The Sunday Times (Irish Edition)
Sunday October 18th 2009
• How long can we continue to dodge the abortion issue?
JUSTINE McCARTHY
A Colorado woman has been receiving death threats since publishing her memoir, Testimony of an Abortion Addict. Well, I don't imagine that Irene Vilar made the decision to reminisce about her 15 abortions in 17 years in the expectation of attracting a Pulitzer rather than a Howitzer.
The abortions, according to the 40-year-old mother of two girls, were motivated by spite against her "controlling" husband. It began when she was 16, and her husband was 50. He didn't want children. It became her routine to "forget" to take her contraceptive pills, become pregnant and get an abortion. How such a cycle of self-abusive behaviour was meant to exact revenge on her husband is a mystery but, then again, any woman who submits herself to 15 abortions needs not only her conscience examined, but her head too.
Irene Vilar is a gift to the anti-choice lobby. Such case histories of cold-blooded self-centredness are ripe for vilification; a favourite tactic of anti-choice campaigners.
I can still hear the hearts of the majority moderates in the pro-choice corner hitting their shoes in 1992 when Albert Reynolds, then the taoiseach, invited Sinéad O'Connor to his office for a chat before announcing a referendum on women's rights to travel for an abortion, and to access information about it. Those were the days when the Irish editions of Cosmopolitan came with blank pages where advertisements for abortion clinics appeared in the British editions, and the printers of the state's telephone directories feared criminal prosecution if they displayed phone numbers sought by desperate women.
By parachuting enfant terrible O'Connor into the debate, Reynolds became vulnerable to accusations of treating a life-and-death issue as a rock-star lifestyle choice. Then, he over-compensated by threatening that, if the electorate rejected his proposed amendments to the constitution, he would legislate to give effect to the landmark Supreme Court judgment in the X Case.
The X Case is the big, bad wolf. Even 17 years later, it can still make Mother Ireland quake in her boots. Under that judgment, abortion is legal in this country. It may be performed where there is a threat to the life of a pregnant female, including the danger of suicide. But just you try asking for an abortion in an Irish hospital.
Official Ireland is shamelessly lily-livered.
We have come through two Lisbon referendum campaigns in which Coir, one of the most vocal anti-treaty groups, propounded that the EU was itching to impose abortion on Holy Catholic Ireland. Most voters have the smarts to recognise scaremongering, but what was most demoralising was the spinelessness of politicians who dared not even challenge the deceit head-on. Don't mention the A-word, was the governing dictum.
It's understandable that politicians want to bury their heads in the sand after several of them had their homes and constituency clinics picketed by anti-choice activists (Fianna Fail withstood the invasion of an ard fheis), and Catholic TDs have been warned they risk excommunication for expressing support for abortion. The silence of the lambs in Dail Eireann would convince a visiting Martian that there's a consensus in Ireland that abortion under any circumstances would never be tolerated by the people.
Not true. Two years ago, after Miss D was sanctioned by the High Court to travel abroad for a termination on learning her baby would not survive outside her womb, a poll showed that two-thirds of people backed abortion when life was unviable after birth.
Yet, in the same year, when Enda Kenny said that, if elected taoiseach, he would not enact abortion law, no dissent was raised. It was a chilling measure of how effectively the moral majority has been gagged.
If Ireland is forced to legalise abortion, the order could come sooner rather than later from the European Court of Human Rights under the auspices of the Council of Europe. Three Irish women, backed by the Irish Family Planning Association, are arguing that their rights were infringed by the state ban. The women-named as A, B and C- wanted to have their pregnancies terminated after, respectively, suffering an ectopic pregnancy, receiving chemotherapy for cancer, and having children taken into foster care because of financial issues. They claim the criminalisation of abortion stigmatises women, increases feelings of guilt, impedes access to follow-up care, contravenes their right to life, and is discriminatory on the basis of gender and financial status.
Reports of the case on anti-abortion websites characterise the three women as having "travelled abroad to have their children killed". No wonder they insist on remaining anonymous.
The fault line in the abortion debate is the fear of being labelled pro-abortion. It strangles candid dialogue. It is a fear that has been exploited by the anti-abortion lobby, which pigeonholes as "pro-abortion" anyone brave enough to assert that it can be a necessary evil in certain circumstances. Even the supposedly radical Greens, when renegotiating the programme for government, did not address the issue, but found time to propose that the nation amend the constitution's enshrinement of a woman's place "in the home".
It is time we grew up. We cannot dodge this issue forever. Even by discussing it, society can benefit. There was a time when women who suffered miscarriages were treated with cruel insensitivity. They were told by well-meaning professionals to get over it. I know of one couple who were handed the remains of their dreamt-for child in a Calvita cheese box.
While the abortion debate polarised society, it also exposed the hypocrisy of a nation that, out of one side of its mouth, cherished the unborn and, out of the other side, treated children born dead as unworthy of normal human courtesies. Nowadays, prayerful respects are the norm in hospitals following miscarriages.
Every year, about 6,000 Irish women travel abroad for abortions. As recession bites, we can expect that number to rise because financial means, like it or not, is a strong motivating factor. More test cases will come before the courts.
We could avoid much of the inevitable hurt by taking our courage in our hands, along with our destiny. Is it so heinous to say that a 13-year-old girl made pregnant by rape is entitled to have abortion available as an option? Were we to try talking about this, our maturity might surprise us.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Pro-Choice Lobby Urged To Go Beyond Abortion Issue
THE IRISH TIMES SATURDAY OCTOBER 17TH 2009
KITTY HOLLAND
THE PRO-CHOICE lobby must progress its argument beyond abortion rights to include the rights of marginalised women to have children and keep them, a leading US campaigner on the issue has said.
Loretta Ross, founding member of the SisterSong organisation based in Atlanta, said there were disabled, poor, homeless and ethnic minority women whom wider society often judged “unfit to have a child and if she has one, to parent that child”.
Addressing a conference on reproductive justice, hosted by the Irish Family Planning Association and the UCD Women’s Studies Centre in Dublin yesterday, she said: “We need a new framework beyond the abortion arguments”.
