Liberal Senator Cory Benardi has reignited debate about abortion rights, accusing some women of using abortion as “an abhorrent form of birth control” and describing pro-choice advocates as “pro-death”.
In his new book, The Conservative Revolution, the controversial Abbott government backbencher has aired his views on abortion and women’s rights, writing that it was “horrendous and unacceptable” that the “death industry despatches 80,000 to 100,000 unborn children [in Australia] every year”, and says that the discussion about abortion being a woman’s right has been shut down. He says that needs to be re-examined.
His book also takes a hit at non-traditional families, suggesting that children raised by single parents are more likely to be law breakers.
He told ABC News Breakfast in a televised interview on Monday that the “gold standard’ for childhood development comes from having a biological mother and father who are married.
His book is a call to arms to other conservatives to restore the traditional family model. Bernardi told the ABC that his book is about “fighting the tyranny of political correctness” but denies his views are ‘far-right’. Instead he describes them as “enduring views”.
“What I would suggest to you is the fact they are controversial, according to elements of the media and sections of the public, suggests just how far we’ve come. These are very traditional views; they’re views that have stood the test of time and they’ve been developed over successive generations … The eroding of our cultural institutions, our values and our ethics has consequences for society.”
In extracts from his book reported on by the ABC, he sets out five founding pillars for a “conservative revolution” which includes restoring the traditional family model over ‘non-traditional’ families.
“Given the increasing number of ‘non-traditional’ families, there is a temptation to equate all family structures as being equal or relative,” Bernardi writes in his book.
“Why then the levels of criminality among boys and promiscuity among girls who are brought up in single-parent families, more often than not headed by a single mother?”
“What is missing in the push for human cloning, in vitro fertilisation and surrogacy, for example, is the understanding that children come into families as gifts, not commodities.”
Acting leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Richard Di Natale has called on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to denounce Bernardi’s “hateful” views.
“Senator Bernardi’s statements about abortion, Islam, same-sex and single-parent families are truly offensive. The Senator is merely continuing his form as an ideological warrior lacking any intellectual rigour, insight or common decency,” Di Natale said in a press release.
“Former Prime Minister John Howard was rightly criticised for his failure to condemn Pauline Hanson’s hateful views and these views are just as abhorrent. They have no place in modern Australia, let alone in a mainstream political party and Tony Abbott must condemn them unequivocally.”