Townsville hospital is investigating an alleged privacy breach after anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe said a “whistleblower” had sent her an image containing distressing and sensitive abortion content.
Howe posted a video on social media that included a picture of a 16-week-old foetus that she said was taken inside the hospital’s Butterfly Room, a place for grieving parents, saying “Samuel” was “born alive” after an abortion.
No evidence was given to support that claim and Howe has been contacted for comment. Multiple health experts have previously said claims by anti-abortion activists that large numbers of babies are “born alive” after abortions are misleading, including in evidence to a state and federal parliamentary inquiry.
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Howe said a Queensland hospital worker sent the image to her.
Instagram blocked the automatic appearance of the image, warning that some people might find it upsetting.
In a second video, Howe posted specific medical information about a number of birth outcomes including the date and time, sex, birth weight, abortion medications used and any injury to the mother, taken from records inside the hospital. She blurred the names of the patients, but the information visible would be enough for them to identify themselves.
She named one of those born both “Amira” and “Mira”. The origin of the names was unclear.
“Another Queensland whistleblower took this photo of the book in a Queensland hospital where births are recorded,” she wrote.
The president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Dr Nisha Khot, said publicly posting such material when a family was going through something so heartbreaking was “deplorable”.
“This is just preying on vulnerable people. This is such a vulnerable time for them and their families, they’re going through something that is heartbreaking,” she said.
The chief executive of the Townsville Hospital and Health Service, Kieran Keyes, said the service was aware of the social media posts “and the serious breach of confidentiality”, and was investigating.
“We take the privacy of our patients and staff seriously.”
In a statement to Guardian Australia, Howe said: “The world needs to see baby Samuel’s face and hear Amira’s story. When we choose to look away from the victims of genocide, the violence continues.”
Howe, a migration law professor at Adelaide University, has previously been accused of spreading misinformation about abortion.
She has been banned from the South Australian parliament for alleged “insults and threatening and intimidating tactics” during an abortion law debate.
She has worked with state and federal politicians to draft laws aimed at repealing abortion rights.
MPs who are pro-choice say they have suffered death threats and vile abuse from third parties after her anti-abortion campaigns. On social media Howe has labelled some of them part of “The Baby-Killers Club”.
Khot said no woman had an abortion “without giving it a whole lot of thought and a whole lot of heartache”.
“What’s happening in the US is affecting how we have these discussions, and it is getting worse because there is so much misinformation,” she said.
Howe responded in a third video to a social media follower who commented that the video of the foetus should be censored, that it was disturbing and sad, and that some people might want a trigger warning.
Howe said the information came from a “whistleblower” exposing “genocide”, and that “the world needs to see baby Samuel’s face”.
“I know it’s hard, I know some of you have been through miscarriages and stillbirths of your own, and I feel for you, but the system and the monsters who kill these babies don’t want you to see this photo, and I need everybody to see it,” she said.
