By Lisa Macdonald
Most of the International Women's Day marches around the country in the next week will be demanding the abolition of all anti-abortion laws.
This call is not new. For more than 20 years, pro-choice activists in Australia have been insisting that the 19th-century sections of all states' and territories' crimes acts or criminal codes which make abortion illegal should be brought into line with majority public opinion — that is, these laws should be repealed.
This year, the call is more urgent. Over the last 12 months, there has been a marked escalation in attacks on women's right to choose abortion.
In January 1998, the Western Australian Department of Public Prosecutions charged two doctors with attempting to procure an abortion — the first such charges to be laid for 30 years. A subsequent move to repeal the abortion laws was met by a mobilised right wing which succeeded in forcing a parliamentary "compromise" that sacrificed the abortion rights of women under 16 years old or who are more than 20 weeks pregnant, and which makes pre-operation "counselling" mandatory.
Then in August, right-wing ACT Legislative Councillor Paul Osborne introduced a bill which, in the form adopted in November, requires women to be shown pictures of the foetus at different stages of development, and to undergo a 72-hour "cooling off" period afterwards.
Attempts to remove access to abortion have never ceased in Australia. Backed by the Catholic Church and other powerful forces which profit from restricting women's social and economic independence, anti-choice campaigners have made repeated attempts in the last 20 years to remove the partial Medicare rebate for abortions, limit abortion access to victims of rape and incest, restrict availability to a small number of hospitals, reduce the gestation time limit on access, define the beginning of human life at conception so as to give full legal rights to the foetus, and have family planning services' funding cut.
Anti-choice organisations have consistently used the media, church services and school classrooms to organise anti-abortion campaigns. In Sydney since the late 1980s, they have picketed abortion clinics, verbally and physically harassing the patients and doctors. One Sydney clinic has experienced an arson attempt, two paint bombings and smashed windows.
These efforts have all been aimed at rolling back the gains made by the mass women's liberation movement of the 1970s, which changed public opinion in favour of women's right to choose and influenced judicial interpretations of the law in women's favour. The 1969 Menhennit ruling in Victoria, the 1971 Levine ruling in NSW and the 1986 McGuire ruling in Queensland all set precedents in common law for a liberal interpretation of the clauses which state the circumstances under which an abortion can be legally justified.
Justice Newman's 1994 decision against a woman claiming damages from doctors who failed to diagnose her pregnancy and thereby denied her the choice to abort (in Newman's words, denying her the choice to perform an illegal act), was the first significant indication this decade that women couldn't be complacent about the access that earlier rulings had allowed. Newman's warning shot has now become a barrage.
New terrain
The most recent legal and legislative assaults on abortion rights, and the growing confidence of anti-choice forces, mark a shift in the political terrain, one which began a decade ago with the neo-liberals' onslaught against all of the gains of the progressive movements of the 1960s and '70s.
The systematic undermining of the wages and working conditions won in earlier union struggles, Aboriginal land rights, migrant rights and the right of all people to adequate welfare payments, which began under the Hawke and Keating ALP governments, are being pushed forward with a vengeance by current governments.
Paving the way for these policy assaults, a concerted ideological backlash has labelled workers demanding decent wages as selfish, welfare recipients as bludgers, Aborigines and migrants as receiving "special treatment" and women who choose abortion as immoral
In this reactionary context, the anti-abortionists are making alarming headway. For example, independent Queensland MP Liz Cunningham succeeded in 1997 in amending the Queensland criminal code to declare that life as begins at conception. In 1996, at the initiative of Senator Brian Harradine, federal parliament legislated to restrict access to the abortifacient (or "morning after" pill), RU486.
As abortion is re-stigmatised and denigrated, fewer doctors are prepared to perform abortions, especially second trimester abortions, and waiting lists are getting longer and the operation more expensive.
As well, recent state and federal funding cuts to public health services, including the Family Planning Association, and the privatisation of hospitals (more than 13% of hospital services are now delivered by the Catholic Church) are further restricting abortion access, for poor, rural and young women in particular.
For so long as decisions about the lawfulness of abortion rest with judges, and decisions about the appropriateness of abortion rest with doctors, access remains at risk.
Resuming the struggle
In the absence of a rejuvenated abortion rights movement which mobilises broad public support and is at least as well organised, active, committed and high profile as the anti-abortion forces, the religious right's campaigning will gradually shift public opinion in their favour. The evidence is already appearing: in 1991, opinion polls recorded 81% support for women's right to choose. By 1996, it had dropped to 77%.
The fact that a resurgent movement for abortion rights can re-win public support for choice was evident in WA last year, where support for the legalisation of abortion increased to 82% by the end of the campaign.
In Australia today, two out of three pregnancies are unplanned, and one-third of women will have an abortion at some time in their lives. Despite this, and the persistent majority support for women's right to choose, of the 10 most common medical procedures, abortion is the only one which is a crime. It is also the only medical procedure which health professionals can refuse to provide on the grounds of "conscience".
Abortion is also one of only two issues (the other being euthanasia) on which all major political parties allow their MPs a conscience vote. Their justification is that abortion is a "personal" issue. It is not: the decision about having an abortion is personal, but the right to make the decision is political. It is a right that should be guaranteed to all women.
For so long as any laws relating to abortion exist, this right cannot be guaranteed. Any laws, even liberal ones, give the anti-choice forces a foundation on which to campaign to restrict access. Without this possibility hanging over our heads, pro-choice activists would be in a stronger position to extend abortion access by launching campaigns for more funding for non-profit clinics and support services.
When abortion is criminalised, it doesn't go away. Rather, it forces women to turn to careless doctors chasing a quick profit or doctors who, fearful of being jailed, do not provide proper before and after care. Worse, women will resort to knitting needles, coat-hangers and toxic drugs administered in un-sterile, unsafe conditions, or even to suicide. A simple medical procedure thus becomes a potential case of septicaemia or haemorrhaging which can result in permanent infertility or even death.
Women's freedom to choose and access safe abortion is a fundamental precondition to having control over their lives. Being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term imposes irreversible circumstances that can alter a woman's financial status, physical, mental and sexual health, self-esteem, social relationships and life goals. Without access to abortion, women become prisoners of their reproductive system and of a social system which promotes motherhood as the valid role for women.
For these reasons, millions of women have fought and many have died for the right to choose. It is a fight that must be resumed.