A report in the October 29 Brisbane Courier Mail signalled that the Queensland state Labor government may finally legislate to decriminalise abortion. But not immediately — perhaps in 18 months time, well after the federal elections are over. Labor MP for Aspley, Bonny Barry, has been reported as preparing a private member's bill to remove abortion from the criminal code. Premier Anna Bligh has said she will support it, but has no intention of introducing a bill.
The report was denied next day in the Courier Mail. Barry, as a former nurse, has long been an advocate of decriminalisation of abortion. She was going to introduce a private member's bill in 2005 but was warned by then premier Peter Beattie that he wouldn't support it and that it wouldn't get up. Moreover, he threatened that any person who dared to raise the issue would never be a candidate for his cabinet. Maybe that was the reason Bligh was also scared off.
When the Beattie Labor government first got elected in 1992, Katrina Barben and I, as representatives of the Brisbane International Women's Day Committee, began visiting Labor MPs as a way of trying to find someone who would introduce a private member's bill to decriminalise abortion. We were met with all sorts of excuses and we eventually gave up in disgust.
Under Section 224 of the Queensland Criminal Code, a doctor or anyone performing an abortion can be jailed for 14 years and the woman undergoing abortion can be jailed for seven years. The law was introduced into the Criminal Code in 1897 as a racist law. It was thought Pacific Islanders ("blackbirded" into Queensland to work as slaves on sugar plantations) and Aborigines would outbreed the white population. So it was a means of forcing white women to go ahead with a pregnancy and to stigmatise any woman who dared to refuse as a murderer.
The incomplete 2005 bill drafted by Barry was disappointing as it included a number of proscriptions, only allowing abortions in the first trimester. It didn't allow for varying circumstances and unforeseen events. If the Labor Party finally puts up a bill it must not be proscriptive, but allow the question of an abortion to be decided totally by the woman. It's her life, her body and should be her decision alone.