The Australian Federation of Right to Life Associations commissioned an opinion poll on the issue of abortion. Stage 1 was conducted in April/May 2005. Stage 2 was conducted in August/September 2005.

Therefore, they were in a position to publish their results earlier but chose to drop their "bombshell" today (5/2/06) just before the RU486 vote in order to allow no time for other people to analyse their results.

Their media release has picked the questions where the answers suited them and ignored the questions where the answers went against them. Some of the explanations given to the people who were polled were loaded and/or untrue:

e.g. "It has been said that abortion is the only elective surgery Medicare covers."

e.g. "Partial birth abortion is a method of late-term abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy which was recently banned in the United States."

Some of the questions were loaded and some were answered in a contrary fashion to the media release, for example:

Q2. "Do you believe that by 20 weeks of pregnancy, the earliest point at which survival outside the womb is possible, that an unborn child is a human person with human rights?"

Q4 "Do you support abortion for any reason whatsoever that is abortion on demand?"

Yes 59.8% No 31.9%

Q12 ....Do you believe that partial birth abortion should be banned in Australia?

Q10 Do you support Medicare funding for abortions for any reason whatsoever, that is, abortion on demand?

Yes 53.6% No 37.8%

Despite the above answers (Q4 and Q10) supporting abortion on demand and Medicare funding for abortion on demand, their dishonest media release claimed that:

"The majority of Australians are opposed to abortion performed for non-medical reasons" and selectively released the findings that "51 per cent of those surveyed were against a woman choosing an abortion for social or financial reasons while 53 per cent opposed Medicare funding abortion in these circumstances".

John Goldbaum
Vice President, Secular Party of Australia