Abortion bill an attack on the poor
The NSW Legislative Council will soon be debating women's right to abortion.
If passed, new abortion legislation, introduced by Reverend Fred Nile, will ban doctors from performing abortions in privately run clinics and hospitals. A doctor found to have broken the law would automatically be guilty of professional misconduct and be liable to deregistration and fines up to $5000.
Previous attempts by Nile to force the debate have failed. But he and his wife Elaine now hold the balance of power in the upper house and have extracted the debate from a Greiner government dependent on their support for its anti-union legislation.
In effect, legislators have chosen to jeopardise women's fundamental right to control their bodies for short-term political expedience.
Democrat MLC Elizabeth Kirkby voted for the bill to be debated, but has stated her opposition to the legislation.
This stand gives the strongly anti-abortion NSW Labor right wing, led by the convener of the parliamentary prayer group, John Johnson, the chance to link up with the holy-roller right in the National and Liberal ranks.
And matters wouldn't stop there.
Nile has foreshadowed other legislation, including a second anti-abortion bill giving full legal rights to the unborn and another banning the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, "in view of the AIDS epidemic and the provocation of assaults on homosexuals".
The debate is not about whether abortions will continue to happen. If all private abortion clinics are shut down, women who can afford the medical and travel expenses will be able to obtain abortions interstate. What Nile's legislation would achieve is a restriction of the rights of poorer women to prompt, high quality, safe abortion. With the state hospital system already severely overloaded, these women will be denied specialist care and be forced into the queues of the public hospitals.
The deterioration of the education and transport systems and health services demonstrates that the NSW government is unprepared to make services available to people who cannot afford to buy them privately. The abortion debate is, amongst other things, part of this. It is about the rich and the poor, a debate between government and people with little money and less political power.
Response from the women's movement has been immediate. Two days after the vote, a special meeting of the Women's Abortion Action Campaign decided on a campaign in the weeks leading up to the parliamentary vote, expected to be on September 12.
Planned actions include a rally and demonstration on Saturday, September 7, at Sydney Town Hall Square, starting at 11.00 a.m. WAAC will be meeting weekly on Wednesdays at 6.00
p.m. at Women's Liberation House, 63 Palace Street, Petersham. All activists are welcome.
By Deborah McCulloch