Letter to MPs re TellTheTruth

This is it. It is the penultimate draft as some of the language needs cleaning up. If any one wants to use any of it in an official letter of complaint against these letterbox bandits, please do. The information below is correct to the best of my knowledge. Of course, all care taken, no responsibility etc etc..

My name is Emervents, I am a mother of two and an honours student. My qualifications include a double degree with majors in biochemistry, chemistry, philosophy (including bioethics) and logic and I am completing an honours thesis in applied ethics - the topic is Foetal Pain. This letter addresses the graphic anti-abortion drivel that slid into my letterbox this weekend.

According to reports on the website given in the leaflet, this mail-out was opened by children and the elderly - people who are normally protected from exposure to such vulgar explicit material. I shudder to think how this coloured slip of lies was received by someone who has miscarried or otherwise lost a baby. Goodness knows how it was received by a woman who had just made the difficult decision to stop a pregnancy. An abject apology is in order, also a further mail out correcting the calculated lies and unsubstantiated generalisations. In the best of possible worlds they will be arrested for delivery of unsolicited obscene material.

It is my son’s job to collect the mail and deliver it to our desks; occasionally he likes to open mail addressed “To the Householder”. It was just luck that I noticed something in our letterbox on a Saturday and investigated, thus avoiding a conversation with my ten year old son that I had planned to leave until he was older. I do not underestimate the potential distress caused if he had opened it, or if my husband, who goes out of his way to avoid this kind of material, had opened it. The warning was woefully inadequate, I can only assume that this was intended.

Our letterbox is labelled “Australia Post Only” so the leaflet distributors blatantly disregarded our wishes not to receive unsolicited material. Is there any action we can take against these people? I do not object to them airing their views. I do, however, object to their methods. As I have detailed below, a great deal of the information in the flyer was false and emotive. It must be against the law to distribute such material, especially against the wishes of the occupants of the house. PLEASE tell me it is against the law! I will be calling your offices three days after I send this letter in order to ascertain whether there is anything more that can be done to prevent this happening again.

The above comprised my complaint, below I detail the inaccuracies and blatant untruths in the flyer.

The knowledge that some people will have believed the contents of this pamphlet provided the motivation to write this correction. The pamphlet makes a mockery of the idea that a woman should be well informed when making the decision whether or not to abort. How can this situation be rectified? What can one person do?

I hope you find it useful. Though my thesis is on foetal pain, I needed to refer to some texts to help me with some of the developmental information:

An atlas of human prenatal developmental mechanics : anatomy and staging, by Jan E. Jirásek, London : Taylor & Francis, c2004

The developing human : clinically oriented embryology, by Keith L. Moore, T.V.N. Persaud. 7th ed, Philadelphia, Saunders, c2003.

The Pictures

When I refer to the age of a foetus I mean biological age. This is different from gestational age, which is calculated using the date of the woman’s last period.

The “8 week old fetus” pictured could not possibly be 8 weeks. At 8 weeks the eyelids have fused or are beginning to, the foetus pictured is not even close to eyelid fusion - it is an embryo, and more likely to be six weeks biological age. The hands on the arms of the 11 week old foetus are too developed for 11 weeks, it is more likely to be at least 13 weeks. Later gestational age is more difficult to discern so the caption could be accurate for the foetus described as 24 weeks. However, the texts I have consulted indicate that at this stage the foetus has saggy wrinkled skin in preparation for the laying down of fat under the skin. Since the skin is taught, the eyelids still look fused, the foetus is well proportioned and eyebrows and head hair are evident, my guess (and I’m a terrifically good guesser) is that it is closer to 21 weeks biological age.

The pictures are also not obviously the result of an optional abortion. A curette after miscarriage gives the same result. Also, the 24 week old foetus is intact and does not have the black skin associated with potassium chloride poisoning. It could have been the result of a premature stillbirth, we cannot know, as the author lacks credibility.

Not only is foetus spelled incorrectly for an Australian context, the author is confused about the age of the foetuses pictured. He very clearly did not do his homework, which is the least one could expect from a leaflet purporting to contain facts.

The Facts - “Did you know?”

In this section I will give a quote from the pamphlet in italics followed by a comment.

“Every week in Victoria enough children to fill a primary school are aborted.”

This is a nice use of visual analogy, however, it is extremely vague as a primary school can contain from 20 to 600 students (to the best of my knowledge). The idea is to plant a picture of a school full of dead children in your mind. This sentence is more emotive than factual.

“Your taxes pay for the abortions.”

This cannot be entirely true for the state of Victoria. The people I know who have had abortions have paid for them from their own pockets. Also, The Age article on late term abortions (quoted below) states that patients paid for their terminations.

“Unborn babies have all their organs and body features present by eight weeks.”

As I’m doing a thesis on foetal pain I knew immediately that this is patently untrue. For example, skin keratinisation (where the skin becomes more like skin on a full term baby) does not begin until week 16, thalamocortical structures in the brain (important connections for pain perception) are not laid down until 26 weeks, 22 at the very earliest. Scalp hair patterning begins at 16 weeks, bone formation (calcification of bones) begins at week 14. Limbs do not reach their final relative proportions until week 17. The uterus in females is not complete until week 18… I could go on, but I think I have made my point. This sentence is, again, incorrect and emotive. The idea is to paint a picture of a miniature fully formed baby at 11 weeks. If it were truly equivalent to a baby, we could put it in a pram and walk it around the block.

“At 11 weeks you were able to swallow, digest, urinate, sleep, dream and taste.”

