\n<\/p>\n
An image posted by anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe claiming to show aborted twin girls called \u201cRuth and Emma\u201d appears to be a picture of newborn sugar gliders.<\/p>\n
The two little pink bodies are displayed on a clean white background and experts say the image does not look at all like the product of an abortion.<\/p>\n
Analysis from a digital forensics expert, <\/strong>commissioned by Guardian Australia, found the image was most likely a sugar glider joey (Petaurus breviceps<\/em>), or possibly another marsupial such as an opossum.<\/p>\n The digital analysis showed Howe\u2019s image was almost certainly from a TikTok video posted in January that describes rescuing sugar gliders. It is not clear who is behind the TikTok, which was posted in January and has been seen by almost 24 million people and liked by 750,000 people.<\/p>\n There was an \u201cextremely low\u201d chance that the image was of human embryos, the analysis found, as the shape, head proportion, and other traits were \u201ccharacteristic of marsupials, not humans\u201d.<\/p>\n A wildlife veterinarian and glider expert, who asked not to be named, agreed the picture was probably a sugar glider, and that a human embryo would have a different leg and head shape, and \u201cat that stage would have an obvious umbilical cord and would be aborted with its membrane\u201d.<\/p>\n Howe is using the image to garner support for a 2 June rally in Sydney calling on the state parliament to restrict abortion access.<\/p>\n She has announced that former Nationals leader, now One Nation MP, Barnaby Joyce will speak at the rally.<\/p>\n Medical experts also believe the image is of marsupials.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/span><\/p>\n Adelaide University adjunct professor Jeremy Thompson, an expert in embryo and fetal growth and the chief scientific officer at IVF company Fertilis, said if the objects in the image were the product of abortion it appeared someone had \u201ctidied them up\u201d for the picture because they were lacking tissues including the sac, the placenta, and the umbilical cord.<\/p>\n A medical specialist, who has not agreed to be named, said they were \u201cnot verified to be human, let alone females with names\u201d and that if they were an abortion there would be blood clots and membranes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not plausible that a distressed, unsupported woman has miscarried these foetuses and then carefully washed them for photography,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Howe, an expert in labour migration from Adelaide University, has worked with NSW Libertarian MP John Ruddick, and SA Fair Go MP Sarah Game (formerly of One Nation), on bills currently before those state parliaments.<\/p>\n She has also worked with multiple other state and federal MPs on legislation that would restrict abortion access in various ways.<\/p>\n While she often focuses on second- or third-trimester abortions, she recently revealed that her ultimate goal was to have all abortion criminalised.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to end abortion,\u201d she said in a debate with Abolish Abortion Australia in April.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe abortion is murder and we believe that everybody involved in the process of murder should face criminal penalties. I mean, that\u2019s what you should do when you\u2019ve murdered someone.\u201d<\/p>\n Howe has been banned from SA parliament after alleged \u201cthreatening and intimidating tactics\u201d but denied doing anything wrong and said she would challenge the ban. She has also been accused of \u201cgrift\u201d for creating a Bingo-style game to raise money during an emotional abortion debate; accused of spreading misinformation; and she has previously posted an image from inside a Townsville hospital of what she said was an aborted foetus, sparking an alleged privacy breach investigation by the hospital. The Townsville inquiry concluded without finding who sent her the pictures.<\/p>\n In a tearful video posted to social media last week, Howe said she received an email titled \u201cmy shameful abortion\u201d with a \u201cpicture of two babies\u201d.<\/p>\n She said the woman who emailed her was \u201cabandoned\u201d after a medical abortion and was \u201calone in her house, in her bathroom, giving birth to her twin babies on to the bathroom floor\u201d.<\/p>\n The email prompted her to rename a planned Rally for Life in Sydney on 2 June to \u201cthe rally for Emma and Ruth\u201d, \u201ctwo little twin girls who never got to live\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t sit idly by. I can\u2019t end this alone. I need you guys,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The bill before the SA parliament would ban abortions after 25 weeks no matter the severity of foetal abnormalities or the risk to the pregnant person\u2019s physical or mental wellbeing. It would only be allowed to save the pregnant person\u2019s life. In NSW the bill would outlaw sex-selective abortions.<\/p>\n A bill in Queensland has sought to restrict access to medical abortion.<\/p>\n The president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Nisha Khot, said such tactics were ways of \u201cchipping away at abortion rights\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can\u2019t do it one way, you do it another,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The SA Abortion Action Coalition said this \u201cincrementalism\u201d undermined access to abortion care, rejected evidence-based health care, and eroded the decriminalisation of abortion.<\/p>\n MPs have described death threats and abuse from third parties in the wake of Howe\u2019s campaigns.<\/p>\n The focus on second- or third-trimester abortions, which are rare and \u201cheartbreaking\u201d, is \u201cpreying on vulnerable people\u201d, Khot said.<\/p>\n Khot said the \u201cabsolutely horrible tactic\u201d of using images that are purportedly of abortions would \u201ctug at people\u2019s emotions\u201d, but that the fact was that abortion is healthcare.<\/p>\n Howe told Guardian Australia she received two emails from a woman whose name she would keep private.<\/p>\n The first had the photo, and in the second the woman said she had had the abortion, and \u201csomething big came out\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when I washed the pad I saw these.\u201d<\/p>\n Howe did not respond to questions about the veracity of the photo.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Ruddick said he was aware of Howe\u2019s position, and that there was no libertarian position on abortion as \u201copinions vary\u201d and it was a matter of individual conscience.<\/p>\n \u201cLibertarians believe murder should be illegal and some libertarians believe life begins at conception. John is pro-life,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n One Nation has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An image posted by anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe claiming to show aborted twin girls called \u201cRuth and Emma\u201d appears to be a picture of newborn sugar gliders. The two little pink bodies are displayed on a clean white background and experts say the image does not look at all like the product of an abortion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[5457,4935,180,935,733,24615,8215,241,5562,16807],"class_list":{"0":"post-49793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-abortion","9":"tag-activist","10":"tag-antiabortion","11":"tag-appears","12":"tag-babies","13":"tag-gliders","14":"tag-image","15":"tag-show","16":"tag-sugar","17":"tag-twin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}