow both comparability of statistics and greater information to be provided.
A note in this section of the report states that the categories of statistics have been determined so as not to contravene section 15(2), which states that "a report shall not contain information that would enable a woman on whom an abortion had been performed to be identified".
This ignores detailed statistics published in another ACT Government report Maternal and Perinatal Status: ACT 1994-96. The Maternal and Perinatal Status report provides statistics on obstetric complications which in some cases notes one woman in a particular category. However, there is no suggestion that the women who experienced these complications can be identified from these statistics.
This misunderstands the intention of section 15(2), which was to prevent the publication of detailed identifying information such as the woman's name, not mere numbers from which it is not possible to identify a woman.
President of the ACT Right to Life Association , Nicola Pantos, has written to the ACT Health Minister, Michael Moore MLA, to argue that the Quarterly Reports should provide the full information required under the Act.
On Saturday, 12 February, the ACTRTLA Council held a planning day to develop a list of five year targets together with plans to achieve them. With over ten members of the Council able to attend and contribute, the day was very positive and productive. A number of decisions (such as increasing our development of networks and developing a more pro-active approach to media work) were put forward and endorsed by the full Council at its March meeting.
ACTRTLA held another successful stall at the ACT Alive fair in front of the Old
Parliament House for Canberra Day on Monday, 20 March 2000. This continues to be a
good opportunity to put the pro-life perspective to the general public.
Spokesperson for the Australian Federation of Right to Life Associations , Nicola
Pantos has written to Minister for Health and Aged Care, Dr Michael Wooldridge, about
reports in an Adelaide newspaper that the National Health and Medical Research Council
(NHMRC) are considering reissuing their report on abortion. Chair of the NHMRC
Health Advisory Committee, Professor Stephen Leeder, said the report An Information
Paper on Termination of Pregnancy in Australia , had been revised since it was
withdrawn because of factual errors in 1998. Speaking to the Adelaide Advertiser
(12 February 2000) about the revised report, Professor Leeder said that "I would be
looking for a shift of abortion out of the criminal law altogether". Ms Pantos
wrote to Dr Wooldridge to point out that the report, though revised, still appears to be
thoroughly politicised and should therefore not be reissued.
Following is the Hansard transcript of the opening statement made at the Canberra public hearing of the House Of Representatives Standing Committee On Legal And Constitutional Affairs into the Scientific, ethical and regulatory aspects relevant to human cloning on 29 March 2000 The statement was made by Mrs Kath Woolf, Vice-President of ACTRTLA on behalf of the Australian Federation of Right to Life Associations.
Mr Chairman, I am here to speak on behalf of the Australian Federation of Right to Life Associations , which is a loose grouping of pro-life organisations throughout Australia. As you probably know, we are identified in the community as being opposed to abortion and euthanasia, but our interests are rather wider than that in the defence of human dignity. We embrace members of all religions, and are not prone to give religious justification to our arguments, but all our member bodies in the federation share one basic philosophical premise: that each human life has a value, and it should be accorded a dignity according to that value. Furthermore, it has rights. Each human life has rights, the most fundamental of which being the right to stay alive.
The techniques used in cloning of either whole humans or of stem cells taken from a developing embryo present issues of great significance to our federation. We consider that cloning with the intention to reproduce a whole human surviving person is, in most circumstances, contrary to human dignity. Our views on this are in complete accord with those of article 11 of the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights .
There appears to be a general community consensus about this,
although it is not absolute. In practical terms, the technique, on present calculation,
would involve great risks and many abortive attempts to produce such a cloned person, with
the loss of many lives.
We are, however, also opposed to so-called therapeutic cloning . We think it is a
misnomer in the first instance. It is the reproduction of material, probably gathered from
embryos who are variously destroyed, disabled, reassembled and generated in some way--all
the methods that we have heard here today--for the purposes of research. This research is
not intended for the benefit of those organisms. Therefore it is not therapeutic, in the
most radical meaning, but for the alleged greater good of society or members of the
society.
We do not agree with the propositions put by the Australian Academy of Science that such creations--which is the only term I can find for them--or products should be precluded from legislative regulation, and that it is not over-restrictive to have legislation that would limit or preclude the way that they could be used in research activities. The whole idea that you can create an entity or hive one off or manipulate it--with the possibility that this entity might be able to develop as a human but that it should be devoted entirely to research for the good of others and not given any ethical significance in its own right--seems utterly contrary to the principles of human dignity.