“The saddest thing I think is when a woman chooses abortion for a child she really wanted to have, but couldn’t have because she doesn’t have healthcare, or she’s in poverty, or homeless, or she’d be kicked out of school, or she’d face violence from her family or the father.
“Women are blamed and while we have to fight for the right to abortion and family planning many women have to fight for the right to parent.”
She said if there was adequate support for mothers contending with disability, poverty, ethnic minority status, “many wouldn’t need to fight for abortions anyway”.
Aoife Dermody, co-founder of feminist group Lash Back, said that for many marginalised women the pro-choice campaign was irrelevant “luxury”. Their concerns were around “fears their kids might be taken into care, around housing, or childcare”.
Rosaleen McDonagh, Traveller and disability rights campaigner, said there was an assumption Traveller women were sexually repressed.
She said disabled women were mothers, carers, lovers and yet were viewed as dependent and were infantilised by wider society, and often judged as asexual. This was wrong.
KITTY HOLLAND
THE PRO-CHOICE lobby must progress its argument beyond abortion rights to include the rights of marginalised women to have children and keep them, a leading US campaigner on the issue has said.
Loretta Ross, founding member of the SisterSong organisation based in Atlanta, said there were disabled, poor, homeless and ethnic minority women whom wider society often judged “unfit to have a child and if she has one, to parent that child”.
Addressing a conference on reproductive justice, hosted by the Irish Family Planning Association and the UCD Women’s Studies Centre in Dublin yesterday, she said: “We need a new framework beyond the abortion arguments”.
“The saddest thing I think is when a woman chooses abortion for a child she really wanted to have, but couldn’t have because she doesn’t have healthcare, or she’s in poverty, or homeless, or she’d be kicked out of school, or she’d face violence from her family or the father.
“Women are blamed and while we have to fight for the right to abortion and family planning many women have to fight for the right to parent.”
She said if there was adequate support for mothers contending with disability, poverty, ethnic minority status, “many wouldn’t need to fight for abortions anyway”.
Aoife Dermody, co-founder of feminist group Lash Back, said that for many marginalised women the pro-choice campaign was irrelevant “luxury”. Their concerns were around “fears their kids might be taken into care, around housing, or childcare”.
Rosaleen McDonagh, Traveller and disability rights campaigner, said there was an assumption Traveller women were sexually repressed.
She said disabled women were mothers, carers, lovers and yet were viewed as dependent and were infantilised by wider society, and often judged as asexual. This was wrong.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Guardian: A is for Abortion
•A is for abortion
Branding women with a 'scarlet letter' won't reduce abortions. As a global study shows, contraception and education are key
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is forced to walk amid her small, Puritan community wearing a red "A" on her chest for the social crime of having sex outside of the bounds of marriage. Some things in America haven't changed as much as we'd like to believe.
A new law scheduled to take effect in Oklahoma would establish an online, publicly accessible database of information about every woman in the state who sought or had an abortion. While it would not require doctors to report the names and addresses of patients seeking or obtaining a legal medical procedure many conservative lawmakers think should be outlawed, the 37-question survey would (among other things) establish the women's race, age, education level and county of residence.
Women would be required to disclose if they are state employees and what method of insurance, if any, they are using for the procedure. It would require women to specify the number of pregnancies, children, miscarriages and previous abortions they've had. And it even asks for the length of the pregnancy and whether the women were using birth control when they conceived.
The surveys would all be sent to the Oklahoma health department, where state employees would aggregate the data into a searchable, sortable database and make it available to "researchers" online.
Aside from the fact that a woman working for the state health department could, in fact, have her survey reviewed and posted by her own colleagues (and have her identity compromised to her co-workers), there are other privacy concerns. In Cimarron County, for instance, the US census says that there are 2,500 residents, among them 18 African-Americans, 32 Native Americans, five Asians and 485 Latinos. If there is, say, only one 35-year-old African-American woman in the county with a college education who seeks to have an abortion, the fact that she did so will be immediately apparent to her neighbours – and to the anti-abortion protesters whose tactics include individual threats and harassment.
Legislators who passed the law are open about their motivations. They want to use the questionnaire and the online database to stop women from having abortions. Seemingly, they don't care whether they do so by intimidating women, allowing others to harass them or by making it difficult to obtain medical care. But the absence of any political will to do so through comprehensive sex education, economic support or a dedication of law-enforcement resources to protecting women from rape and sexual abuse seems rather telling about the anti-abortion movement's priorities.
A new study published by the Guttmacher Institute this week shows yet again that anti-abortion advocates' obstructionary tactics do little to reduce the prevalence of abortion. The decline in worldwide abortion rates is almost entirely due to a decline in unintentional pregnancy through access to contraception and education – and there's no correlation to the legality of abortion or not.
Making abortion illegal or difficult to obtain doesn't reduce its prevalence in a country. It simply increases the health risks to the women who seek them anyway. The only proven way to stop women from having abortions is to help them make their own choices about when to become pregnant.
Unfortunately, anti-abortion advocates are no sooner going to turn into pro-contraception advocates than they are to adopt the children that result from forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. As the pro-choice movement has often charged, they don't care about making it easier for women to avoid unwanted pregnancy or carry a child to term despite her economic circumstances. Their focus is on the foetus, and the foetus alone.
Republicans like to tout themselves as the party of limited government, and, this summer, town halls in Oklahoma and elsewhere echoed with the refrain that the government should never, ever come between its citizens and their doctors. But when it comes to reproductive health decisions, it seems, Oklahoma Republicans are proud to stand between their female constituents and their doctors, scarlet letters at the ready, and be the party of a limiting government.
Branding women with a 'scarlet letter' won't reduce abortions. As a global study shows, contraception and education are key
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is forced to walk amid her small, Puritan community wearing a red "A" on her chest for the social crime of having sex outside of the bounds of marriage. Some things in America haven't changed as much as we'd like to believe.
A new law scheduled to take effect in Oklahoma would establish an online, publicly accessible database of information about every woman in the state who sought or had an abortion. While it would not require doctors to report the names and addresses of patients seeking or obtaining a legal medical procedure many conservative lawmakers think should be outlawed, the 37-question survey would (among other things) establish the women's race, age, education level and county of residence.
