Response to the Victorian Abortion Law Reform Bill

I wrote this as a letter to last weekend's Age and Australian. I don't think it got in.

A friend of mine who is 32 weeks pregnant found out last week that she has gestational diabetes. So she is changing her whole diet to ensure that her baby's development won't be harmed. Another friend gave birth prematurely. Her baby girl was cared for in a neonatal ward until she was well enough to go home.

We live in a country where we value and strive for the life and health of babies like these, but at the same time we are happy to allow the destruction of other unborn babies of the same age. We are repeating what we did to the Aboriginal people, declaring them not-people and seeing that as licence to destroy them. This should not be.