Our submission sets out in some detail that we also consider it a breach of a number of international documents to which we are either signatories or in fact have ratified--UN declarations and conventions--and I would refer the committee to those, of course.
If there is any doubt that these creations have a potential for full development, then the benefit of the doubt should be accorded to them, and legal protection should be provided for them. It is extremely reckless to proceed as though they cannot have that capacity, and I do not think that the scientists should lead us down that road.
The federation urges the Commonwealth to assist in the framing of uniform legislation in the states and territories to prohibit destructive experimentation, currently called therapeutic cloning, in addition to full cloning of an individual. Under its own powers, the Commonwealth should act to ban the import and export of embryonic material intended for such research.
I disagree absolutely with Professor Pettit in saying that we have to be consistent in that we should not benefit from things that other people do if we are not prepared to do them ourselves.
I think one has to take the view that, whatever the rest of the world is doing, we should not do what we think is wrong. This argument has been used so often in respect of so many things that if you do not do it someone else will. I think it odd to have it turned back on us and have it said that if someone else is doing it you have to do it or it is somehow immoral. I think we are a self-regulating society and we can say we will not do certain things. I do not think that we should allow other considerations of what might happen down the track to influence us in that.
After listening to people here, it is difficult to accept that there are not better ways to attain benefits to humans medically and pharmacologically and so forth than to virtually cannibalise ourselves. The other ironic thing that seems to emerge from discussions of the law here today is that almost everybody is quite anxious or willing to have the parliament legislate to ban cloning of full individuals. Well, that is nice, but that is the least contentious thing. So we will invite the law into those matters which are not contentious, and those matters which are contentious and have far more capacity for perversion for commercial and other uses, that is, the production and development of ES stem cells and various other matters, we will leave to regulation by ethics committees.
Two previous committee members went into some detail about the use of
institutional ethics committees. In fact, Dr Loblay, as he progressed in his discussion,
more and more tried to bring sanctions even into the operation of committees. He is
clearly not quite happy with how they are operating, with the variety of conclusions they
reach about the efficacy or the ethicalness of what they decide.
When you mention sanctions, they are sounding terribly like law, so we might as well go the whole hog and make laws. I think this is the role of the parliament. You can actually frame good law that would say that something should not be done. There are ethical imperatives in addition to scientific and technological ones and some things should not be done.
To judge what it is that a particular experimental protocol is proposing, I think it would need to have some sort of regulatory authority which would have lay and scientific members but their contribution is to match the application of the law to the facts or the facts as they best understand them that are involved in their particular experiment. If in fact they confess that they are not certain that it has not the capacity to develop in a full way, then they should say so and their protocol would not be acceptable. We will always be in their hands to tell us just what variety of development is happening in the scientific world. But I do not think that stops the law asserting principles of matters that we will not accept.
I think the 20 th century, for those who think it has
concluded, bore horrific witness to the ignoring of this principle that there are moral
imperatives and there are things that you just should not do. I do not think that human
dignity can possibly be protected if we treat any one of ourselves as some sort of means
to other people's benefits.
Dr Marie Mignon Mascarenhas MBBS, DPH, MFCMRCP London.
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Dr Mascarenhas is an internationally acclaimed speaker and the founder of the National Association for Right to Life India. She was one of the keynote speakers at the National Conference of the Australian Federation of Right to Life Associations held in Sydney in September 1999. Following is an edited copy of her address to the Conference. |
The Indian sub-continent has long been known for its peace loving
and family based society. However, Mahatma Gandhi was fearful that this could not
last long. His own assassination meticulously planned and carried out in cold blood proved
him right. Even now this violence is repeated every second in various ways on the
vulnerable girl - child and woman. And so we find that whether by female foeticide,
discrimination, deprivation of affection, food and education, despaired off and finally
decimated in a dowry death or disease, there is a relentless pursuit of the girl child
hounded down the slope from conception to an unnatural death. Excellently framed
laws remain as "paper tigers". They are neither enforced nor respected by those
concerned.
