Stop hiding behind 'conscience vote'!
By Margaret Kirkby
On May 11, 1970, the NSW police swooped on the Heatherbrae clinic in Sydney's eastern suburbs. The doctor, an anaesthetist and the matron of the clinic were charged under Sections 82, 83 and 84 of the NSW Crimes Act, covering abortion. They won their case (the celebrated Levine ruling, which liberalised interpretation of abortion provisions in the NSW act), but the legal fees were so great that the clinic was forced to close.
On May 20, 1985, Queensland police raided abortion clinics in Brisbane and Townsville. That night national television broadcast the horrific scenes of women running from the clinics with coats over their heads. Many Australians had the same thought: that could be me/my sister/my wife/my daughter.
The doctors, Dawn Cullen and Peter Bayliss, were charged. They too won their case — the McGuire ruling, which liberalised interpretation of the abortion provisions in the Queensland Criminal Code.
Two weeks ago, the WA director of public prosecutions authorised charges against Dr Victor Chan and Dr Hoh Peng Lee, under Section 199 of the WA Criminal Code, "procuring an illegal miscarriage".
Given the weight of the NSW and Queensland cases (and the Davidson case in Victoria in 1969), and given the majority public opinion in favour of abortion remaining accessible, the WA DPP is very unlikely to get a conviction against the doctors.
But whenever there is a threat to access to abortion, women get scared, even when the threat is not in their own state.
In NSW in June 1988, not long after the Greiner government was elected, Greiner did a deal with Fred Nile's Call to Australia party. In exchange for passage of some of its legislation, the government let Nile have a debate and a vote on an anti-abortion motion which had been hanging around since 1986.
The outcome of the deal was the passage of an anti-abortion motion proposed by Marie Bignold MLC, on the basis of the casting vote of the speaker of the upper house (Johnno Johnson, that stalwart of the ALP right).
Whilst the motion had no force at law, one of the Sydney newspapers erroneously carried a banner headline not long afterward that abortion would "return to the old days".
In the week after that headline, women were ringing clinics to see if they could still get an abortion. One even asked a clinic, "There won't be any police raids will there?".
Now we have similar fears in WA. One of the purposes of the attack in WA is to keep us all in our place, to make us all feel scared, to feel thankful that at least in our state things are OK and, ultimately, to quell our anger.
Blow-ups occur, and maybe women in one state are lucky enough for a liberalising common law interpretation of the provisions on abortion in the state Crimes Act or Criminal Code.
With each blow-up, we can find ourselves being distracted by the details of the case. These details in reality are not so important. What is important and necessary to be argued against is that abortion is still mentioned in the Crimes Act and Criminal Code of each state and territory. The fact that abortion is singled out provides a hook upon which anyone who is anti-abortion can hang an attack.
Its placement in the criminal statutes provides a mechanism for a police minister, a premier, a DPP, even an individual police officer, to decide they'll initiate their own interpretation of those provisions. This is precisely what the WA DPP, John McKechnie, is doing.
Abortion is not a crime. It is a simple medical procedure which gets kicked around like a football because politicians from both the major political parties engage in hypocrisy.
In the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party, you can hear them even now: "Oh, we can't guarantee a majority if we put up a bill — it's a conscience vote, you know. We can't risk losing what we've got", and so on.
If the Liberals and the ALP took a free vote amongst their members, not based on the factions, in each party they would get a resounding majority in favour of abortion remaining safe, affordable and accessible and being treated as a health matter, not a criminal matter.
Both parties hide behind the "conscience vote", that "the numbers" can't be guaranteed. The problem with that thinking is that the tenuous nature of access to abortion is never addressed.
When the WA case first blew up, Carmen Lawrence was quoted as saying that she couldn't believe it could happen. The West Australian in an editorial commented that it was little use Carmen Lawrence decrying what was happening now when, as premier, she did nothing to address access to abortion for WA women.
The Australian of February 20 reports that the WA women's interests minister, Rhonda Parker, has not been making any comment about the case. Parker is a committed Christian and a "pro-life" campaigner. A statement issued by her office says: "I do have a personal view on this issue ... however, as a minister I am aware of my position within a democracy and my public responsibility to take into account the views of all the community."
That's an anti-abortion activist who recognises what political representation is about! Why can't the ALP and the Liberal Party recognise that too and stop hiding behind the "conscience vote"?