By XAVIER SMERDON
A WESTERN Suburbs politician has made international headlines after sharing his controversial views on abortion.
Liberal Upper House Member for the Western Metropolitan Region, Bernie Finn, told Star last week that there was no acceptable reason for a woman to have an abortion, even if she was raped.
“I think many rapists and particularly paedophiles use abortion as a defence, they use it as a way to destroy the evidence,” Mr Finn told Star in an article published on Tuesday 18 March.
“I’ve spoken to a number of women who have been raped and then had an abortion and they told me that from their point of view having an abortion was like being raped a second time.”
Mr Finn, who has never shied away from sharing his conservative views, organises the March for the Babies every year.
His comments were quick to draw criticism however, with Premier Dennis Napthine forced to publicly distance himself from them.
Dr Napthine said he had spoken to his colleague and informed him that his comments were distracting from the work the Liberal Government was doing.
The news quickly spread throughout Australia and by Wednesday morning it had become the topic of conversation on news websites in England and the USA.
Australia’s largest blog on female issues, Mamamia, posted a response to Mr Finn’s comments that quickly went viral on social media.
“Sarcasm and utter despair aside, this kind of rhetoric from an elected member of parliament is quite simply disgusting. To use Mr Finn’s words ‘in this day and age’ it’s hard to swallow the fact that there is still anyone in the community who thinks in this way about a woman’s right to choose – let alone share those thoughts with the press,” the blog read.
