Abortion
2006 and 2007 were big years for women's rights. The veto over RU486 - the safe alternative to surgical abortion - was wrested from the Health Minister. There had been threats to make so-called late term abortion illegal and to remove Medicare funding for terminations but women in the parliament got together and stood up to the male bullies making these threats.
Senator Lyn Allison led the way on these initiatives. She provided the catalyst for the RU486 bill, eventually sponsored by her and three other women across parties.
It overturned not only the wishes of Tony Abbott who doggedly opposes abortion but also the Prime Minister!
This was history in the making. |
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Senator Lyn Allison with her fellow Senators Judith Troeth, Fiona Nash and Claire Moore |
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For one thing it was rare for a private bill to properly debated, let alone passed, and, for another, there has never been a vote so clearly about women's issues and carried so decisively by the women's vote. 90% of female senators voted 'yes' but only 46% of male voters did so. There was never so clear a demonstration of the need for more women in the parliament! RU486 is not broadly available in Australia yet but we expect it here towards the end of the year.
Senator Allison shocked many conservative male senators by talking about contraception, gynaecological cancer and the need for better sex education. She raised the terrible problem for hundreds of thousands of women of obstetric fistulas caused by prolonged unattended labor, particularly in African countries and the hypocrisy and unfairness of Australia's ban on its overseas aid being used for anything to do with abortion, even in countries where it is legal and where unsafe abortion is the leading cause of maternal death.
Her efforts led to a Senate inquiry into gynaelogical cancer treatment which lags behind the well-funded progress on breast cancer. The result was much greater awareness amongst women and doctors of the need for early detection and specialised surgery and $1 million in seed funding for a new gynaecological cancer centre.
However, there is still much to be done to give women choices about their lives and their bodies. For instance, the overseas aid abortion ban is still in place, $60 million is to be spent on pregnancy counselling (Minister Abbott's RU486 revenge) which is designed to talk women out of terminating unwanted pregnancies, and there has been no new contraceptive put on the PBS in 11 years.
The Democrats support a woman’s fundamental right to safe, affordable and legal abortion. To this end all levels of government should work together to:
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remove abortion laws from the Criminal Code in all States and Territories and remove the risk of prosecution against women and their doctors |
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introduce buffer zones around clinics that provide abortion services so that women can access these services without fear of harassment and intimidation |
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fastrack and subsidise the importation of RU-486, so that women can access an alternative to surgical abortion |
Abortion – Myths and Facts
The right to determine freely and responsibly the number and spacing of children has been internationally recognised as a human right since the 1960’s.[1]
| MYTH: |
Australians are unhappy with women accessing abortion services. |
| FACT: |
More than 80% of the Australian population support access to abortion services.[2] |
| MYTH: |
There is an ‘abortion epidemic’. |
| FACT: |
Medicare statistics indicate that the number of abortions is actually falling.[3] |
| MYTH: |
Late term abortions are frequent. |
| FACT: |
More than 92% of abortions are performed in the first trimester and less than 2% take place at or after 20 weeks.[4] |
| MYTH: |
Unplanned pregnancies are women's fault. |
| FACT: |
No contraception works perfectly and women can find themselves in situations where they do not have control over contraception. More than half of all women presenting for abortion are using contraception at the time.[5] |
| MYTH: |
Women who choose to have abortions do so thoughtlessly. |
| FACT: |
Women who have an abortion are aware that it will end a potential life. They take motherhood seriously and will decide to end a pregnancy rather than bring a child into the world under the wrong circumstances. |
| MYTH: |
Women need a cooling off period and should view a scan of the foetus. |
| FACT: |
Women are entitled to determine for themselves what information is relevant to them to assist them in making choices. |
| MYTH: |
Women are pressured into abortions by the abortion industry. |
| FACT: |
All women who have abortions are offered counselling. Clinics that perform abortions have no reason to pressure women. On the other hand most 'pregnancy counselling' services that you see advertised are run by anti-abortion organisations that are not required to declare this bias. |
| MYTH: |
Sex education will encourage sex among young people. |
| FACT: |
Teenagers who receive appropriate sex education tend to delay first intercourse, use contraception and avoid pregnancy.[6],[7],[8] |
| MYTH: |
Women who have abortions are traumatised by the experience |
| FACT: |
For the vast majority of women, legal and voluntary abortion rarely causes immediate or long term negative emotional effects [22] |
Anti-abortion advocates are trying to make doctors reluctant to provide this safe medical service. They would rather women return to the scary days of backyard abortions.