Women would be required to disclose if they are state employees and what method of insurance, if any, they are using for the procedure. It would require women to specify the number of pregnancies, children, miscarriages and previous abortions they've had. And it even asks for the length of the pregnancy and whether the women were using birth control when they conceived.
The surveys would all be sent to the Oklahoma health department, where state employees would aggregate the data into a searchable, sortable database and make it available to "researchers" online.
Aside from the fact that a woman working for the state health department could, in fact, have her survey reviewed and posted by her own colleagues (and have her identity compromised to her co-workers), there are other privacy concerns. In Cimarron County, for instance, the US census says that there are 2,500 residents, among them 18 African-Americans, 32 Native Americans, five Asians and 485 Latinos. If there is, say, only one 35-year-old African-American woman in the county with a college education who seeks to have an abortion, the fact that she did so will be immediately apparent to her neighbours – and to the anti-abortion protesters whose tactics include individual threats and harassment.
Legislators who passed the law are open about their motivations. They want to use the questionnaire and the online database to stop women from having abortions. Seemingly, they don't care whether they do so by intimidating women, allowing others to harass them or by making it difficult to obtain medical care. But the absence of any political will to do so through comprehensive sex education, economic support or a dedication of law-enforcement resources to protecting women from rape and sexual abuse seems rather telling about the anti-abortion movement's priorities.
A new study published by the Guttmacher Institute this week shows yet again that anti-abortion advocates' obstructionary tactics do little to reduce the prevalence of abortion. The decline in worldwide abortion rates is almost entirely due to a decline in unintentional pregnancy through access to contraception and education – and there's no correlation to the legality of abortion or not.
Making abortion illegal or difficult to obtain doesn't reduce its prevalence in a country. It simply increases the health risks to the women who seek them anyway. The only proven way to stop women from having abortions is to help them make their own choices about when to become pregnant.
Unfortunately, anti-abortion advocates are no sooner going to turn into pro-contraception advocates than they are to adopt the children that result from forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. As the pro-choice movement has often charged, they don't care about making it easier for women to avoid unwanted pregnancy or carry a child to term despite her economic circumstances. Their focus is on the foetus, and the foetus alone.
Republicans like to tout themselves as the party of limited government, and, this summer, town halls in Oklahoma and elsewhere echoed with the refrain that the government should never, ever come between its citizens and their doctors. But when it comes to reproductive health decisions, it seems, Oklahoma Republicans are proud to stand between their female constituents and their doctors, scarlet letters at the ready, and be the party of a limiting government.
BBC News: Bans 'Do Not Cut Abortion Rate'
Bans 'do not cut abortion rate'
BBC News
Most safe abortions are carried out using vacuum aspiration
Restricting the availability of legal abortion does not appear to reduce the number of women trying to end unwanted pregnancies, a major report suggests.
The Guttmacher Institute's survey found abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in regions where it is legal and regions where it is highly restricted.
It did note that improved access to contraception had cut the overall abortion rate over the last decade.
But unsafe abortions, primarily illegal, have remained almost static.
The survey of 197 countries carried out by the Guttmacher Institute - a pro-choice reproductive think tank - found there were 41.6m abortions in 2003, compared with 45.5 in 1995 - a drop which occurred despite population increases.
Nineteen countries had liberalised their abortion laws over the 10 years studied, compared with tighter restrictions in just three.
But despite the general trend towards liberalisation, some 40% of the world's women live amid tight restrictions.
On some continents this is particularly pronounced: well over 90% of women in South America and Africa live in areas with strict abortion laws, proportions which have barely shifted in a decade.
Researchers also noted that while liberalisation was a key element in improving women's access to safer terminations, it was far from the only factor.
Even in countries where abortion is legal, lack of availability and cost may prove major obstacles. In India for example, where terminations are legally allowed for a variety of reasons, some 6m take place outside the health service.
The costs of unsafe abortions, which can include inserting pouches containing arsenic to back street surgery, can be high: the healthcare bill to deal with conditions from sepsis to organ failure can be four times what it costs to provide family planning services.
In the developed world, legal restrictions did not stop abortion but just meant it was "exported", with Irish women for instance simply travelling to other parts of Europe, according to Guttmacher's director, Dr Sharon Camp. In the developing world, it meant lives were put at risk.
"Too many women are maimed or killed each year because they lack legal abortion access," she said.
"The gains we've seen are modest in relation to what we can achieve. Investing in family planning is essential - far too many women lack access to contraception, putting them at risk."
Double Dutch
Western Europe is held up as an example of what access to contraceptive services can achieve, and the Netherlands - with just 10 abortions per 1,000 women compared to the world's 29 per 1,000 - is held up as the gold standard.
Here, young people report using two forms of contraception as standard.
Even the UK, which has a relatively high rate, fares well in comparison to the US, where the number of abortions is among the highest in the developed world. The institute says this rate is in part explained by inconsistencies in insurance coverage of contraceptive supplies.
In much of eastern Europe, where abortion was treated as a form of birth control, abortion rates have dropped by 50% in the past decade as contraceptives have become more widely available.
And globally, the number of married women of childbearing age with access to contraception has increased from 54% in 1990 to 63% in 2003, with gains also seen among single, sexually active women.
But there were still significant unmet contraception needs, and a lack of interest among pharmaceutical companies in developing new forms of birth control that provide top protection on demand, the institute said.
Josephine Quintavalle of the anti-abortion Comment on Reproductive Ethics said stopping women falling pregnant in the first place was an area where minds could meet.
"Abortion - back street or front street - is not the answer. Ensuring women have the means to end their pregnancies is not liberating them - they should be able to make real choices before they fall pregnant in the first place," she said.
"But that shouldn't necessarily mean taking pills every day. There will always be problems with access and cost, particularly in countries where people struggle just to buy food.
"What we need is to better understand our fertility - if there are just 24 fertile hours in a month, we need to work out a cheap, effective way for women to know when they can fall pregnant. That would be freedom, and that's what we should aim for."
