WA Parliament debates abortion laws
By Angela Luvera and Sarah Stephen
The public galleries of both houses of the WA parliament were packed during the opening of debate on abortion law reform on March 18. Pro-choice advocate Hazel Hawke and Right to Life leader Margaret Tighe watched the proceedings side by side.
In the Legislative Assembly, MPs debated the four-stage bill sponsored by WA's attorney general, Peter Foss, which would liberalise the current criminal law relating to abortion. In the Legislative Council, MPs debated a bill to repeal sections of the criminal code relating to abortion introduced by Labor MP Cheryl Davenport.
While the media and the public reflected on the novelty of two bills on the same issue being debated simultaneously in the two houses, the parliamentarians were not allowed to refer to the bill (or any bill) being debated in the opposite house.
The Foss bill was passed by the lower house at midnight that day. Two hours later the Davenport bill was passed by the upper house with a large majority — 21 in favour and only 11 against. Both bills will now be presented to the opposite houses for further debate.
The opening of debate was greeted by 200 Right to Life protesters outside parliament. They were confronted, in turn, by a group of angry women trade unionists who insisted that the "workers' embassy" — set up outside parliament during the campaign against the Court government's anti-union legislation last year and recently occupied by the Right to Life — was no place for religious fanatics.
During the debate in parliament, views were aired without restraint. The opposition leader in the upper house, Labor's Tom Stephens, opened the debate with a three-hour speech. Ian MacLean, Wanneroo Liberal MLA, is now infamous for his tirade against women's supposedly trivial reasons for choosing abortion. "Some women think they are the centre of the universe", he said, "and will abort a baby just because it is convenient or because summer is coming and they want to wear a bikini".
Disability services minister Paul Omodei is against any bill allowing women to "murder their babies". Abortion, he said, was never right, even in cases of rape or a mother carrying a deformed foetus. He added that he could accept the current law in which abortion is legal if the woman's life is at risk because "society should not punish women who fail to live u0 to the principle that she should lay down her life for her child".
Opposition leader Geoff Gallop urged MPs to consider the reality that women would still seek abortions if the operation were illegal and that the only way to reduce the abortion rate was through better family planning services. "We are not priests, we are legislators", he said.
Meanwhile, however, Labor's Michelle Roberts said she had heard nothing to convince her that a foetus was not a human being, and Stephens said that both bills should be rejected because "the whole community suffers when a woman has an abortion".
The March 19 West Australian described premier Richard Court as "a devout Christian and intensely family oriented man, who told parliament that the life of a child was God's most precious gift". Court reluctantly backed the first two tiers of the Foss bill (which would legalise terminations when the physical and mental health of the woman was threatened), but then supported amendments to that bill by right-wing independent Philip Pendal.
Pendal's amendments were backed by an alliance of 24 Labor and Coalition MPs who support the tightening of current abortion laws. The group has taken a "pragmatic" view that it cannot hope to turn the tide for liberalised abortion laws and therefore supported the amendments as a "compromise" between the existing laws and the Foss bill.
The amendments, if passed, would force women to consult two doctors and a counsellor, and then wait for a 30-days "cooling off period" before being granted an abortion. The amendment was also supported by the Minister for Women's Interests, Rhonda Parker.
The Public Health Association's Billie Corti said the amendments put a ridiculous burden of proof on doctors. King Edward Memorial Hospital gynaecology director Harry Cohen also criticised the amendments, saying that a cooling off period was unnecessary because women had already thoroughly considered the decision before consulting a doctor.
The amendments failed to win support in the Legislative Assembly where the first proposal in the amendments was lost by 34 to 16 votes.
The tabling of the bills on March 10 was accompanied by a shift in the tone and emphasis of media coverage, in the West Australian in particular. It is rumoured that the West's management objected that too much coverage was being given to Davenport's bill and the case for repeal.
Pro-choice campaigners are finding it increasingly difficult to get media coverage, while the Right to Life's campaign is being covered extensively and uncritically.
A small but highly organised and well funded campaign has been mounted by the Right to Life with TV advertisements, huge newspaper ads and a 30-second radio commercial which is supposed to be "the sound of an unborn baby's heartbeat" and the words "Abortion stops a beating heart ... abortion has two victims, one dead and the other wounded. Ask your MP to oppose abortion and save a life." After a flood of angry calls to one radio station, the ad was taken off the air.
The anti-choice movement is also bombarding MPs with letters, small plastic foetuses and copies of the discredited anti-choice film The Silent Scream. If the laws are changed, they are arguing, abortion will be so easy that women will be in danger of having abortion pills slipped into their orange juice without their knowledge!
On March 19, Liberal MP Norman Moore proposed what he said was a means of avoiding a deadlock when the bills swapped houses. The proposal seems to be an attempt to combine the two bills by repealing all abortion laws in the criminal code and inserting restrictions — the content of the Foss bill — in the health and medical acts instead.
Parliament resumes on March 31, when the debate will continue. In the meantime, a meeting of the Coalition for Legal Abortion on March 18 decided to give priority to activities aimed at convincing MPs, particularly the waverers, to vote in favour of repeal. It has also conducted a telephone survey of residents in marginal electorates to collect information which could put further pressure on MPs.
A march and rally to demand the decriminalisation of abortion is being organised for April 4, to coincide with rallies being held in other cities on that day (see pages 29-31 for details). To join the campaign in Perth, telephone Sarah or Angela on 9227 7367.