Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Hansard source

Nobody is more vulnerable than a newborn baby yet, in a nation that prides itself on championing a fair go for all, not all newborns are equal. An infant who survives an abortion is a genuine miracle. But instead of being nurtured, doctors and nurses in many states are not required to render care. How inhumane is that? On the lawns of parliament today, there was a powerful display of baby booties that have been lovingly knitted and placed in honour of the thousands of Australian babies born alive after an abortion but left to die. Yes, that does happen. Babies survive their own abortions and are left to die in Australia.

I visited the display to talk with supporters and was obviously moved by the sea of booties. It was sobering to think about the babies that they represented. Between 2010 and 2020, 4,929 babies were killed—killed—through late-term abortion in Victoria and Queensland, and some of them were even killed at full term. In Queensland alone, 132 babies survived their own abortions over the last three years but were left to die without any legal right to care because Queensland guidelines explicitly say 'do not give life-sustaining treatment'.

These babies are Australians that we will never meet, who will never get to contribute, who were brutally killed in utero because we said they have no human rights. I hope and I pray that the born alive bill, which I co-sponsored with senators Canavan and Antic, will return to the chamber sometime soon, and I urge my fellow senators to support its passage—one can only hope. Let's make Australia a country where every child is given a fair go and let's make Australia a country where we are not okay as a culture with killing our babies. A culture that is okay with this is a culture that is destined to fail; it is a culture on the precipice of coming to an end.