On 17 September 2008, Senator Guy Barnett (Liberal, Tas) will move a disallowance motion in the Senate seeking to tip the balance of power in favour of voiceless unborn children. The motion aims to terminate Medicare funding for abortions performed in the second trimester of pregnancy – 14 to 26 weeks gestation.

Partial birth abortion is a brutal method used to terminate pregnancies during the second trimester of pregnancy. Although banned in the United States, this horrific method of abortion may attract a Medicare benefit.

Other forms of second trimester and late term abortion can result in the birth of a living child, who is then left to die. Forty-seven out of 309 (15%) post-20 week abortions performed in Victoria in 2005 resulted in the delivery a live born child, who was then tragically left to die. (1)

The same set of figures shows that 108 babies between 23 and 27 weeks gestation were aborted in that state alone in 2005 for ‘maternal psychosocial’ reasons. There is ample evidence that babies born at this stage of pregnancy can not only survive, but also lead happy, healthy and whole lives.

At the same time, medical advances have meant that foetuses as young as 20 weeks may be operated on in utero. Medical evidence also suggests that a foetus feels pain halfway through a full-term pregnancy. (2)

As we can save healthy pre-term babies in the second trimester, and perform surgery on foetuses in utero at the same stage of development, it is morally abhorrent that our compulsory Medicare levy funds the killing of human life.

Australians don’t like Medicare paying for late abortions. In 2005 a national survey showed that 67 per cent of people opposed Medicare funding of abortions in the second trimester. (3)

Senator Barnett is to be congratulated for moving this motion. Please use this facility to ask your Senators to help stop your Medicare levy being used for late abortions.



(1) The Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity’s Annual Report for the Year 2005, incorporating the 44th Survey of Perinatal Deaths in Victoria

(2) Testified by Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand, a neonatal paediatrician in Karhart v Ashcroft, District Court of Nebraska

(3) National Opinion Poll on Abortion in Australia, Market Facts (Qld), November 2005