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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