Women's Electoral Lobby believes that every woman should have the freedom to choose whether to have an abortion or not.
Women who have money can always procure an abortion.
WEL remembers the terrible consequences when poor women took matters into their own hands and inserted metal coat hangers into their vaginas in order to procure an abortion.
"Abortion is readily available in Melbourne through public and private providers. There are no private abortion clinics in regional Victoria and only a small number of regional public hospitals provide abortion. Most women in regional Victoria must travel to Melbourne to access abortion services. Abortion is regulated by health legislation, hospital regulations and laws that govern the health profession. These laws are comprehensive and the commission does not recommend any further specific regulation of abortion services."
The VLRC presented three models for Parliament to consider.
Model A codifies the Menhennitt rule on abortion which is lawful if a doctor determines a risk of harm to the woman. The risk of harm is defined in three ways:
(1) must be a necessary and proportionate response to the risk of harm,
(2) physical and mental health includes economic, social or medical matters,
(3) reflects current practice.
Model B provides for a two-staged approach with different rules for early abortions and late abortions which are defined as over 24 weeks. The only requirements for early abortion are the woman's consent and the procedure to be performed by a medical practitioner. After 24 weeks, abortion is lawful if a doctor determines risk of harm to the woman as in Model A.
Model C regulates abortion in the same way as all medical procedures with the woman's consent and performed by a medical practitioner. This is the law in the ACT and it appears no problems have arisen with this.
Model B was passed by the Victorian State Parliament.
Click here to see our great poster with all the details. You can download or send the poster to all your contacts and your own politicians.
Click here to see the VLRC Recommendations or read the Final Report of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, May 2008, "Law of Abortion" at www.lawreform.vic.gov.au
Members should be aware that the statistics often quoted for abortion numbers come from Medicare statistics which include all curettes, which of course are ordinary procedures for many women with spontaneous abortions or at menopause.
WEL National Policy and Abortion Statistics (see below) spell out abortion definitions and the sane and sensible situation on freedom to choose safe abortion for all Australian women.
We note that the International Alliance of Women (IAW) states in its Action Programme 2005-2007 the following:- "The self-determination of women in matters relating to reproductive health must be recognised (using the World Charter on Sexual and Reproductive Rights of the IPPF). The IAW therefore urges governments that reproductive rights be implemented for all women, especially the right to refuse unprotected sex, unwanted pregnancies and unwanted abortions."
Legal advice on a proposed Health Amendment Bill clarifies that placing abortion in the Health Act will carry very severe penalties for doctors, health professionals and in fact any one involved (willingly or unwittingly) other than the woman undertaking the abortion. The advice shows other disturbing implications as well.
The women's health media notes show a number of circumstances that abortion would be illegal under the Health Amendment Act which are carried out today under "current practice". It is appalling that abortion due to foetal abnormality is illegal and still would be so under the Health Amendment Bill.
Support has been given by WEL member Jo Wainer as a spokeswoman of the Association for the Legal Right to Abortion (ALRA).
Doctors' Dilemma: As abortion in all States except Victoria and the ACT is still illegal, there is a lack of doctors willing to deal with unwanted pregnancies in some rural areas, according to Suzie Reid, of the Goulburn Women's Health, speaking on Channel 10 on 17 August 2007. Abortion is still a criminal act that is not prosecuted by police but doctors can be harassed where they may visit a small town only once a week. There is a very powerful anti-abortion lobby there, but this only represents 16% of the population. Rural women sometimes have to travel to cities, resulting in problems of accommodation, cost and child care for other children. Abortion must be decriminalised everywhere, and, in Victoria and the ACT, where this has been done, there has been no increase in its incidence.
More information at Women's Health Victoria: www.whv.org.au/topical/abortion.htm and the links below:
Abortion Providers.doc
Abortion rate hits 91.doc
Abortion Update 16 March 05.doc
Christopher Pearson on Abortion.doc
Erica Jong on Abortion and women's rights.doc
Falling rates of teen pregnancy.doc
Letters and articles on abortion.doc
Political opinions on Abortion and RU486.doc
RU486 fax from WEL Victoria to PM.doc
The right of women to be informed.doc
WEL affirms that women of all ages (regardless of marital status, religious affiliation, cultural background and sexual preferences) must have access to:
WEL believes that abortion should be regulated under health laws.
WEL believes that all references to non-surgical abortion be removed from the criminal codes of all jurisdications in Australia.
WEL believes that surgical abortion, performed by qualified health professionals, should be removed from the criminal codes of all jurisdications in Australia.
Definitions of Abortion
Abortion is the interruption of pregnancy before the 21st week (after that time, the term is miscarriage). This can occur in two ways:
- Spontaneous abortion, which is an abortion that occurs naturally.
- Induced abortion is where the pregnancy is interruption by artificial means (also called termination of pregnancy or TOP).
How the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) analyses statistics.
Hospitals categorise admitted patients using the coding system ICD-10-AM which contains thousands of different diagnosis and procedure codes. However, in order to create meaningful data for clinical, management and statistical purposes, it is necessary to summarise these thousands of codes into larger groups (called Diagnosis Related Groups or DRGs). In the hospital, the two types of abortion are given different diagnosis codes but these codes are later grouped together into a DRG category labelled 'Abortions'. Because, to the lay person, 'abortion' means only 'termination of pregnancy', this amalgamation of data leads people to interpret published figures of 'abortions' as if they are counts of 'terminations of pregnancy'. It is necessary to have access to data at the level of the diagnosis code in order to separate induced abortions from spontaneous abortions. Australian hospitals report de-identified data at the individual code level to their respective State or Territory health authority who then forward the data to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). AIHW is thus able to analyse the data to identify the count of induced abortion (terminations of pregnancy).
CLICK here to read the 2007 Report of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