When India's Family Planning (FP) programme in 1951 became the world's first and largest
national FP effort, it was claimed to be solely to promote women's health and encourage
spacing. Because of the failure to do either in spite of millions of rupees and
foreign aid, India was persuaded, on the pretext that illegal abortions were rampant, to
introduce (abortifacient) contraceptives like the pill, injectables and the IUD. Not only
did these fail but women suffered serious health problems, ranging from menstrual and
ovarian dysfunction and serious haemorrhages (due to the IUD) which in already anaemic
women proved a disaster.
India's birth rate in 1947 was 50 and is now 28 and as low as 11 in the literate states. It is a demographic plunge not seen by any other nation in the world.
THERE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYMAN'S NEED, BUT NOT FOR EVERYMAN'S GREED
Alarmists who cry out "over population" for every policy failure or non-performance of the Government abound in every nook and corner. These corrupt and misinformed individuals are encouraged by international and local agencies to succumb to the IMF and World Bank, taking loans for unnecessary dams and projects which drain our resources at the cost of education and nutrition. Poverty is not India's biggest problem. It is ignorance and corruption which feed the already fatted fundamentalists. Women's organisations pointed this out and also objected to harmful experiments on women. India's 700,000 villages have been largely neglected in the over zealous drive to bring urban wealth.
Thousands have died due to inadequate facilities for conducting a simple blood test to diagnose malaria, and failure to provide basic anti-malarial drugs. Yet Norplant is implanted after an incision in the upper part of the arm. Both insertion and removal require training and equipment.
Ensuring rational drug use of simple painkillers, anti-malarial and leprosy drugs has been extremely difficult. How then can Norplant, pregnancy vaccines and Quinacrine etc be tested (knowing their dangers in the west), in anaemic malnourished women with little access to medical or nursing facilities? Sterilisation of women took place in every hamlet in millions during the 'Emergency' leaving behind a trail of weakened women and marriages. The sixth and seventh Plans emphasised the promotion of Laparoscopic Sterilisation despite the fact that an international group of endoscopists had pointed out the high incidence of complications and failure rates in India. Then came the final solution: abortion in the name of helping women whose contraceptives have failed.
A national consensus refused to accept abortion in 1967, so in 1971 a well disguised "Medical Termination of Pregnancy" Bill was introduced and an Act quietly got through in 1972, amounting to Abortion on Demand, despite the official medical bodies who objected on the grounds that "there were no adequate facilities or infrastructure to conduct abortions then or in the foreseeable future."
That the professed aim of the Act was to "save millions of women who resort to back street abortions" has singularly failed, is obvious from Dr. Chaudhuri's book (1983) "wherein the illegal abortions was estimated to be 4-6 million a year ('78-'79) or 15-20 times that of legal abortions". He concluded, "It appears as though prior to the law there were few illegal abortionists somewhere, but now there are illegal abortionists everywhere. They presume that the Law permits everybody to do abortions", and now to a great extent "infanticides"!.
Previously few doctors would attempt mid or late abortions. Now that it was legalised, it could be done, resulting in one of the worlds highest maternal mortality rates, and used in 50-74 percent of cases in unmarried girls.
There can be no doubt that abortion has degraded the hitherto sacred and secret act of conception to a low level and men now say, "Why are you worried just go get an abortion? I'll pay for it if you want":
STERILISE THE YOUNG MOTHERS!
The genderisation of family planning responsibilities can be gauged from the fact that while in the sixties, 11 percent of sterilisations were tubectomies, in 1993. 96 percent of sterilisation were in women. Since repeated abortions cause complications and death, many doctors insist on sterilising (even young girls) after the second abortion especially in government hospitals!
Since 1951, India has spent more than Rs. 60 billion or 2 million $US in Family Planning mostly on abortion, sterilisation and the resulting complications.
It is claimed by UNFPA and IPPF that unwanted pregnancies (which often result in a much loved child) and frequent pregnancies endanger a women's life. That is not true, because, in India and the Third World countries, women die first from infectious diseases; and it is malnutrition and anaemia that make them vulnerable and endanger their physical life, not to speak of mental and emotional condition. They do not die from pregnancy per se.
BEWARE WHO PEEPS INTO THE WOMB
Embryo evaluation by high tech measures ranging from amniocentesis by Ericsons machines CVB and local Indian methods have broken the thrill of the birth of a girl or boy baby. Steinfels believes that "these new procedures turn gender into a disease and invariably it is the female unborn child who is treated as a disease".