COUNTRIES WHERE ABORTION HAS BEEN RESTRICTED
1997: Poland re-instated law outlawing abortion except when mother's life at risk or she had been raped
1998: El Salvador outlaws all abortions even when mother's life at risk
2006: Nicaragua similarly eliminates all grounds for legal abortion
Every year, an estimated 70,000 women die as a result of unsafe abortions - leaving nearly a quarter of a million children without a mother - and 5m develop complications.
BBC News
Most safe abortions are carried out using vacuum aspiration
Restricting the availability of legal abortion does not appear to reduce the number of women trying to end unwanted pregnancies, a major report suggests.
The Guttmacher Institute's survey found abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in regions where it is legal and regions where it is highly restricted.
It did note that improved access to contraception had cut the overall abortion rate over the last decade.
But unsafe abortions, primarily illegal, have remained almost static.
The survey of 197 countries carried out by the Guttmacher Institute - a pro-choice reproductive think tank - found there were 41.6m abortions in 2003, compared with 45.5 in 1995 - a drop which occurred despite population increases.
Nineteen countries had liberalised their abortion laws over the 10 years studied, compared with tighter restrictions in just three.
But despite the general trend towards liberalisation, some 40% of the world's women live amid tight restrictions.
On some continents this is particularly pronounced: well over 90% of women in South America and Africa live in areas with strict abortion laws, proportions which have barely shifted in a decade.
Researchers also noted that while liberalisation was a key element in improving women's access to safer terminations, it was far from the only factor.
Even in countries where abortion is legal, lack of availability and cost may prove major obstacles. In India for example, where terminations are legally allowed for a variety of reasons, some 6m take place outside the health service.
The costs of unsafe abortions, which can include inserting pouches containing arsenic to back street surgery, can be high: the healthcare bill to deal with conditions from sepsis to organ failure can be four times what it costs to provide family planning services.
In the developed world, legal restrictions did not stop abortion but just meant it was "exported", with Irish women for instance simply travelling to other parts of Europe, according to Guttmacher's director, Dr Sharon Camp. In the developing world, it meant lives were put at risk.
"Too many women are maimed or killed each year because they lack legal abortion access," she said.
"The gains we've seen are modest in relation to what we can achieve. Investing in family planning is essential - far too many women lack access to contraception, putting them at risk."
Double Dutch
Western Europe is held up as an example of what access to contraceptive services can achieve, and the Netherlands - with just 10 abortions per 1,000 women compared to the world's 29 per 1,000 - is held up as the gold standard.
Here, young people report using two forms of contraception as standard.
Even the UK, which has a relatively high rate, fares well in comparison to the US, where the number of abortions is among the highest in the developed world. The institute says this rate is in part explained by inconsistencies in insurance coverage of contraceptive supplies.
In much of eastern Europe, where abortion was treated as a form of birth control, abortion rates have dropped by 50% in the past decade as contraceptives have become more widely available.
And globally, the number of married women of childbearing age with access to contraception has increased from 54% in 1990 to 63% in 2003, with gains also seen among single, sexually active women.
But there were still significant unmet contraception needs, and a lack of interest among pharmaceutical companies in developing new forms of birth control that provide top protection on demand, the institute said.
Josephine Quintavalle of the anti-abortion Comment on Reproductive Ethics said stopping women falling pregnant in the first place was an area where minds could meet.
"Abortion - back street or front street - is not the answer. Ensuring women have the means to end their pregnancies is not liberating them - they should be able to make real choices before they fall pregnant in the first place," she said.
"But that shouldn't necessarily mean taking pills every day. There will always be problems with access and cost, particularly in countries where people struggle just to buy food.
"What we need is to better understand our fertility - if there are just 24 fertile hours in a month, we need to work out a cheap, effective way for women to know when they can fall pregnant. That would be freedom, and that's what we should aim for."
COUNTRIES WHERE ABORTION HAS BEEN RESTRICTED
1997: Poland re-instated law outlawing abortion except when mother's life at risk or she had been raped
1998: El Salvador outlaws all abortions even when mother's life at risk
2006: Nicaragua similarly eliminates all grounds for legal abortion
Every year, an estimated 70,000 women die as a result of unsafe abortions - leaving nearly a quarter of a million children without a mother - and 5m develop complications.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
A Woman's Plight Exposes Our Hypocrisy on Abortion
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/martina-devlin/a-womans-plight-exposes-our-hypocrisy-on-abortion-1882325.html
September 10th
A woman's plight exposes our hypocrisy on abortion
Martina Devlin The Irish Independent
I was having a tooth drilled when Ray D'Arcy began reading aloud a listener's email. His Today FM show was playing in the background but I paid no attention initially -- preoccupied by the dental treatment.
The story proved impossible to ignore, however: its details demanded a hearing. A 28-year-old single Irishwoman was explaining why she flew to England recently for an abortion, what happened during the course of that harrowing day, and how she felt in the aftermath.
She described fainting in the airport as she waited five hours for her return flight to Ireland, and the guilt, shame, and above all secrecy, which added their weight to this daunting experience.
If the procedure had been available at home, it would have taken two hours. Instead she caught two flights, underwent an 18-hour day and endured the experience on her own because of the stigma attached to abortion, which remains illegal in Ireland.
Her conclusion was that women should not be obliged to travel to another jurisdiction if they decide against continuing with a pregnancy; that the State is shirking its duty towards living citizens -- as opposed to unborn ones -- by denying them the option of a termination on home ground.
There were three women in that dental surgery on Tuesday morning: the dentist, her assistant and myself. All of us were riveted.
For the first time, I sat on in the chair after my molar was filled, reluctant to leave. I wanted to hear the outcome -- we all did. Afterwards we looked at one another, dazed.
The three of us did not share a viewpoint on abortion, but none of us felt anything but compassion for the woman. An appalling experience was intensified by the State's Pontius Pilate approach to abortion: do as you like but not in our back yard.
We venerate motherhood in Ireland, between our Virgin Mary cult, our Mother Ireland iconography and the general Mammy fixation.
Yet even within this context, it seems excessive that our laws make motherhood compulsory. That's what our anti-abortion decree amounts to -- mandatory mothering.
