By Kerryn Williams
MELBOURNE — More than 100 people attended a debate organised by the Melbourne University Debating Society on May 13, on the issue of whether Victoria should follow the WA path of abortion law reform.
The pro-choice team was Sarah Lance from the Pro-Choice Coalition and Lynette Dumble, a lecturer at Melbourne University. The anti-abortion position was argued by Meredith Gawler, former president of the university's Right to Life club, and Margaret Tighe, head of Right to Life. Pro-Choice Coalition members and other feminists displayed banners and placards in support of the pro-choice speakers.
Lance said that the legal reforms in WA have not gone far enough, and that Victorians urgently need to fight for the decriminalisation of abortion. She explained how the Australian government has been exporting its anti-choice policy by cutting foreign aid to family planning programs.
The Right to Life speakers used anecdotes to present images of fertilised eggs as helpless babies, and attempted to discredit Lance's statistics on deaths caused by illegal and backyard abortions.
Gawler concluded her speech by telling the audience that they "were once six-week-old foetuses", and thanked their mothers for having the "courage and dignity" to give birth to them. Tighe tried to "expose" the "contradiction" between the laws response to a man who kicks his pregnant companion in the stomach, killing the foetus, and to doctors who perform abortions and "walk free".
Dumble pointed out that, "no woman becomes pregnant to go through the thrill of having an abortion". She also noted that, while abortion is a criminal offence, one-third of all Australian women are technically criminals and therefore ineligible to stand for public office. She concluded, "if women are to have guaranteed autonomy over their bodies, the laws must be repealed in each and every state".
The result, as far as the audience was concerned, was a clear win for the pro-choice side.