Was I able to indeed? Swallowing, digesting and urinating is something that can be, and has been, observed. Rapid Eye Movement associated with dreaming is not observed until 21 weeks. It is pure conjecture to claim that the 11 week old foetus sleeps, dreams and tastes - yet this leaflet states it as fact. Again we are asked to picture a fully formed baby capable of human acts such as tasting and dreaming, only this time it is personal. The reference to the reader (“…you were able to…”) is an attempt to instil the irrational fear of being aborted in the reader’s mind: “What if I’d been aborted? I’d be dead!”

“For every 5 babies born 2 are aborted.”

I have not been able to confirm this number from any reliable source. Certainly not from the website.

“There are more than 100,000 abortions every year - between 20,000 and 30,000 in Victoria.”

That is quite vague isn’t it? It is also, as far as I have been able to tell, erroneous. For figures that are a tad more accurate, including a description of how difficult accurate figures are to come by, see this parliamentary research brief, “How many abortions are there in Australia? A discussion of abortion statistics, their limitations, and options for improved statistical collection.” at http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/RB/2004-05/05rb09.pdf

“Most abortions are performed between 7 and 12 weeks gestation.”

This, at least, is relatively true according to the South Australian data in the report referred to above, which says that 98% occur before 14 weeks.

“By between 7 and 12 weeks gestation the heart has been beating for weeks, all organs and body features are present, fingerprints are evident and taste buds and teeth are beginning to form. The baby has a skeletal structure, nerves and circulation.”

The heart has been beating since week four and circulation is present but again, not all organs are present. The skeletal structure is yet to ossify (or become hard bones), the foetus might have nerves but the central nervous system has barely begun to resemble that of a full term baby. The 12 week old foetus does not have fingernails, hair, certain reproductive organs, skin as we know it…. But I’ve been there already, haven’t I?

“Late term abortions (after 20 weeks gestation) are increasingly performed.”

This is not true according to a report in The Age on 31/1/2007 “After rising dramatically over several years, the number of women having late abortions has fallen in Victoria for the first time since the state began collecting data on the contentious procedure. New figures show that in 2005 there were 309 late abortions (after 20 weeks' pregnancy) in Victoria, compared with 327 in 2004. The number of women having the procedure for psychological reasons, where there is no genetic abnormality, also fell for the first time - from 197 to 180. More than half those women came from interstate or overseas. It is the first time numbers have fallen since the state began reporting the data in 2000.” Not only that, these abortions cost the women $2500 each, the tax payer was nowhere in sight.

“There are many psychological and physical risks for women who have had abortions.”

Generalised, vague and therefore frightening. No references.

“-From women we have counselled after an abortion.”

Who’s WE? People are referred to the telephone directory, not a counselling service.

“Women have reported to us they have suffered these problems after abortion: Infertility, subsequent miscarriage, very premature birth, ectopic pregnancy, suicidal urges and thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares about babies, sleep disorders, psychotic episodes, deep depression, rage, despair, guilt, shame, severe grief, eating disorders, relationship break-ups, anger with and/or over protection of their children, drug and alcohol abuse, serial relationships with violent and abusive men, inability to form relationships, increased risk of breast cancer and years of suppression and denial before post abortion stress symptoms break through.”

Where does one start with this quote? All of them except the last one are possible without an abortion in the equation. Drug and alcohol abuse and violent relationships are not caused by abortions. However, they can be a context in which abortions occur. For an Australian study on this, see “Termination of pregnancy: associations with partner violence and other factors in a national cohort of young Australian women.” Angela J Taft, Lyndsey F Watson. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. Canberra:Apr 2007. Vol. 31, Iss. 2, p. 135-142. The Age reported on it in April last year (7/4/2007).

All of the claims in that quote are unsubstantiated, and by the look of them, were cut and pasted from a list of “risks” from a prolife website. Who would call a counselling service after an abortion complaining of their increased risk of breast cancer? Depression and regret, I can completely understand, but “increased risk”? That part of the quote would have made me laugh if the issue in question were not so serious. I imagined a distraught woman weeping to a counsellor, “…and now I have an increased risk of breast cancer!!” She could only think that if she had been misinformed. The best place to be misinformed about a breast cancer link to abortion? Prolife websites. Prolifers propagate that particular porky pie to terrify women who are interested in making informed decisions. If a boffin at Oxford University examined the evidence and can’t find a link between abortions and breast cancer that’ll do me: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2004/03/26/1074846.htm

But if that’s not good enough for you, try the World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs240/en/

“These reports are consistent with research which is posted on our website www.tellthetruth.org.au”

I have been there, and no, they are not. There is NO research posted on that website. The closest thing there is to research is a link to www.afterabortion.org, which does contain links to research, though not much of it in the last twenty years. Www.afterabortion.org is also affiliated with the Elliot Institute; reading their site for twenty odd minutes was enough to detect the religious prolife premise.

(Beside picture of apparently 24 week old foetus - note they use the American spelling, fetus) “Unenforced abortion laws have allowed this.”

Actually the 309 late abortions in 2005 were perfectly legal. Of the 309 legal abortions that occurred 180 of those were NOT for foetal abnormality. Lets assume (probably erroneously) that NONE of those 180 women had genuine health reasons for aborting so late and use the lower figure of 20,000 abortions in Victoria that he’s given us. That’s 0.9% of abortions that were even remotely like the one pictured. Using the larger figure of 30,000 abortions a year the percentage goes down to 0.6%! The emotive tone and graphic pictures on the pamphlet would have you think that late term abortions are common, or even, heaven forbid, encouraged by a lax legal system.

Maybe I’m being unnecessarily picky, but I believe if a group is going to distribute such a pamphlet then they should at the very least have their facts straight. As it stands, their facts were either quite firmly crooked or entirely without substance due to a dire lack of creditable references.

I know that this was long and unnecessarily detailed, but if just one person was going to believe that pamphlet and changes their mind after reading this, it will have been worth writing it.

Finally, a word to Ron and his ilk: Did you notice that I used words to make my point?