The nature of the human condition is to buck against what is obligatory, so women have always tried to circumvent pregnancy in circumstances where having a baby is unwelcome.
In previous years there were DIY abortions, sometimes with disastrous results. More recently, Irish women from both sides of the Border go to Britain for terminations.
Politicians find this export trade convenient, since it saves them from the inevitable furore that would be stirred up by legislating for abortion.
Tearful, scared and often alone, these women deal with their pregnancies in circumstances made more distressing by our unwillingness to accept that abortions happen, whether we legalise them or not.
No one takes the decision to end a pregnancy lightly, and no doubt many live with guilt. But they do what they need to, for a variety of reasons. Compulsory motherhood is never advisable.
By vetoing abortion, one sector of society is imposing its moral standards on another. It is not just making windows into women's souls, but usurping control of their bodies.
The subject is a guaranteed catalyst for dissent, with middle ground difficult to find. People are either vociferously pro-choice or passionately pro-life. Some pro-lifers denounce abortion as murder, and claim legalising it would lead to abortion being used as a form of contraception.
Few pro-choice advocates would argue that abortion is positive -- most accept it as sad, and best avoided -- but they defend a woman's right to decide for herself.
A woman would have to be
very stupid to see abortion as a birth control option. It comes down to the rights of the mother versus the rights of the unborn child.
For me, the rights of the living always take precedence over those not yet born, but many -- perhaps the majority in the country -- disagree. Their viewpoint is enshrined in the Constitution, which protects the unborn baby.
But this shield does not mean that no Irish child is ever aborted. It means abortions happen outside our territory. In this age of cheap air fares, no line is being held.
The abortion debate is coming to the fore again because it is being mobilised as ammunition in the anti-Lisbon campaign.
Alarmist tactics have already begun. European law cannot impose abortion if the Lisbon Treaty is passed, but protesters suggest that ratifying the treaty will bring about backdoor admission to abortion.
Abortion has only entered the discussion as a means of manipulating people into voting against Lisbon.
This is no climate in which to be eurosceptic -- indeed, we are in danger of self-destructing if we reject Lisbon a second time -- but activists urge anyone opposed to abortion to reject the treaty. It's scaremongering, but some find it persuasive.
European law cannot supersede our constitution and abortion law will remain a matter for each member state. But it is more convenient for anti-Lisbonites to stir up doubt and confusion.
Meanwhile, thousands of Irish women go to Britain to have their abortions, and the Irish State looks the other way. Hypocrisy has always been our drug of choice.
September 10th
A woman's plight exposes our hypocrisy on abortion
Martina Devlin The Irish Independent
I was having a tooth drilled when Ray D'Arcy began reading aloud a listener's email. His Today FM show was playing in the background but I paid no attention initially -- preoccupied by the dental treatment.
The story proved impossible to ignore, however: its details demanded a hearing. A 28-year-old single Irishwoman was explaining why she flew to England recently for an abortion, what happened during the course of that harrowing day, and how she felt in the aftermath.
She described fainting in the airport as she waited five hours for her return flight to Ireland, and the guilt, shame, and above all secrecy, which added their weight to this daunting experience.
If the procedure had been available at home, it would have taken two hours. Instead she caught two flights, underwent an 18-hour day and endured the experience on her own because of the stigma attached to abortion, which remains illegal in Ireland.
Her conclusion was that women should not be obliged to travel to another jurisdiction if they decide against continuing with a pregnancy; that the State is shirking its duty towards living citizens -- as opposed to unborn ones -- by denying them the option of a termination on home ground.
There were three women in that dental surgery on Tuesday morning: the dentist, her assistant and myself. All of us were riveted.
For the first time, I sat on in the chair after my molar was filled, reluctant to leave. I wanted to hear the outcome -- we all did. Afterwards we looked at one another, dazed.
The three of us did not share a viewpoint on abortion, but none of us felt anything but compassion for the woman. An appalling experience was intensified by the State's Pontius Pilate approach to abortion: do as you like but not in our back yard.
We venerate motherhood in Ireland, between our Virgin Mary cult, our Mother Ireland iconography and the general Mammy fixation.
Yet even within this context, it seems excessive that our laws make motherhood compulsory. That's what our anti-abortion decree amounts to -- mandatory mothering.
The nature of the human condition is to buck against what is obligatory, so women have always tried to circumvent pregnancy in circumstances where having a baby is unwelcome.
In previous years there were DIY abortions, sometimes with disastrous results. More recently, Irish women from both sides of the Border go to Britain for terminations.
Politicians find this export trade convenient, since it saves them from the inevitable furore that would be stirred up by legislating for abortion.
Tearful, scared and often alone, these women deal with their pregnancies in circumstances made more distressing by our unwillingness to accept that abortions happen, whether we legalise them or not.
No one takes the decision to end a pregnancy lightly, and no doubt many live with guilt. But they do what they need to, for a variety of reasons. Compulsory motherhood is never advisable.
By vetoing abortion, one sector of society is imposing its moral standards on another. It is not just making windows into women's souls, but usurping control of their bodies.
The subject is a guaranteed catalyst for dissent, with middle ground difficult to find. People are either vociferously pro-choice or passionately pro-life. Some pro-lifers denounce abortion as murder, and claim legalising it would lead to abortion being used as a form of contraception.
Few pro-choice advocates would argue that abortion is positive -- most accept it as sad, and best avoided -- but they defend a woman's right to decide for herself.
A woman would have to be
very stupid to see abortion as a birth control option. It comes down to the rights of the mother versus the rights of the unborn child.
For me, the rights of the living always take precedence over those not yet born, but many -- perhaps the majority in the country -- disagree. Their viewpoint is enshrined in the Constitution, which protects the unborn baby.
But this shield does not mean that no Irish child is ever aborted. It means abortions happen outside our territory. In this age of cheap air fares, no line is being held.
The abortion debate is coming to the fore again because it is being mobilised as ammunition in the anti-Lisbon campaign.
Alarmist tactics have already begun. European law cannot impose abortion if the Lisbon Treaty is passed, but protesters suggest that ratifying the treaty will bring about backdoor admission to abortion.
