Queensland Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce has welcomed yesterday’s decision by the US Supreme Court to uphold the ban on the grisly practice of partial birth abortion.

Senator Joyce described the practice - which involves delivering the feet, crushing the skull, and vacuuming out the brains of a late term unborn baby – as barbarous.

The technique was imported from the US to Australia in the early 1990s by Brisbane Doctor David Grundmann, who over the past 10 years has performed partial birth abortions in Australia since that time.

Senator Joyce said the practice, which attracts Medicare funding, should also be banned in Australia.

His comments come as Victorian State MPs consider lifting all restrictions on all forms of abortion.

“Can Victorian MPs seriously contemplate giving Dr Grundmann and others an unconditional license to crush the skulls of babies the age of the premature babies in our hospitals?”

The author of the majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said: “Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child. It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form.”