Women's struggle for reproductive rights

By Dr Tuntuni Bhattacharyya The equally negative responses of Paul Keating and John Howard to a question during the ABC's pre-election "great debate" on February 25 about their positions on women's right to choose abortion clearly illustrated that the battle for women's reproductive rights is far from won. It was in the late 19th century that women initially demanded the right of voluntary motherhood. For the first time, women were seen to have a part in the decision about how many children they would bear. A century later, women's right to freely available, safe abortion is still a contentious issue. Reproductive freedom forms the core of individual women's self-determination. Being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term imposes irrevocable circumstances that can alter a woman's health, her relationships to family and friends, her self-esteem, her work and financial status and her life goals and choices. Without access to abortion, women become prisoners of their reproductive systems, shackled to a stereotype and culture that promotes motherhood as the only valid option for women.

A social issue

Unfettered access to abortion is more than a question of individual rights or individual choice. It is also a social issue, a question of human rights which impacts directly on women's ability to determine the course of their lives. In turn, the fight for women's reproductive rights is part of a broader fight for women's full legal, political and social equality. Without these, reproductive rights will not be achieved or maintained. Most women in the Third World, for example, with limited access to education, let alone scientific information about health, reproduction or sex, have little possibility to control their reproduction. These women are often under significant economic pressure to produce more children, and when birth control methods are available, it is often within the framework of racist "development" programs aimed primarily at controlling population numbers. These programs, in which women are often used as unwitting guinea pigs to test new experimental modes of birth control, usually involve minimal medical assessment or follow-up. In Bangladesh and India, for example, long-acting experimental contraceptives such as Depo provera (which is banned in many First World countries) and Norplant are now widely distributed without being accompanied by the medical facilities necessary to ensure their safe use. Experience in many countries indicates that birth rates drop naturally when women have a degree of economic security and control over their reproductive function. Rather than further violation of women's bodies and rights, better standards of living, legal equality for women and access to education are needed to deal with rapid population growth. In the meantime, one woman dies every three minutes in the Third World from an illegal abortion. In the First World, many women, deprived of economic independence, are also subject to direct coercion. Forced sterilisation has been used for decades on Aboriginal women, and in the United States today young single mothers, predominantly of African-American or Hispanic background, are enticed into accepting Norplant by the promise of higher social security payments. Norplant, which is surgically implanted in a woman's body (and also requires an operation to remove) is supposed to guarantee five years of contraception. Little is yet known about its side effects.

Abortion in Australia

In many states of Australia today, it is reasonably easy for a woman to obtain an abortion. However, less than 20 years ago, obtaining this simple medical procedure was often a dangerous undertaking, shrouded in shame, and sometimes ending in death. As late as the 1970s, police abortion squads were energetically raiding abortion clinics, and even today abortion remains in the Crimes Act in every state. Relatively easy access to abortion in NSW can be attributed to the Levine ruling of 1971, which states that there are situations in which abortion is lawful. There is no doubt that the pro-abortion decision by Justice Levine was influenced by an active, vocal abortion reform lobby which subsequently pushed for the establishment of free-standing abortion clinics in that state. Nevertheless, this did not entrench a stable, irrevocable right to abortion in Australia. Throughout the '70s, the women's liberation movement had to campaign against later parliamentary bills (such as the Lusher Bill and the Infant Life Preservation Bill) that attempted to challenge the Levine ruling and close down the clinics. In the 1970s there also emerged the erroneously named Right to Life organisation led by the Reverend Fred Nile. A small but highly financed organisation, the Right to Life uses tactics steeped in emotionalism to obstruct and terrorise women seeking abortions. Its rhetoric about the sanctity of life is inextricably linked with manipulation of women's reproductive lives to ensure that women are shackled to their "proper" and "God-given" role of child bearing and rearing within a nuclear family. Anti-abortion groups in Australia are keen to make any inroads they can into the limited availability of abortion. They are fully aware that, for so long as abortion remains inn the Crimes Acts, the possibility for restricting access still exists. The best way to guard the hard-won gains of the pro-choice movement is to campaign for the repeal of all abortion laws. Removing the question of abortion from the realm of government and the state is the only way to allow women absolute legal control over their reproductive systems. Of course, to enable all women to exercise their full reproductive rights, such legal freedom would have to be accompanied by accessible information and services, and strong public support for women's right to choose.