Abortion has only entered the discussion as a means of manipulating people into voting against Lisbon.
This is no climate in which to be eurosceptic -- indeed, we are in danger of self-destructing if we reject Lisbon a second time -- but activists urge anyone opposed to abortion to reject the treaty. It's scaremongering, but some find it persuasive.
European law cannot supersede our constitution and abortion law will remain a matter for each member state. But it is more convenient for anti-Lisbonites to stir up doubt and confusion.
Meanwhile, thousands of Irish women go to Britain to have their abortions, and the Irish State looks the other way. Hypocrisy has always been our drug of choice.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Queensland Abortion Law Change is Women's Best Hope
Queensland abortion law change is woman's best hope
Jamie Walker | August 31, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE pregnant woman at the centre of Queensland's abortion law standoff is pinning her hopes on legislation being fast-tracked into state parliament to allay doctors' concerns about performing drug-induced terminations.
Shay, whose unborn child is so severely malformed as to have no prospect of survival, has been told the pregnancy must be aborted for the sake of her health.
But with medical abortion services suspended due to the impasse between doctors and the state government over the legality of the procedure, no hospital will admit her.
"This is not a moral issue, it is to save someone's health," her father, Gary, told The Australian.
"Everyone should get off their high horse and get my daughter into theatre. Every day that goes by is a day too long for her."
The predicament of 19 weeks pregnant Shay, 24, has added an intensely personal dimension to the legal and political imbroglio that erupted after police moved to prosecute a couple in Cairns for illegally procuring a medical abortion, prompting obstetricians to demand the scrapping of criminal sanctions on abortion.
The government will amend a section of the criminal code, exempting doctors from prosecution for performing otherwise illegal abortions, to cover recently developed medical techniques involving drugs such as RU486 and misoprostol.
Police allege a consignment of these drugs was illegally imported by Cairns mechanic Sergie Brennan, 21, to terminate the pregnancy of his 19-year-old girlfriend Tegan Simone Leach. The couple are due to face Cairns Magistrates Court on Thursday for committal proceedings.
With state parliament sitting this week, Shay's family is hoping legislation amending section 282 of the criminal code can be rushed through, clearing the way for medical abortion services to be resumed.
Shay has been told a conventional surgical abortion would increase her chances of experiencing future pregnancy and birth complications.
Three Queensland women have been referred interstate for treatment since Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital stopped medical abortions last week and other hospitals followed suit, but Shay wants to be near her family for support. Brisbane obstetrician Adrienne Freeman has offered to perform a medical abortion at Shay's home or in a hotel room but the young woman says she would feel safer having it done in a hospital.
"The best outcome ... would be to let Shay have a termination in Queensland and for the doctors to know they are not going to get into trouble," her father said.
Cairns obstetrician Caroline de Costa, who has also suspended her clinical service using RU486, said yesterday amending section 282 would not remove doctors' concerns.
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians president Ted Weaver separately advised members "the threat of prosecution remains".
"It would not be enough for us to resume, no," Professor de Costa said of the proposed amendment to section 282. "We would still be concerned about the possibility of prosecution."
Anti-abortion group Cherish Life Queensland said "pro-abortion doctors" were running a "contrived campaign" to put pressure on the government to decriminalise abortion.
President Teresa Martin said no doctor in Queensland had been charged with an abortion-related offence since the late Peter Bayliss and Dawn Cullen faced court in 1986. The case formed one of the planks of case law that widened access to abortion, even though it remained banned by criminal statute.
"The law as it stands should be enforced," Ms Martin said.
Professor de Costa said the position of colleagues working in the public hospital sector was that they would not perform medical abortions while there was question over their legality.
Jamie Walker | August 31, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE pregnant woman at the centre of Queensland's abortion law standoff is pinning her hopes on legislation being fast-tracked into state parliament to allay doctors' concerns about performing drug-induced terminations.
Shay, whose unborn child is so severely malformed as to have no prospect of survival, has been told the pregnancy must be aborted for the sake of her health.
But with medical abortion services suspended due to the impasse between doctors and the state government over the legality of the procedure, no hospital will admit her.
"This is not a moral issue, it is to save someone's health," her father, Gary, told The Australian.
"Everyone should get off their high horse and get my daughter into theatre. Every day that goes by is a day too long for her."
The predicament of 19 weeks pregnant Shay, 24, has added an intensely personal dimension to the legal and political imbroglio that erupted after police moved to prosecute a couple in Cairns for illegally procuring a medical abortion, prompting obstetricians to demand the scrapping of criminal sanctions on abortion.
The government will amend a section of the criminal code, exempting doctors from prosecution for performing otherwise illegal abortions, to cover recently developed medical techniques involving drugs such as RU486 and misoprostol.
Police allege a consignment of these drugs was illegally imported by Cairns mechanic Sergie Brennan, 21, to terminate the pregnancy of his 19-year-old girlfriend Tegan Simone Leach. The couple are due to face Cairns Magistrates Court on Thursday for committal proceedings.
With state parliament sitting this week, Shay's family is hoping legislation amending section 282 of the criminal code can be rushed through, clearing the way for medical abortion services to be resumed.
Shay has been told a conventional surgical abortion would increase her chances of experiencing future pregnancy and birth complications.
Three Queensland women have been referred interstate for treatment since Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital stopped medical abortions last week and other hospitals followed suit, but Shay wants to be near her family for support. Brisbane obstetrician Adrienne Freeman has offered to perform a medical abortion at Shay's home or in a hotel room but the young woman says she would feel safer having it done in a hospital.
"The best outcome ... would be to let Shay have a termination in Queensland and for the doctors to know they are not going to get into trouble," her father said.
Cairns obstetrician Caroline de Costa, who has also suspended her clinical service using RU486, said yesterday amending section 282 would not remove doctors' concerns.
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians president Ted Weaver separately advised members "the threat of prosecution remains".
"It would not be enough for us to resume, no," Professor de Costa said of the proposed amendment to section 282. "We would still be concerned about the possibility of prosecution."
Anti-abortion group Cherish Life Queensland said "pro-abortion doctors" were running a "contrived campaign" to put pressure on the government to decriminalise abortion.