Anti-abortion advocates have turned to trying to shame and intimidate women who experience an unplanned pregnancy or who have had a termination.
Too frequently abortion is considered in isolation, ignoring the realities and complexities that surround people’s lives. Women need 'alternatives' to abortion.
More choice is needed - not less.
What the Government should be doing
to give women more choice
| The choices women want include: |
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Government funded paid maternity leave; |
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more affordable and accessible childcare; |
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the right to part-time work and to flexible hours; |
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better financial, social and maternal and child health support for pregnant women, new mothers and their partners. |
What the Government should be doing
to reduce unplanned pregnancies
| The Government can reduce the need for abortion by reducing the rate of unplanned pregnancy through: |
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comprehensive, school based sexual health and relationships education programs for young people before they become sexually active; |
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improved men’s and women’s access to sexual and reproductive health information; |
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access to a full range of safe, affordable contraception on demand, including over the counter access to the oral contraceptive pill, placement of all forms of contraception on the PBS, and ready access to low cost condoms and emergency contraception in schools; |
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adequate provision of affordable, impartial, sexual health, family planning and pregnancy advice and counselling by properly trained health workers and counsellors. |
What the Government should be doing
to support women's access to abortion
| There will always be women who experience unwanted pregnancies for many reasons. The Democrats support a woman’s fundamental right to safe, affordable and legal abortion. To this end all levels of Government should work together to: |
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remove abortion laws from the Criminal Code in all States and Territories, as has already happened in the ACT, to remove the risk of prosecution against women and their doctors; |
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introduce buffer zones around clinics that provide reproductive health services so that women can access these services without fear of harassment and intimidation; |
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fastrack and subsidise the importation of RU-486, so that women can access an alternative to surgical abortion. |
The Australian Democrats support the right of women to information and support, to make choices about their lives and health, including their reproductive processes and whether, when and under what circumstances to have children.
Our Action Plan on Abortion
More Choice - Not No Choice
Some of those with religious and moral views that oppose abortion have attempted to shame and intimidate women considering termination of unwanted pregnancies, make doctors reluctant to provide this safe medical service and to cloud the debate with rhetoric and misinformation.
They falsely assume that if access to abortion is restricted, women will bear children they do not want. The current Minister for Health and other, mostly male, MPs make it clear that they would like to go much further than restricting access to Medicare for so-called late term abortions.
Those who criticise the choices women make often ignore the realities and complexities of their lives.
We have put together the following proposals to improve choice and a fact sheet in the hope that they may be useful in the debate. We hope to shore up the resolve of governments at all levels so that we do not return to the bad old days of illegal or restricted abortion but instead support women and help them avoid unwanted pregnancy.
Women need more choice - not less.
Better choices in raising children
We would like to see reforms in place to support parents and to ease the financial and social obstacles to raising children. Childcare and preschool is expensive and, in some areas, waiting lists are years long. Why not publicly fund these services, as we do schooling? Australia does not have universal paid maternity leave and there is no requirement for employers to offer part time work to parents returning to their jobs after taking time off to have a child. Reforms in these areas would go a long way to making the choice to have a baby easier.
Women in Australia have one of the lowest rates of workforce participation in the OECD. On average their income is 66% that of men, again, well behind other comparable countries. Greater economic equality, family friendly work conditions and more sharing of parenting responsibilities would give women more options in bearing children.