Fertility technologies

Any discussion of women's reproductive rights must include consideration of the newly developing fertility enhancement technologies. These include in-vitro fertilisation, the use of drugs to multiply numbers of eggs or sperm, artificial insemination, external fertilisation and micro-manipulation, and freezing of sperm and embryo for later use. There are a number of important issues raised by the availability of these techniques, including who has access to them, their safety and how much information the women undergoing these procedures are given. Some feminists advocate abandoning such technologies. Their fundamental objections include that all reproductive technologies are experimental and therefore increase the possibility of exploitation of women, particularly in the context of the male-dominated medical community. It is argued that in addition to the further objectification of women via the commercialisation of their ovaries, uteruses and embryos as commodities for sale, these technologies open up future possibilities for genetic engineering such as sex selection, which is disadvantageous to women in sexist societies. Most fundamentally, the feminist critics argue, pro-fertility reproductive technology reinforces traditional attitudes concerning the imperative of biological parenthood. This reconfirms the stereotype of women as primarily mothers and child-rearers, ensuring that they are contained within the family unit. Flowing from this, many advocate that women should be counselled to understand their conditioning into the role of motherhood and to realise their potential by other means. The anti-fertility technology feminists are correct to point to the dangers inherent in the development of any technology applied to women in a profit-driven, inherently sexist society. Money is spent on those areas of medical and health research that are marketable and will turn a quick profit. As such, reproductive technologies have become a lucrative resource, and many private clinics charging exorbitant prices have sprung up throughout Australia. But banning such technologies is no solution. It will only send them underground and further raise the cost of accessing them via a black market. The undeniable fact that a disproportionate amount of society's resources are being devoted to the development of these technologies which reflect and reinforce sexist social structures is also not sufficient reason for abandoning them. The sexist stereotypes peddled by all the major institutions in capitalist society are extremely pervasive and powerful. And they do severely limit women's opportunities to make choices about whether, when and under what circumstances to bear children. But to counsel women wanting to undergo fertility enhancement that their desire for children is an undesirable and oppressive product of a sexist society, or to prevent them from accessing the technology by banning it, is extremely paternalistic. It is a form of "protecting women from themselves", an attitude that has been imposed on women for centuries, justified on the grounds that they are too ignorant, ill-informed or emotional to make considered decisions for themselves. To deny women access to pro-fertility reproductive technologies is once again to deny them their right to choose, even if the choices currently available are narrow and distorted. Women will not benefit from uncritical acceptance of medical techniques — capitalist medicine doesn't always have a woman's best interest at heart. But instead of outright dismissal of new reproductive technologies, enhanced fertility techniques, abortifacients and new contraceptive methods need to be closely monitored by feminists to ensure that they are as safe as possible and that all women undergoing medical treatments are fully informed and able to make their decision in as non-directive a context as can be achieved. At the same time, if women are to gain full reproductive rights and have unrestricted access to genuinely safe, effective reproductive technologies, feminists also need to have a bigger and broader vision. The immediate struggle against restrictions on choice and harmful technologies has to be part of a larger struggle to create a society which is prepared to spend the money needed to provide real choices for women. That means taking collective responsibility for child-care and domestic work, and creating more opportunities for women to lead full and satisfying lives irrespective of whether they bear children. This requires actively defending and building on the gains made by the second wave of feminism. It means taking up and campaigning against all attacks on women's rights and for changes which will improve all women's choices about how they will live their lives. At the moment, stopping and reversing the relentless attacks on reproductive rights is one of the most urgent tasks for feminists. Our immediate demands must include:

• The right of all women to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy.

• That all laws pertaining to abortion must be repealed. Abortion must be available freely on demand, with costs fully covered by a universal health care system.

• The availability of safe and reliable contraception for all women and men, together with informative, non-judgmental sex education for all.

• That new forms of enhanced fertility technology and full information about them should be available to all, not just those who can afford them.