President Teresa Martin said no doctor in Queensland had been charged with an abortion-related offence since the late Peter Bayliss and Dawn Cullen faced court in 1986. The case formed one of the planks of case law that widened access to abortion, even though it remained banned by criminal statute.
"The law as it stands should be enforced," Ms Martin said.
Professor de Costa said the position of colleagues working in the public hospital sector was that they would not perform medical abortions while there was question over their legality.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Australia- Bligh to Rewrite Law to Abortion to Protect Doctors
Bligh to rewrite law to abortion to protect doctors
Jamie Walker | August 21, 2009
Article from: The Australian
QUEENSLAND will rewrite part of its hotly contested law on abortion to accommodate doctors' concerns that they may be liable to criminal prosecution for performing drug-induced terminations.
Premier Anna Bligh, confirming a report in The Australian today, said the Government would review a section of the Criminal Code that is supposed to provide a defence for doctors to perform an abortion, otherwise banned by state law, to preserve the mother's life or health.
Doctors at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital this week suspended medical abortions out of concern that section 282 of the criminal code referred only to surgical abortions and so did not cover them for terminations involving drugs such as the abortion pill, RU486.
The issue has been brought to a head by the charging of a couple in Cairns with criminal offences for illegally procuring an abortion, allegedly with RU486 and another abortion drug, misoprostol, smuggled into the state from overseas.
Ms Bligh, who is on the record as personally favouring decriminalisation of abortion, said today that doctors performing authorised medical abortions were entitled to same legal protection surgical procedures had under the law.
"What we are looking at is where a doctor provides medicine, that is authorised for any purpose, that they should be entitled to the same protection already provided under the criminal code for any authorised surgery, whether it is in relation to termination of pregnancy or indeed any other surgery,” Ms Bligh said.
Deputy Queensland Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said the Liberal National Party would be willing to support the change, provided it did no more than clarify the existing law, and did not make abortion more readily available.
Obstetricians at Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital were due to meet this afternoon to discuss an appeal by the Government to resume their medical abortion service.
NSW and Victoria both said today there were mechanisms for patients to be referred from Queensland on a case by case basis, and neither government would block such access.
Queensland retains the harshest laws in the country against abortion, with offences carrying up to 14 years' jail.
Ms Bligh, however, has ruled out wider reform of the contentious law.
Jamie Walker | August 21, 2009
Article from: The Australian
QUEENSLAND will rewrite part of its hotly contested law on abortion to accommodate doctors' concerns that they may be liable to criminal prosecution for performing drug-induced terminations.
Premier Anna Bligh, confirming a report in The Australian today, said the Government would review a section of the Criminal Code that is supposed to provide a defence for doctors to perform an abortion, otherwise banned by state law, to preserve the mother's life or health.
Doctors at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital this week suspended medical abortions out of concern that section 282 of the criminal code referred only to surgical abortions and so did not cover them for terminations involving drugs such as the abortion pill, RU486.
The issue has been brought to a head by the charging of a couple in Cairns with criminal offences for illegally procuring an abortion, allegedly with RU486 and another abortion drug, misoprostol, smuggled into the state from overseas.
Ms Bligh, who is on the record as personally favouring decriminalisation of abortion, said today that doctors performing authorised medical abortions were entitled to same legal protection surgical procedures had under the law.
"What we are looking at is where a doctor provides medicine, that is authorised for any purpose, that they should be entitled to the same protection already provided under the criminal code for any authorised surgery, whether it is in relation to termination of pregnancy or indeed any other surgery,” Ms Bligh said.
Deputy Queensland Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said the Liberal National Party would be willing to support the change, provided it did no more than clarify the existing law, and did not make abortion more readily available.
Obstetricians at Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital were due to meet this afternoon to discuss an appeal by the Government to resume their medical abortion service.
NSW and Victoria both said today there were mechanisms for patients to be referred from Queensland on a case by case basis, and neither government would block such access.
Queensland retains the harshest laws in the country against abortion, with offences carrying up to 14 years' jail.
Ms Bligh, however, has ruled out wider reform of the contentious law.
Australia- Caught in Abortion Crossfire
Caught in abortion crossfire
The Australian Newspaper
SPARE a thought for Tegan Leach and her boyfriend, Sergie Brennan.
Late last year they were faced with a decision 100,000-odd Australian women make annually: Leach, 19, had become pregnant and, after talking things through with her partner, is alleged by police to have resolved not to have the baby.
The steps the couple are alleged to have taken are now the subject of intensely watched court proceedings in Cairns, north Queensland. Police have charged Leach with the offence, under the Queensland Criminal Code, of procuring her own miscarriage, the first such prosecution for more than a half century.
But that's not all that gives this case its political needle; Leach is alleged to have terminated her pregnancy with contraband RU486, the abortion pill that was allowed into the country just three years ago, and only after federal MPs and senators exercised conscience votes to overturn a ban on its importation.
If convicted, she faces up to seven years' jail.
Brennan, 21, has been charged with one count of attempting to procure an abortion, an offence carrying up to 14 years' imprisonment, and a further count of supplying drugs to procure an abortion, punishable by three years' jail. Neither has entered pleas.
As detailed in the paper's news section today, the couple's problems don't end there.
Their home was firebombed with a Molotov cocktail and Brennan's car was smashed up. The young man believes the attacks were no coincidence, though Cherish Life Queensland, the state's main pro-life group, has strongly denied any association with violence.
The couple has moved to a new address in Cairns secured by closed-circuit cameras and guard dogs.
"It was pretty bad," Brennan tells Inquirer in his first interview. "Everyone in Australia knew who we were and where we lived."
Forces on both sides of the bitter abortion divide are mobilising across the country. In cyberspace, a dedicated page has been set up on social networking site Facebook to support the couple.
Children by Choice in Queensland is using the case to step up its campaign for abortion law reform; specifically, for the 110-year-old provisions of the criminal law against abortion to be repealed and for abortion to be regulated instead through the state's Health Act. Essentially, this is what Victoria did last year when it decriminalised abortions up to week 24 of gestation. Anti-abortion rights activists are organising in Queensland to block the renewed push for law reform in that state.
