The case for decriminalising abortion is not so simple

Melinda Tankard Reist, in a book made available to the commission, Giving Sorrow Words, tells the stories of grief of 18 women who went through an abortion. Anne Lastman, an Australian psychologist has written Redeeming Grief based upon her counselling of in excess of 1,000 women who had undergone an abortion. These stories are only going to multiply and they cry out to be heard.

We strenuously object to the second-class treatment for women considering and undergoing abortions at a time of great emotional stress.

An additional problem with the commission’s report is that it has misapplied the part of the terms of reference where it is stated, “the government’s aim is that reform should neither expand the extent to which terminations occur, nor restrict current access to services” (emphasis added) to mean “not expanding or restricting current abortion services” (p6). The commission has failed to consider the point about the number of terminations in the terms of reference, focusing only on access to services. Presumably the Government is not opposed to a reduction in the number of abortions provided they are not brought about by a restriction in current access to services.

There is another matter that needs to be raised.

Late term abortions are particularly insidious and barbaric. If the mother is judged to be at risk because of a pregnancy, that risk doesn’t necessarily require the killing of the unborn baby - and there can be no doubt that a real live baby is involved since premature babies survive at 25 weeks and even from 22 weeks. In other words, the risk to the mother can be removed in these cases by inducing the birth of the child.

Why should the government and the wider public consider the points that churches are raising?

Abortion is a controversial subject and if the government simply accepts the commission’s recommendations, including opting for one of the three models presented, it would leave itself open to the charge that its reform of the law was solely for the benefit of those involved in the abortion industry.

The requirement to consider community standards cannot be reduced to assessing community attitudes. “Standards” inevitably mean consideration of ethical and moral issues.

Furthermore, the report’s key findings that about 80 per cent of Australians support a woman’s right to choose (p66) and no more than 10 per cent of the Australian population opposes abortion outright (report, p67) is a very poor conclusion based on the data available to the commission.

We do not contest that a majority of Australians support a woman’s right to choose an abortion, but what the Sexton survey, commissioned by the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute and presented to the commission, clearly demonstrated was that when confronted with the reality of one abortion for every three live births, large majorities of Australians said that the rate of abortion was too high and that those measures ruled out by the commission as noted above should in fact be acted upon.

It is not good enough to object to presenting data on the rate of abortion to survey respondents as “a negative proposition” (report, p61) when in fact it is a factual and relevant proposition. No one celebrates an abortion, whereas the delivery of a child is normally greeted with joy.

The fact that the commission thought it necessary to consult with no less than eight pro life Christian groups out of a total of 36 groups seems to indicate that they know the unease if not outright opposition to abortion is certainly greater than the 10 per cent cited in its report.

That Australians consider the number of abortions to be too high and that measures exist, without taking away a woman’s right to an abortion, to reduce the level should be accepted and acted upon by government as readily as it might accept that most Australians accept a woman’s right to choose an abortion.

It is worth repeating the point: none of the commission’s recommendations benefit women and/or the life that they carry in the womb. A woman caught with an unplanned for pregnancy, often without the support of her partner is in an incredibly vulnerable position. It will not do for the government to wash its hands, like Pontius Pilate, of its responsibilities towards such pregnant women in such a predicament.

Two hundred years ago slavery was abolished through the endeavours of good men and women motivated by Christian charity. When will we see such charity displayed to our woman and their unborn children often abandoned and contemplating such a grievous procedure as an abortion?