BY PAT BREWER
CANBERRA — In a surprise move, John Stanhope, the chief minister of the new ACT Labor government, has announced that he will remove foetal images from a compulsory information booklet shown to women seeking an abortion in the territory.
The previous government voted in 1999 to include these images in the booklet, despite the unanimous advice of an expert medical panel commissioned by the then Liberal government.
In removing these images, Stanhope overturns the most controversial aspect of Paul Osborne's 1998 abortion legislation, introduced by the former Liberal government under much pressure from the Right to Life.
The legislation's passage took place despite written warnings from the director of public prosecutions that the bill contained serious ambiguities in law, as well as statements from the discrimination commissioner of the ACT Human Rights Office that the bill appeared to breach sections of the 1991 anti-discrimination act.
The legislation imposes on women seeking abortion a set of requirements that are not applied to any other medical procedure. These include:
- the mandatory imposition of an information package which includes the medical risks of abortion and carrying to term, the age of the foetus, pictures or drawings of a foetus at regular stages of development, and details of agencies dealing with pregnancy, adoption or family planning;
- a written declaration by the woman and her doctor that the required information has been provided;
- a 72-hour cooling off period after receiving the information package before an abortion can take place; and
- an offer of counselling for women seeking abortion.
The law has meant that in each and every case, the woman is forced to view material that may be offensive and in some cases psychologically damaging.
Supporters of a woman's right to choose were outraged by the legislation, which they say was nothing more that an attempt to impose guilt and anxiety, especially on those faced with the consequences of rape, incest or foetal abnormality.
There was no event or malpractice that triggered the bill. Abortion in the ACT has been legally carried out mainly in the clinic, where information and counselling were automatically provided by sympathetic staff. The clinic itself was only set up after a struggle in 1994 — previously abortions could only take place in hospitals, meaning there was virtually no abortion access in the ACT. Many saw Osborne's bill as an attempt to get rid of the clinic.
A new seven-member medical advisory panel of obstetric and neonatal doctors and nurses from the two major ACT hospitals as well as a psychiatrist appointed by the relevant professional association were established to approve the information package. It was this board that unanimously rejected the compulsory booklet with foetal images.
While welcoming Stanhope's proposed removal, many speculate whether this is a move to pre-empt and weaken a pre-election statement by Wayne Berry, newly appointed speaker of the ACT Legislative Assembly, calling for legislation to repeal all of the Osborne abortion bill.
Berry also foreshadowed legislation to decriminalise abortion, a move that he has tried to implement legislatively since 1994. In this, he is supported by newly elected Democrat MLA Roslyn Dundas, who has said that decriminalisation is one of the first things she wants to do in parliament.
Whether a repeal of Osborne's legislation, or the decriminalisation, are winnable is yet undetermined. While the Greens' Kerry Tucker has been a staunch supporter of women's right to make decisions about their fertility, the support of Labor parliamentarians is less assured.
Many have sympathies with the Right to Life or support aspects of control and measurement contained in Osborne's legislation. Berry's past attempts to decriminalise have previously failed to win sufficient support within the ALP, even when its composition was more pro-women's rights than now.
From Green Left Weekly, December 5, 2001.
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