"Moreover these high tech fertility methods are fragmenting the process of child conception and bearing into discrete steps each of which is open to aggressive intervention". What is achieved is not the wholesome happiness of a woman or a family but the domination of women and her unique gifts by 'pharmacrats' (Gene Corea)
Although banned by the Government of India prenatal sex determination tests also contravene articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution. Moreover, India has been a signatory of the International Convention against discrimination of any child, even tests to determine genetic disorders and had recognised that a disabled child has the right to life! But these tests go on unabated "as an abuse of an advanced scientific technique" (V.Patel M.D). Shockingly however, when the tests were requested to detect defects in the aftermath of the infamous Bhopal Gas tragedy, they were refused!
BEAUTIFUL AND BROWN, BUT BORN TO BE A BLOSSOM IN THE DUST
Female foeticide is now built into our 6th and 7th Five year plans though people fail to realise this, because the government objective is to have a NRR (Net Reproductive Rate) of 1 (it is 1.5 already in India - '98-'99). This means a mother is replaced by one daughter. A study of the plan reveals that she can have more than one son because they advocate 2.3 children per couple. (1.04 to 1.06 boys - 1.00 -1.02 girls). For a family size of 2.30 the extra children allowed will have to be boys. This can only be attained by aborting the female foetus or if allowed to be born then killed" (Malini Karkal PhD 1989).
The desired number of children of each sex fall as the age of the women rises. But the desired number of daughters falls much more sharply with age, than the desired number of sons, and mothers by the age of 25-29 want virtually no daughters, even if they have no living daughter.
Ravindra reports that ,"in villages where one is unable to get pure drinking water, one can get an amniocentesis test." "Better 500 now then 5,000 later" coax the posters by the Bhandari Hospital in Amristar. The 500 indicates the price of a sex determination test and abortion, and 5,000 the price of her dowry if the girl is allowed to be born!
Pioneering this trade of amniocenteses, Harkisandas Hospital (Mumbai) doctor said "the parents have a right to 'Quality' in limiting their family to two". The word quality here means 'male' child and sycophants of population control advocate this test to achieve the net reproduction rate [of 1].
"There is no doubt that," as Supreme Court woman lawyer Hingorani states "the twin pressures of the Government family planning policy and the Dowry are responsible for the girl child murders today".
In one Bombay Centre out of 8,000 abortions 7,999 were female foetuses. If anyone has moral objections to the elimination of female foetuses, or the laws clamps down effectively, scientists in India and abroad are already finding ways of bypassing them. Steve Taylor of the Fertilisation Institute, New Orleans, says he can "produce a boy baby by selecting male producing sperm for IVF". There is money in this. ("What is obtained by love is retained for all time, what is obtained by hatred proves a burden for it increases hatred"- Mahatma Gandhi)
One of the main reasons now emerging for women to treat abortion as their 'right' is, that they are being encouraged to reject their fertility as they want to be more like men who cannot be pregnant Women have been hijacked into believing that pregnancy is an ugly diseases
In India many of us women activists believe that the Western model of feminism deprives women of her most beautiful and powerful intrinsic qualities like Intuition and Empathy and while saying (also believing?) that we are as good as men or better gives it a 'sexist' slant that does no good for the authentic acceptance of a women who is truly strong in her feminism.
This anti-life feminist concept growing in the West, is invading our culture in the East in women who are ill prepared to overcome it, and our youth tend to treat sex as a recreation from which procreation is entirely removed.
In this atmosphere demoniacally driven population control programmes disguised in terms of "Safe Motherhood", "Reproductive Rights" and "Reproductive Health" are now adding "Adolescent Sexual Health" etc. Nehru once said: "If anyone can represent the spirit of India, it is not the men but the women of India". But where are the women? Disappearing? "Let us not keep our country with islands of excellence in seas of misery".
Widespread use of abortion and infanticide throughout the country make a mockery of the Alma Ata Declaration of "Health for all by 2000".
In the land of the three great saints - Buddha, Gandhi and Mother Teresa - saints of non-violence dedicated to Truth and Love we bow our heads and hearts in shame. We unite our voices with the newborn who says "My mouth is wide with laughter but you do not hear my cry. My feet are gay with dancing, but you do not know I die?"
