QLD Katter Party Introduces Bill to Protect Babies Born Alive After Abortion

Samuel Hartwich - 25 March 2024

Last Thursday, Robbie Katter, from Katter’s Australian Party (KAP), introduced legislation into the Queensland parliament.

If passed, this legislation will enshrine the human right to life and medical care for all babies – even those born alive after an abortion.

“Shocked and Appalled”: Why the Bill is Needed

In a media release, Katter stated that “it is unconscionable that our state’s legislation is silent on how aborted babies born alive should be cared for.”

He went on to say, “I was shocked and appalled to hear that more than 30 babies are born alive after being aborted each year in Queensland”, the member for Traeger said.

“The former Health Minister, now Premier, in 2018 introduced legal abortion up to birth, and told Queenslanders that the number of abortions would not rise. That is a lie – they have doubled, from 152 in 2018 to 304 in 2021.”

“More abortions mean more children, human beings like you and I, are born alive.”

Katter’s bill, titled Termination of Pregnancy (Live Birth) Bill 2024, will amend The Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018. Stephen Miles – then Health Minister and now Premier – brought in the abortion up-to-birth legislation.

Live births after an abortion have steadily increased in Queensland. In 2005, there were eight. By 2017, that number had steadily increased to 35. And – these numbers were before abortion-to-birth came into law in 2018.

Not surprisingly, the year after the 2018 Act was enforced, the number of live births after abortion jumped to 48.

The Devastating Story of Baby Xanthe

Dr Joanna Howe, Professor of Law at the University of Adelaide and mother of five, addressed the press alongside Katter.

Howe referenced the incredibly tragic story of baby Xanthe, who was unexpectedly born alive at 19 weeks gestation. She was put on a metal kidney dish and left to die in a room on her own. She survived a further seven minutes.

“Without anyone to give her comfort care, Xanthe was abandoned by the Queensland medical system – the system that is meant to care for every patient – every human,” Howe said.

Katter responded, “My heart breaks hearing these horrifying stories of human lives, babies who were breathing the same air that you and I breathe, who were deprived of human rights and dignity.”

Howe thanked the KAP MP for his courage in introducing the bill into parliament. She said the bill will “protect the human rights of all Queenslanders from the moment of first breath. At the moment, these little babies fall through the cracks.”

“If they are born alive after an abortion, they do not have a legislative right to care.”