WA abortion access one year on
By Sarah Stephen
PERTH — On May 26 one year ago, the Criminal Code Amendment (Abortion) Act took effect in Western Australia. It ended six months of campaigning by the abortion rights movement to change WA laws under which two doctors were charged with performing an abortion.
Labor parliamentarian Cheryl Davenport's initial bill aimed to repeal all laws relating to abortion, leaving it to be regulated like any other medical procedure. An opposing bill, introduced by the Liberals' Peter Foss, proposed complex regulation of abortion within the Criminal Code, including parental consent for minors and the requirement to see a second doctor to satisfy the need for "informed consent".
The compromise was to accept almost all of these regulations, but to place them within the Health Act.
The new laws do not seem to have impacted on the total number of abortions performed: in the six months to December 1998, there were 4116 notified abortions, compared to around 8500 abortions each year before the new laws took effect. However, access to abortion for women under 16 years old is a major cause for concern.
Only four women under 16 have applied for the Children's Court order exempting them from the new laws requirement that "minors" inform their parents when seeking an abortion. Yet 22% of women having abortions in WA are aged between 15 and 19. Even if only 10% of these women are under 16, that would amount to 400 under 16 year olds accessing abortion each year. The fact that only four have sought a court order to do so in the last year warrants further investigation.
The National Abortion Rights Action League in North American has researched the effects of mandatory parental consent and notice laws on women's freedom to choose. A NARAL fact sheet states: "Most young women do turn to their parents when they are considering an abortion. Unfortunately, some young women cannot because they come from homes where physical violence or emotional abuse are prevalent, or because their pregnancy is the result of incest.
"Laws mandating parental involvement or consent actually harm the young women they purport to protect by increasing illegal and self-induced abortion, family violence, suicide, later abortions and unwanted childbirth."
The fact sheet continues: "For adults, going to court for a judicial order is difficult. For young women, it is overwhelming and at times impossible.
"Some young women cannot manoeuvre the legal procedures required, or cannot attend hearings scheduled during school hours. Others do not go or delay going because they fear the proceedings are not confidential or that they will be recognised by people at the courthouse.
"The time required to schedule a court hearing may result in a delay of a week or more, thereby increasing the health risks of an abortion. Some young women who manage to arrange a hearing face judges who are vehemently anti-choice and who routinely deny petitions."
WA health and family planning organisations have said that confusion about the new legal requirements has resulted in some terminations occurring later in pregnancy than would otherwise have been the case.
On the first anniversary of the WA legal changes, the view that abortion is an "unfortunate" necessity which we should seek to reduce, is no longer confined to the conservative media and anti-choice groups.
An article in the May 24 Australian reported Davenport as saying "she hoped that an increase in the counselling of women considering abortions ... would result in fewer abortions, but it is too soon to tell".
Late last year, the Association for the Legal Right to Abortion made substantial changes to its constitution which reflect the increasing defensiveness among advocates of choice. The changes, said ALRA's leaders, were a direct response to the "lessons" of last year's campaign.
The first change inserted the statement that "abortion is a moral and ethical issue in our community, as well as a health issue". This muddies one of the key arguments against the anti-choice movement: that nobody has the right to impose their religious or moral beliefs on any woman. Abortion should be treated by the state as no more or less than a health issue, leaving individual women to decide about abortion based on their own moral and ethical stance.
The second change removed the demand that all abortion laws be repealed. This was replaced with a call to remove all references to abortion from the Criminal Code. This capitulates to the backward idea that if abortion access is too easy (i.e., completely unrestricted), it will be abused by women and/or doctors, so must be specifically regulated through health acts and the like.
The abortion rights movement in WA has lost ground — legally and ideologically — in the last 18 months. Until a frank assessment of the 1998 campaign and its results is made, and all defensiveness about women's right to choose abortion is abolished, the movement will continue to be rolled back.