The University of Sydney has published a map of “abortion deserts” in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), and three writers/editors at The Guardian are complaining that abortion is not as easy to access as it thinks it should be. To fix this alleged problem, it is calling on the government to force all public hospitals in the state to commit abortions — for free.
According to the research, there are only three public hospitals out of 220 in NSW that routinely commit abortions, either through the abortion pill or surgical abortion. If a woman lives more than 160km (100 miles) from an abortion-committing hospital, researchers consider her to live in an “abortion desert.” Yet, it also notes that there are 13 private abortionists in the state.
That’s apparently not easy enough access to abortion for these writers at The Guardian, who present induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of a preborn human being — as “basic healthcare that is legal in NSW.” The article notes that the World Health Organization recommends all public hospitals willingly kill babies in the womb, and calls on all public hospitals and their doctors to commit abortions.
In an effort to see if other public hospitals in NSW do actually commit abortions quietly, The Guardian reached out to all local health districts, but none responded.
In NSW, induced abortion is legal through 22 weeks gestation, and after 22 weeks as long as two doctors approve it and it is carried out in an approved hospital setting.
Guardian Complaint #1: Abortion is too expensive
The Guardian offers a list of concerns it has surrounding abortion in NSW; first, that it is too expensive.
With a Medicare card (which Australian citizens have under the nation’s universal health care), it says, an abortion will cost $775 ($500 US). But, if a woman lives in a so-called “abortion desert,” that cost will rise because she will need to pay for transportation to the abortion facility which is a “minimum round trip of four hours by car.” She would likely also need to pay for an overnight stay.
“This assumes a person is able to travel, take time off from work or carer responsibilities, and in some cases, have someone come with them to support them through the process (including driving back if it is a surgical abortion),” said The Guardian.
“Abortion deserts” would all but disappear, according to The Guardian, “if all public hospitals provided free and public abortion services.”
It seems to forget that induced abortion — actively killing living human beings in the womb — is not a medically necessary procedure. If it is a “woman’s choice” as abortion proponents claim, then it is a “choice,” not a medical necessity that the government must pay for.
What The Guardian failed to mention is that in its 2023-2024 budget, the NSW government allocated $3.5 million over four years to expand access to abortion, and in 2023, $34.3 million was given to 20 Women’s Health Centers — including MSI Australia, which commits abortions in NSW. (MSI was formerly known as Marie Stopes International, a well-known global abortion profiteer.)
Guardian Complaint #2: Abortion is not treated as health care
The Guardian calls abortion “basic healthcare,” and the outlet, along with other abortion proponents, wants the world to believe that abortion is health care. What they don’t want is for abortion to actually be treated like health care.
WARNING: Image of abortion victim below.
Anytime a person has a procedure or surgery, it is expected that they will take time off from work and perhaps travel a short distance, bringing someone with them to assist them in driving. These are not big asks. They are expected and understood parts of receiving medical care.
The Guardian writes about a woman named Anne (name changed) and her partner, who had brought children from other relationships into their relationship and did not want to have a child together. Then, Anne learned her birth control had failed and that she was pregnant — and in the second trimester. More than half (51%) of the women who seek abortion reported using birth control during the same month they got pregnant — like Anne — according to a study published by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, along with a study by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.
Anne was so far along in the pregnancy that no doctor in her area would approve or commit an abortion. So she and her partner, of their own free will, traveled “hundreds of kilometers to Sydney, each taking three days of leave from work.” It cost them several thousand dollars for a surgical abortion plus accommodation costs — with no medical reason to do so.
In the second trimester, the most common abortion procedure used is the D&E dismemberment abortion procedure. If this was the “surgical termination” that Anne indeed had, her baby was killed and dismembered simply because he or she was seen as inconvenient. This is the aftermath of a D&E abortion; this is not health care:
Baby Angel was found in a medical waste bin. Experts believe he was possibly exsanguinated and dismembered alive.
The Guardian complains that not enough doctors are willing to do that to preborn human beings.
It argues that “abortion deserts” exist because of health care policies that allow medical workers to opt out of taking part in abortion —mand that those conscience protections should be eliminated.
The NSW abortion law states, “Medical practitioners who have a conscientious objection to abortion must provide information about how to contact or locate a medical practitioner who is reasonably believed not to have a conscientious objection or transfer care to another registered health practitioner or to a health service provider at which the termination can be performed.”
The Guardian argued, “Abortion deserts can shrink if healthcare policies change and healthcare worker willingness to provide abortion care increases.”
According to a 2019 study published by Obstetrics & Gynecology and authored by Daniel Grossman, less than one in four OB-GYNs committed an abortion in the previous year, despite the majority encountering patients requesting one. A 2011 study found that only 14% of practicing OB-GYNs committed abortions at that time, and much more recent studies have shown that 85% of OB/GYNs do not commit abortions. A 2017 Guttmacher Institute release revealed that “[o]nly 7% of U.S. obstetrician-gynecologists who work in private practice settings provided abortions in 2013 or 2014.” Over a third — 35% — refused to even refer patients for abortions.
Since so many medical professionals don’t want to commit abortion and aren’t currently forced to, there are large areas in which no public hospital commits abortion, and that’s a problem for abortion proponents, both in the U.S. and abroad.
To allow for “free” abortions at all public hospitals would be to force medical professionals to actively kill what they know to be living, innocent human beings — potentially pushing quality doctors out of the field of medicine.
The truth
This begs the question, which The Guardian failed to ask, never mind answer: Why are so many doctors in NSW unwilling to commit abortion if it is health care like abortion advocates claim?
Perhaps because, at a very basic level, they know that the intentional killing of a defenseless human being is not health care, and there is no medical reasoning that justifies such an act. In an emergency in which the pregnancy must end because the mother’s life is in danger, her child does not need to be actively killed prior to delivery.
As the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) explained (emphasis added):
There are times when separating the mother and her unborn child is necessary to save the life of the mother, even if the unborn child is too premature to live. In those tragic cases, if possible the life of the baby will be attempted to be preserved, and if not possible, the body of the unborn child is treated with respect, recognizing the humanity of the life which is lost in the separation. In contrast, the purpose of an induced abortion is to produce a dead baby.
Quite simply, many doctors don’t want to commit abortions because it is not health care. Since it’s a “choice” and that “choice” involves killing an innocent human, abortion has no business being forced on doctors or handed out for “free.”
