Many proponents of the NSW ‘Reproductive Rights’ Bill—which allows abortion up until birth—are defending the legislation by saying that late-term abortion is rare. But no one advocating for the practice refers to any statistics to back up the claim. And the reason why they probably don’t is that reality tells a different story.

For example, below is a table containing the available data from Victoria.

Peta Credlin, writing in The Daily Telegraph, has quoted figures saying that there are over 80,000 abortions performed in Australia annually. Just stop and think about that for a second. Eighty thousand pregnancies are terminated in this country alone. That’s getting close to the total number of Australians who were killed in WWI and WWII combined.

Every.

Single.

Year.

Now, when you compare that massive figure to the 323 late-term abortions performed in Victoria during 2017 I guess you could say that it’s rare, speaking statistically. But just think of it like this. Even before Victoria legalised abortion in 2008, there was at least one late term abortion being performed every business day. Does that still fit into your definition of ‘rare’?

Not only that, notice how many of those terminations were performed for merely ‘psychosocial’ reasons: 107 in 2015, 125 in 2016 and in 2017 it increased to 140.

What qualifies as a ‘psychosocial’ reason? Well, that’s a good question because it’s hopelessly ill-defined. Which means that in practice it can involve anything at all that causes the mother serious distress.

But the most significant aspect that should really invoke public outrage is how many of these children were born alive (i.e. neonatal death).

Because according to the records, from 2001 to 2017, this happened to six-hundred and forty-forty babies who were left to die.

And that means the legislation being put forward by Alex Greenwich—and facilitated by the Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her Deputy John Barilaro—also involves infanticide.

What sort of society have we become where we no longer offer medical assistance to those who are the most vulnerable? And why should NSW desperately imitate all of the other states under the ‘progressive’ banner? For as is already evident, late-term is neither humane or rare.

Mark Powell is the Associate Pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, Strathfield.

Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.