SA anti-abortion activist posts image of aborted foetus she claims taken at Townsville hospital | Health
A Townsville hospital is investigating an alleged privacy breach after anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe said a “whistleblower” sent her an image containing disturbing and sensitive abortion content.
Howe posted a video on social media featuring a photo of a 16-week-old fetus that she said was shot in the hospital’s Butterfly Room, a space for grieving parents, and said “Samuel” was “born alive” after an abortion.
No evidence was provided to support this claim and Howe has been contacted for comment. Multiple health experts have previously said that anti-abortion activists’ claims that many post-abortion babies are “born alive” are misleading; This includes evidence from state and federal parliamentary inquiries.
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Howe said a hospital worker in Queensland sent him the image.
Instagram prevented the image from appearing automatically, warning that some people might find it disturbing.
In the second video, Howe posted specific medical information about a range of birth outcomes, including date and time, gender, birth weight, abortion drugs used, and injuries sustained to the mother, taken from hospital records. It blurred the patients’ names, but the visible information was enough for them to identify themselves.
She named both “Amira” and “Mira” after one of those born. The origin of the names was unclear.
“Another Queensland whistleblower took this photo of the book in a Queensland hospital where births were recorded,” he wrote.
President of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Dr. Nisha Khot said it was “deplorable” to release such material to the public when a family is going through something so heartbreaking.
“This is just preying on vulnerable people. This is such a vulnerable time for them and their families, they’re going through a heartbreaking time,” he said.
Townsville hospital and health service chief executive Kieran Keyes said the service was aware of the social media posts and the serious breach of privacy and was investigating.
“We take the privacy of our patients and staff seriously.”
“The world needs to see baby Samuel’s face and hear Amira’s story. When we choose to care for the victims of genocide, violence continues,” Howe told Guardian Australia.
Howe, a professor of immigration law at the University of Adelaide, has previously been accused of spreading misinformation about abortion.
He was banned from entering the South Australian parliament for alleged “insults, threats and intimidation tactics” during a debate on an abortion bill.
He worked with state and federal politicians to draft bills aimed at repealing abortion rights.
Pro-choice lawmakers say they have been subjected to death threats and vile abuse from third parties after their anti-abortion campaign. Howe labeled some of them on social media as part of the “Baby Killers Club.”
Khot said no woman has an abortion “without a lot of thought and a lot of heartache.”
“What’s happening in the United States is affecting the way we have these discussions, and it’s getting worse because there’s so much misinformation,” he said.
In a third video, Howe responded to a social media follower who said the video of the fetus should be censored, that it was disturbing and upsetting, and that some people might want a trigger warning.
Howe said the information came from a “whistleblower” who exposed the “genocide” and that “the world needed to see baby Samuel’s face.”
“I know this is hard, I know some of you have had miscarriages or stillbirths and I feel sorry for you, but the system and the monsters who are killing these babies don’t want you to see this photo and I need everyone to see it,” she said.
