Anger
over Australia abortion remarks
Aljazeera ^ | 14 February 2006 | Aljazeera
Posted on 02/14/2006
2:03:40 AM PST
Lawmakers on both sides of the
political spectrum have reacted angrily to comments by a colleague suggesting that Australians
were aborting themselves "out of existence" and that the country was
at risk of becoming a Muslim state.
Danna Vale, a lawmaker from the ruling centre-right
Liberal Party, told reporters on Monday she worried that immigrants from Muslim
countries could eventually outnumber native-born Australians if the current
rate of abortions continued. ( (Coupled with white Australians low birth rates – while Muslim
birth rates in Austrailia and all the
other western nations that they
have begun colonizing are skyrocketing, and why should it not be all the with free
hospitalization and all the medical care, and all the free food stamps to feed
all their poor children and families – these Muslim women are all doing their
religious duty of bing baby factories. Danna Vale is absolutely correct, and she
is voicing what all the other PC leaders are afraid to say publicly for fear or
a backlash from Muslims and their Quisling liberal tea drinking buddies.)
Her comments came as members of
the House of Representatives prepared to debate whether to strip regulatory
control of an abortion drug, mifepristone - also known as RU-486 - away from
Tony Abbott, the Health Minister, and hand it to the country's main drug
regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
The TGA has control over all
other drugs in Australia, but a 1996 law shifted regulatory authority over
RU-486 to the health minister. Last week, the Senate voted 45-28 to hand
control of the drug back to the TGA, a move expected to pave the way for the
drug to be cleared for use in Australia.
Explaining her
opposition to the bill, Vale said: "A certain imam ... actually said that
Australia's going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years' time."
"A certain
imam ... actually said that Australia's going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years
time. I didn't believe him at the time, but when you actually look at the birth
rates and when you look at the fact that we are aborting ourselves almost out
of existence by 100,000 abortions every year ... that's five million potential
Australians we won't have here (in the next 50 years)," Vale said.
An outspoken supporter of the
bill and fellow Liberal Party member, Amanda Vanstone, the Immigration Minister
said Vale's suggestion that people from Muslim countries might eventually
outnumber native-born Australians was "completely ill-founded."
Vanstone said: "That's just
a complete misunderstanding of how our migration programme works and where our
source countries are. I just don't know where this idea has come from. It's
just not possible."
She said most
immigrants come to Australia from England, New Zealand, China, India, South
Africa and the Philippines.
One of the bill's co-sponsors,
Sen. Lyn Allison - who last week told the Senate of her own personal experience
with having an abortion - slammed Vale's remarks as "outrageous."
Allison said: "They're very
unfortunate from almost every point of view. I think the prime minister should
come out and say that was ill-considered and that she ought to apologize."
Members of the opposition
Labour Party have also called on Vale to retract her comments, labeling them bizarre.
Kevin Rudd, the Labor Party's
spokesman for foreign affairs on Tuesday said: "Everyone's entitled to
their point of view but that's seriously a weird one."