HISTORICAL COUSINAGE BETWEEN ABORTION AND INFANTICIDE
"Raising our eyes from the abortirium with our hands still bloodied, we gaze into the nursery". E. Diamond.
If by some chance the female baby survives, the baby girl is silenced after birth. 42% of girl babies die within the first month and in their first year of life by being murdered. With approximately 18 million births a year, the figure of female infant deaths amounts to about 4 million.
Today's rapidly escalating medical assaults on defective or seriously afflicted newborn in the west --and also now in India for quality control, girls and unwanted children-- did not develop out of a vacuum.
Today Asian countries have been brainwashed to actually believe that a better quality of life is confined solely to physical excellence and the economic contribution that the individual can make chiefly to him/herself...
Moreover a commercial angle of this destruction is yielding rich dividends because the pressing need for abortion and euthanasia will not only yield a rich harvest of organs for sale, but work towards Population Control. This diabolic linking needs our active attention and rebellion.
REASONS FOR FEMALE INFANTICIDE
In India, during the pre-Independence period, women (biologically stronger than men) had lower death rates than men, at all ages up to 40 years. Now in the post Independence years, the death rate of women is higher from birth to the reproductive age.
The Western world became rich before it became old, the Third world is, becoming old before it can get rich, and the older women will be the next target for killing.
THE PATHOLOGY OF INFANTICIDE -TODAY'S WOMEN KILLING TOMORROW'S WOMEN
Female infanticide among the tiny Kallar Community has resulted in more than 6000 (low estimate) female babies being poisoned in the last decade. In many other communities like the Gounders, Thevars, etc., infanticide is also practiced.
There is also the superstition that "if you kill a daughter your next child will be a son".
"In our community, if a male child unfortunately dies for some reason we don't take gruel for a year for it is a great financial loss. And if we fail to kill a daughter, again, we skip a meal a day in sorrow, and thus also save money for her dowry."
The gruesome methods used vary. One method of killing a baby is by stuffing a few grains of coarse paddy into its mouth. The infant breathes the grain into its windpipe and chokes to death.
In some families the husband grows a nadar plant from the time his wife conceives so he can minister the poison if a daughter is born. Sucking her mother's poison-tipped nipples silences her gurgle forever!
In an "enlightened scientific" age when a kidney can be replaced and bone marrow transfusions done successfully for the babe in the cradle of the womb, it is a matter of deep regret that rich and educated couples kill the baby they have parented. As Malcolm Muggeridge said "while doctors have accomplished so much for the flesh, the spirit has been left undeveloped and poverty stricken". Everett Koop former US Surgeon General said 'When you cannot cure you do not kill, you care.
As Arthur Dyck says, "It is not only whether the suffering and dying are persons, but whether we are the kind of persons who will care for them without doubting their worth". We must be this kind of person.
EARLY CHILDHOOD
As the young girl child grows, she is seen by many as a curse, a symbol of bad luck not worth being educated or cared for. Sacrifices of girl children to appease superstitions, thus continuing a relentless pursuit from the womb to the womb continue in India, as also a belief in some rural areas that sexual intercourse with a girl virgin can cure STDs. Young girl child labour is rampant in demeaning and hard work, including quarrying stones, fireworks, house construction, not to talk of menial housemaid jobs where these girls work over 14 hours a day and are hardly fed and sexually abused.
Many others have to look after their young siblings, cook while the mother goes out to work and help the family in agriculture etc. Others are employed in the country tobacco trade resulting in chronic lung disease. Living in over crowded huts and fed with left overs they suffer from chronic anaemia with infections further aggravating their plight.
Growing girls have a very [low] physical-psychological threshold due to poor nutrition and emotional neglect. She grows apathetic and lethargic, making her a target for all forms of violence, ranging from incest, molestation, rape, bride-burning and torture, the incidence of which has increased by 63%.
Many wish they had died and yet they struggle. How marvellously resilient the human spirit is.
Friends let us be extravagant with our love (as Jesus was) for it is time to stop thinking and believing that we are right. The time has come for us here, to begin to act so that we will win.
Let me conclude with the words of our wonderful Shepherd, Pope John Paul II who says "I see the light of the year 2000 in your eyes. Be not afraid. The future belongs to those with ideals".
So let us all "Be not afraid" for we have the highest ideal of all, the ideal of Life and Love!
God bless you all!