SA anti-abortion bill
By Catherine Goff Brady
ADELAIDE — A private member's bill to further restrict women's rights to abortion has been passed in the state lower house by 23 votes to 21.
Liberal Member for Hayward Mark Brindal's bill is just one of three anti-abortion bills placed on notice in the lower house in the last three years. Intense lobbying by Right to Lifers and fundamentalist Christians is blamed for this bill's success.
The Brindal bill proposes that all "stand-alone" clinics, including those already in existence, will have to be individually assessed and passed by parliament. This will cause delays in the setting up of new centres, and closures for existing centres, as parliament deliberates on each case. There is the risk that some centres will not get the go-ahead and will be closed.
The bill focusses on the false assertion that women require full on-site emergency back-up equipment for the 10-minute procedure.
Brindal's professed concern for the safety of women is a cover for his real agenda. He has said that abortions are "murder of a kind practised by the worst of totalitarian dictatorships." n