Better choices to avoid unwanted pregnancies
Contraception options have improved in the last few decades however many of the newer contraceptives are not subsidised by the government – putting them out of the reach of many women. Emergency contraception is stocked by only some pharmacies and it cannot be advertised or promoted in our current laws. Recently a highly effective permanent contraceptive device was removed from the Medicare subsidised list for ‘re-evaluation’, despite its strong backing by women and gynaecologists.
Back in 1996, the Government agreed to an legislative amendment by Senator Brian Harradine that requires the direct permission of the Minister for Health to import into Australia the safe, effective alternative to surgical abortion - RU486. This barrier means that women are consequently denied the choice of a non-surgical abortion.
Better choices in pregnancy counselling and support
Telephone pregnancy counselling services are largely run by right-to-life organisations that are not required by law to disclose their bias. The call to force women to view an ultra-sound image of their foetus before making a decision to terminate a pregnancy is more likely to cause anxiety and guilt than provide women with useful information, as is so often claimed by anti-abortionists. If women do decide to have an abortion then support should be focussed on the best way to protect their well-being and safety.
Visit our campaign on pregnancy counselling
Better choices in caring for children with disability
Women know there is little support to help them care for a child with a disability. They know that caring is a task that may last a lifetime, and that all too often both they, and their child, will be left to cope alone, in poverty, and experiencing overwhelming discrimination. Income support for carers and people with a disability is poor and increasingly difficult to obtain, and unmet need in accommodation, respite and other support programs continues to grow at a staggering rate. Sadly, fear about the future, poor access to information, and shortcomings in our treatment of people with disability weigh heavily on women who must decide whether to allow a foetus with severe or multiple disabilities to develop to term.
Better choice for privacy - In a recent case, the medical details of a woman who terminated a foetus in early third trimester were released by a coroner to a Senator who made them public. In the US state of Kansas, the Attorney General has demanded the medical files of women who have had late-term abortions for criminal investigation. At reproductive health clinics around Australia, women are routinely harassed and even photographed on entry and a security guard at one in East Melbourne was shot a few years ago.
Talking Points on Abortion
According to the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (2003), more than 80% of Australians believe that women should have access to abortion services.[10]
With the exclusion of the ACT, abortion remains a criminal offence in all of the states and territories of Australia, unless it meets varying legal definitions of what is considered a ‘lawful’ exception to the crime.
Prior to 1971 (when legal changes made access to abortion safer), abortion was a major cause of death related to pregnancy, with an average of 25% of maternal deaths attributed to abortion.[11]
Comparative data show that the number of abortions is determined above all by the quality of use of contraceptive methods. [12] According to a world survey, the Netherlands, where abortion is readily available and where contraception is widely promoted and used, has the lowest abortion rate of any country in the survey.[13]
Australia’s teenage pregnancy and abortion rates, at 44 and 24 per 1000 respectively, is higher than all other OECD countries other than the US and the UK.[14] Our teenage pregnancy and abortion rates are 4 and 6 times higher respectively than the Netherlands! Average age of first sexual encounter in Australia is 16 compared with 18 in the Netherlands.[15]
Sex education is not compulsory in Australian schools and there is no nationally-consistent curriculum for teaching teenagers about relationships or sexual and reproductive health.
Contraceptives do sometimes fail, and people fail to use them effectively. More than half of all women presenting for abortion are using contraception at the time.[16]
There is no national data collected on the number of abortions performed in Australia. There is no uniform method of data collection, collation or publication by the states and territories, and the data sources that are available have significant limitations.[17]
According to Medicare statistics, the number of Medicare-funded abortive procedures has declined overall over the last decade. 78 237 procedures that include abortion were conducted in 1995, compared with 73 623 in 2003.[18]
More than 92% of abortions are performed in the first trimester and less than 2% take place at or after 20 weeks.[19]
More than 2/3 of abortions performed after 20 weeks are the result of foetal abnormalities or death in utero.[20] Greater use of modern technology such as ultrasounds means that abnormalities are more frequently being diagnosed but often not until late in the pregnancy.
