Lara Pullin
Women's access to abortion is back on the political agenda as the religious right attempts to whip up controversy. But the anti-abortion forces may have misjudged the amount of support that a woman's right to choose has throughout the population.
Though they have a few high-ranking MPs on side, even within the federal parliament this is not a debate they are likely to win, with Prime Minister John Howard unhappy that the matter has been raised at all.
Howard knows that any move by the federal government to restrict Medicare funding for abortions would not only be highly unpopular with women voters, but would sharply divide the Liberal parliamentary caucus, with most women Liberal MPs expressing support for the status quo on the issue.
The new push by the anti-abortion lobby followed a meeting of religious leaders and federal MPs — from the Coalition and Labor parties, as well as Victorian Senator-elect Steve Fielding from the Family First party — on the evening of January 31 at Sydney's Salvation Army headquarters.
Attending the meeting were representatives of Sydney's Great Synagogue, the Hindu Council of Australia, the Buddhist Council of NSW, Sikh Kirtan Prachar Mission of Australia as well as ministers from Anglican, Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Seventh Day Adventist and Mormon churches, the Salvation Army and the Wesley Central Mission.
Federal health minister Tony Abbott sent a message of support to the meeting.
The February 2 Melbourne Age reported that the organisers of the meeting were two Sydney businessmen — Linton Tinkler and Ron Boys. It reported that they had "produced the booklet Abortion and Religion in Australia, a collection of statements on abortion solicited from the churches last year.
"The publication, recently sent to federal and state politicians, was sponsored by the Foundation for Human Development, the education and counselling arm of the NSW Right to Life Association."
After the meeting, the religious leaders issued a statement opposing late-term abortions and calling for mandatory counselling for women seeking to terminate a pregnancy. The next day, National Party Senator Ron Boswell called for an inquiry into the number and type of abortions being carried out in Australia.
Abbott has made it clear that if anti-abortion federal MPs can't ban abortion outright, they will attempt to remove Medicare funding for late-term abortions. Since very few late-term abortions are even performed, and those that are carried out are undertaken for compelling social and or medical reasons, the religious right is simply using the issue as an ideological stalking horse to end Medicare funding for all abortions.
The big problem for the religious right is that its views on abortion are only supported by a small minority of the population. The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2003, conducted by the Centre for Social Research at the Australian National University, found that over 80% of Australians believe it is a woman's right to choose an abortion.
A national survey of GPs conducted last year by Quantum Market Research for Australia's leading reproductive health-care organisation, Marie Stopes International, found that 84% of GPs believe all women should have access to pregnancy termination services.
Announcing the findings of the survey on November 5 last year, Suzanne Dvorak, Marie Stopes International's Australian managing director, said that it was alarming that politicians were seeking to restrict women's reproductive rights.
"Political parties", Dvorak said, "should support the rights of women to determine their own reproductive lives — regardless of the personal beliefs of individual parliamentary members. Specific religious doctrine concerning abortion should also not dictate government policy concerning access to abortion services for women facing an unplanned pregnancy. Women must be able to make their own decision about whether to have a termination — and politicians should assist this process by ensuring that they are provided with access to un-biased information, support and the highest medical care."
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, February 9, 2005.
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