It’s been said, the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. In our society today, none are more vulnerable than a newborn babe — and yet under the guise of “healthcare” and “human rights,” none legally suffer worse treatment.

A senate hearing in Canberra was told that within the span of a decade, between 2010 and 2020, more than 700 babies were left to die after botched abortion attempts in Victoria and Queensland alone.

Sky News host James Macpherson said the revelation should be a “national scandal.”

Currently, there exists no obligation for abortion providers to offer any assistance to a baby who survives a failed abortion attempt. Infants born alive are left to die, with their time of death eventually documented when they stop grasping for life.

Senator Alex Antic, Senator Matt Canavan, and Senator Ralph Babet put forward the Children Born Alive Protection Bill in November last year requiring abortionists to provide medical care for all babies born alive.

Senator Canavan suggested Australia is in violation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, of which it is a signatory.

Article 6 states, “every child has the inherent right to life,” while Article 24 says governments must “ensure the provision of necessary medical assistance and health care to call children.”

Senator Antic said, “A child that survives an attempted termination of pregnancy should be entitled to the same level of medical care and treatment as any newborn child.”

Former Federal MP George Christensen attempted to introduce a similar bill to Queensland in 2021 that would ensure children born alive during botched abortions would receive the same life-sustaining medical treatment afforded to any other baby.

Christensen sounded the alarm in February 2021, warning Parliament that hundreds of babies are being born alive and left to die as a result of abortions.

“I have recently watched the testimony of a midwife who was present at the birth of a baby after an abortion,” Christensen told his colleagues. “She was told to take a photograph for hospital records and when the flash went off the child started breathing.”

Christensen said no medical intervention was provided and the baby was left to die.

“This happens in hospitals and abortion clinics across the country on more of a regular basis than we would like to think, and what the abortionists would like to admit,” he added.

Christensen had the Parliamentary Library undertake further research on the matter, and found:

• According to the publication Victoria’s Mothers, Babies and Children, there were a total of 1,626 late-term (20 weeks or later) abortions in Victoria, resulting in 198 live births between 2012 and 2016 (approximately 12%).
• In Queensland, an ABC report stated there were 204 terminations with live birth outcomes between 2005 and 2015.
• In Western Australia, as of 19 May 2017, a total of 27 cases of abortion procedures resulting in a live birth have been reported between July 1999 and December 2016. Of these, 21 were at 20 weeks gestation or later.

Christensen said his statistics do not paint the full picture as the matter is under-reported. Tasmania, the Northern Territory, New South Wales, and the ACT do not publish abortion statistics.

“What is very clear is that this is not rare, as abortionists have claimed,” he said. Adding, “We are in  breach of some of our international obligations.”

On 9 February 2023, the Senate referred the Human Rights (Children Born Alive Protection) Bill 2022 to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 1 July 2023. On 16 June 2023, the Senate granted an extension of time for reporting until Thursday, 31 August 2023.

As Lincoln Brown recently put it in The Spectator: “Our elected officials will soon vote on a question that everyone knows does not require a vote – the question of whether an innocent and helpless, though unwanted, baby must be saved, or whether it may be discarded in the name of ‘wellbeing.’”

We cannot understate the importance of the outcome. The vote will reveal whether our elected officials regard human life as an immutable right bestowed by our Creator or a privilege that is granted and revoked at the arbitrary will of those in power.