Anti-abortion group slams ABC decision

Sydney Sun Herald ^ | 8/8/04 | Rachel Browne

[wagglebee]

The ABC is ill-prepared for the consequences of broadcasting graphic images of aborted foetuses, a leading anti-choice lobby group has warned.

After the controversial documentary My Foetus airs on the ABC's Compass program tonight, viewers will be directed to the show's website.

The ABC has put on extra staff tonight to field phone calls.

But that is not good enough, said anti-abortion lobby group Right To Life Australia.

"The ABC is not providing a number for any 24-hour pregnancy counselling," Right To Life Australia president Margaret Tighe said. The Compass website will provide contact numbers for Lifeline, Kids Help Line, Family Planning Australia, the Australian Federation of Pregnancy Support Services and pro-choice groups Marie Stopes International and Children By Choice as well as Right To Life Australia.

Mrs Tighe, however, said the ABC had refused to provide a contact number for its 24-hour counselling service.

"The only 24-hour services they are going to list would be all too willing to refer [pregnant women] for an abortion," she said.

The co-ordinator of Right To Life Australia's 24-hour counselling service, Sheila Wells, said most people did not have a home computer and would not have access to the Compass website.

"I offered to give them our number and the lady at Compass told me there were already seven numbers going on the internet," she said.

When Julia Black's film screened in the UK, Channel 4 broadcast a warning at the outset and offered viewers a helpline to call if they felt traumatised.

Mrs Wells expected to receive an increase in calls to Right To Life Australia's counselling service, which already fields about 11,000 calls a year.

The film shows the abortion of a four-week-old foetus as well as footage of the dismembered remains of foetuses from the ages of 12 to 21 weeks.

"Women who have had an abortion will find this documentary confronting," Mrs Wells said.

Cait Calcutt, the co-ordinator of lobby group Children By Choice, rejected the idea that all women who have had an abortion are traumatised by it.

"Ninety-eight per cent of women who have a termination of a pregnancy are able to make the decision and move on positively with their lives," she said.

Ms Calcutt said a number of the 24-hour pregnancy counselling services listed in the White Pages were run by anti-choice groups.

"That is not helpful for a woman who is trying to make an informed decision," she said.

Compass will hold a two-hour online forum to discuss My Foetus at 5pm tomorrow.

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"The only 24-hour services they are going to list would be all too willing to refer [pregnant women] for an abortion," she said.

This is sick when the dominant Australian TV network will only provide counseling to have an abortion, but nothing about alternatives.

[tjwmason]

a leading anti-choice lobby group

We see immediately where the writer's sympathies lie, but the point made is well-made. When a broadcaster makes a decision to show something, then it must also prepare for the response.

I would strongly recommend (having seen the British screening) that Australians watch the programme it does contain shocking images, but they are a daily reality with which pro-lifers (and indeed pro-abortionites) should be acquainted.

[grellis]

"Ninety-eight per cent of women who have a termination of a pregnancy are able to make the decision and move on positively with their lives," she said.

I just love these stats pulled out of thin air.

I have yet to meet one single woman who is able to assert, "Yes, I had an abortion. What a positive decision that was."

[wagglebee]

Even if their undocumented "statistics" are true, it means that 2% of women's lives are negatively affected, and that would be more than 20,000 women a year in the US alone. Yet these same leftists who brush of the physical, psychological and spiritual effects of abortion will go to court to stop a lake from being used to fight forest fires in an effort to save a few trout.