Image of ‘twin babies’ used by anti-abortion activist appears to show sugar gliders

An image posted by anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe claiming to show aborted twin girls called “Ruth and Emma” appears to be a picture of 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. Analysis from a digital forensics expert, commissioned by Guardian Australia, found the image was most likely a sugar glider joey ( Petaurus breviceps ), or possibly another marsupial such as an opossum. The digital analysis showed Howe’s 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. There was an “extremely low” chance that the image was of human embryos, the analysis found, as the shape, head proportion, and other traits were “characteristic of marsupials, not humans”. 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 “at that stage would have an obvious umbilical cord and would be aborted with its membrane”. Howe is using the image to garner support for a 2 June rally in Sydney calling on the state parliament to restrict abortion access. …