Approximately 80% of abortions are performed on women over the age of 20 ie likely to be in the workforce, and abortion procedures are most common in women aged 25-34.
Out-of-pocket costs for an abortion on average have been estimated to be between $120 and $250, and depending on circumstances, can be even more.
More than 1/3 of GPs (37%) do not fully understand the abortion laws in their own state or territory and 23% are not confident about how to perform a post-abortion check-up.[21]
For the vast majority of women, legal and voluntary abortion rarely causes immediate or long term negative emotional effects.[22] Short-lived feelings of sadness or guilt are not uncommon but for most women the most common emotional reaction is relief. Severe psychological reactions are no more common following abortion than following term delivery of a baby.[23]
Some anti-abortion groups offer "counselling" to women facing unwanted pregnancy, without explicitly identifying that they condemn abortion. These groups often use distorted, inaccurate information about the medical and psychological consequences of abortion and show shocking and deceptive pictures to discourage women from choosing to have an abortion.
[1] The Proclamation of Teheran, UN
[2] Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) 2003, ACSPRI Centre for Social Research (ACSR) – Research School of Social Sciences, Australian Nationa University
[3] HIC, Medicare Statistucs, item number 35643
[4] South Australia Committee Appointed to Examine and Report on Abortions Notified in South Australia
[5] Jones RK, Darroch JE and Henshaw SK, (2002) Contraceptive use among U.S. women having abortions in 2000-2001, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 34(6), 294-303.
[6] David, H & Rademakers, J. Lessons form the Dutch Abortion Experience. Studies in Family Planning, 27(6), 341-343.
[7] Kirby D, Short L, Collins J, et al. School-based programs to reduce sexual risk behaviors: a review of effectiveness. Public Health Reports 1994: 109(3): 339-360.
[8] Grunseit A, Kippax S, Aggleton P, Baldo M, Slutkin G. Sexuality education and young people’s sexual behaviour: a review of studies. Journal of Adolescent Research 1997; 12(4): 421-453.
[10] Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (2004). ACSPRI, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University
[11] Madden, R. (1994). The Health and Social Consequences of Teenage Childbearing. Family Planning Perspectives, 4(3), 45-53.
[12] Marsten, C. (2003). Relationships between contraception and abortion: A review of the evidence. International Family Planning Perspectives, 29(1), 6-13.
[13] Stanley K. Henshaw, Susheel, S and Taylor, H. (1999). The Incidence of Abortion Worldwide International Family Planning Perspectives, 25(Supplement), S30–S38
[14]UNICEF (2001). A league table of teenage births in rich nations. Innocenti report Card No.3, July 2001. UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence.
[15] Rissel, C., Richeters, J., Grulich, A., de Visser, R. & Smith, A. (2003). Sex in Australia: First experiences of vaginal intercourse and oral sex among a representative sample of adults, Aust NZ Journal of Public Health, 27, 131-137.
[16] Jones RK, Darroch JE and Henshaw SK, (2002) Contraceptive use among U.S. women having abortions in 2000-2001, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 34(6), 294-303.
[17] Pratt, A., Biggs, M and Buckmaster, L. 2005. How many Abortions are there in Australia? Australian Parliamentary Library Research Brief, No.9, 2004-2005.
[18] HIC, Medicare Statistuics, item number 35643 and 16525
[19] South Australia Committee Appointed to Examine and Report on Abortions Notified in South Australia
[20] The Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity, Annual Reports 2000, 2002, 2004
[21] Marie Stopes International (2004). General Practitioners: Attitudes to abortion. Melbourne: Marie Stopes International.
[22] Bonevski, B. and Adams (2001). Psychological effects of the termination of Pregnancy. Newcastle Institute of Public Health, Newcastle.
[23] Brewer C. 91977). Incidence of Post-Abortion Psychosis: A Prospective Study." Obstet Gynecol Surv 32(7): 600-601. |
