Abortion still an issue in Tasmania

Abortion still an issue in Tasmania

BY ANTHEA STUTTER

LAUNCESTON — “Despite the emergency sitting of the Tasmanian parliament
last December, ostensibly to pass legislation to solve the abortion access
crisis, women still don't have full legal rights to abortion in this state”,
explained Kamala Emanuel, a family planning doctor and a Socialist Alliance
candidate in the seat of Bass for the July 20 Tasmanian election.

“Although access to abortion has improved, the legal recognition of
women's right to decide does not yet exist. Abortion in Tasmania remains
on the criminal code. In other words a woman's right to choose is still
treated as a crime, unless strict criteria are met. These restrictions,
as well as the need to improve access, particularly in the north, mean
that abortion is an issue in these elections.”

Two doctors must certify in writing that an abortion is necessary for
a woman's physical or mental health before it can be legally performed.
The regulations force doctors to be “gate-keepers” and deny women's right
to choose whether or not to have an abortion, Emanuel told Green Left
Weekly.

“After the new legislation was passed, the Royal Hobart Hospital announced
that it would not be providing abortion services again. Women in southern
Tasmania no longer have access to an essential service through the public
health system. Inadequate health funding puts pressure on hospitals to
cut services, and because abortion is seen as an optional extra (compared
to antenatal care for instance), it is an easy target.”

Emanuel pointed out that a new private abortion clinic has been established
in Hobart. “Abortion services are provided in a non-judgmental environment,
for a fee on top of Medicare (or bulk-billed if the woman's doctor requests
it). It is to be welcomed that this discounting facility is available.
However, it means that abortion is no longer provided for free. This adds
to the hurdles women face to access abortion.”

The establishment of the private abortion clinic coincided with the
decision by the Royal Hobart Hospital to withdraw from providing abortion
services. Emanuel described this as “a surreptitious form of privatisation”.
Without abortion services in Tasmania's major teaching hospital, the training
of staff to perform the procedure will suffer, Emanuel warned.

Emanuel was involved in the People for Choice group that formed last
year to press for complete repeal of the criminal code provisions that
relate to abortion.

“The decision to continue a pregnancy or abort is one that is an individual
woman's, and the law should not interfere. To really exercise that right,
abortion services must be accessible.”

The Socialist Alliance is calling on the government to establish a “publicly
funded, free abortion service that operates in both the north and south
of the state”. The alliance demands that abortion be removed from the crimes
act.

From Green Left Weekly, July 3, 2002.

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From GLW issue 498