Toowoomba general practitioner David van Gend, who campaigned strongly to keep RU486 out of the country, has re-emerged to back the police in prosecuting the prosecution of the Cairns couple, saying bluntly: "Where consenting adults conceive a baby, both they and their doctors have a duty of care to that child that cannot be abrogated and any attempt to take its life must be restrained by law. Does our position mean couples should be prosecuted for self-procurement of abortion, such as with RU486, where there is no medical necessity? Yes. We either enforce, with an appropriate deterrent, some agreed limits on abortion, or sink to the depraved depths of the current Victorian regime."
Cherish Life Queensland president Teresa Martin says the group has had observers in court to track the case as it grinds through the judicial process. Leach and Brennan are due toappear at a committal hearing next month in Cairns, where a magistrate will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to put them on trial.
Martin insists that her people have no truck with the aggressive tactics adopted by some anti-abortion groups; they don't confront women outside abortion clinics, for example, though they sometimes mount "silent protests" there.
Anyone who used violence would be drummed out of Cherish Life, Martin says. "In no way, shape or form would we accept that."
The case has already exposed deep-seated problems with the abortion laws in Queensland. Cairns obstetrician and professor of medicine Caroline de Costa, who was at the forefront of the campaign in 2005-06 to bring RU486 into the country and established the first clinical service using the drug, has stopped prescribing it because of what she says is the uncertainty in the law.
There were two factors in this decision, de Costa says. Strictly speaking, elective abortions are banned by statute law in Queensland. Section 282 of the criminal code, however, does allow an abortion to be performed "for the preservation of the mother's life".
In 1986, Brisbane judge Fred McGuire interpreted this exemption broadly to create one of the planks in Australian case law that gives women access to elective abortion, even when it is banned by statute.
De Costa's primary concern is that the legal situation is unstable, and the prosecution of Leach and Brennan reinforced that.
"Cairns has become something of a centre of abortion radicalism, if you like, compared to the rest of Queensland," she says. "And so when this case presented we felt it just wasn't a coincidence."
The second issue she has with the existing law is the wording of section 282, which refers to "a surgical operation" to save the mother's life. How does the common law defence apply to her work with RU486, she wonders, when it is medical in its application, not surgical?
"It's not about the ethics or morality or what anyone thinks about abortion," she says. "It's about making sure that the law is clear and consistent with the rest of Australia."
All of which is something of a headache for Premier Anna Bligh, just what she doesn't need right now when the unions are kicking up over the state government's $15 billion assets sell-off and the Labor mates affair continues to unspool.
Bligh's Labor predecessors Wayne Goss and Peter Beattie each reformed Queensland's antiquated laws on prostitution but shied away from abortion. Bligh, to date, has continued to follow the path of least resistance, saying she would support a private member's bill if it happened to lob in parliament, but the legislation wouldn't come from her, and if it were presented she doubted whether it would pass.
Bligh, a former women's activist, said she feared access to abortion could be made more restrictive if the legislation were amended "in its manifestation through the debate".
That would be a terrible outcome for women, the Premier said.
Leach, awaiting her day in court in trepidation with her boyfriend, could probably tell Bligh a thing or two about that.
The Australian Newspaper
SPARE a thought for Tegan Leach and her boyfriend, Sergie Brennan.
Late last year they were faced with a decision 100,000-odd Australian women make annually: Leach, 19, had become pregnant and, after talking things through with her partner, is alleged by police to have resolved not to have the baby.
The steps the couple are alleged to have taken are now the subject of intensely watched court proceedings in Cairns, north Queensland. Police have charged Leach with the offence, under the Queensland Criminal Code, of procuring her own miscarriage, the first such prosecution for more than a half century.
But that's not all that gives this case its political needle; Leach is alleged to have terminated her pregnancy with contraband RU486, the abortion pill that was allowed into the country just three years ago, and only after federal MPs and senators exercised conscience votes to overturn a ban on its importation.
If convicted, she faces up to seven years' jail.
Brennan, 21, has been charged with one count of attempting to procure an abortion, an offence carrying up to 14 years' imprisonment, and a further count of supplying drugs to procure an abortion, punishable by three years' jail. Neither has entered pleas.
As detailed in the paper's news section today, the couple's problems don't end there.
Their home was firebombed with a Molotov cocktail and Brennan's car was smashed up. The young man believes the attacks were no coincidence, though Cherish Life Queensland, the state's main pro-life group, has strongly denied any association with violence.
The couple has moved to a new address in Cairns secured by closed-circuit cameras and guard dogs.
"It was pretty bad," Brennan tells Inquirer in his first interview. "Everyone in Australia knew who we were and where we lived."
Forces on both sides of the bitter abortion divide are mobilising across the country. In cyberspace, a dedicated page has been set up on social networking site Facebook to support the couple.
Children by Choice in Queensland is using the case to step up its campaign for abortion law reform; specifically, for the 110-year-old provisions of the criminal law against abortion to be repealed and for abortion to be regulated instead through the state's Health Act. Essentially, this is what Victoria did last year when it decriminalised abortions up to week 24 of gestation. Anti-abortion rights activists are organising in Queensland to block the renewed push for law reform in that state.
Toowoomba general practitioner David van Gend, who campaigned strongly to keep RU486 out of the country, has re-emerged to back the police in prosecuting the prosecution of the Cairns couple, saying bluntly: "Where consenting adults conceive a baby, both they and their doctors have a duty of care to that child that cannot be abrogated and any attempt to take its life must be restrained by law. Does our position mean couples should be prosecuted for self-procurement of abortion, such as with RU486, where there is no medical necessity? Yes. We either enforce, with an appropriate deterrent, some agreed limits on abortion, or sink to the depraved depths of the current Victorian regime."
Cherish Life Queensland president Teresa Martin says the group has had observers in court to track the case as it grinds through the judicial process. Leach and Brennan are due toappear at a committal hearing next month in Cairns, where a magistrate will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to put them on trial.
Martin insists that her people have no truck with the aggressive tactics adopted by some anti-abortion groups; they don't confront women outside abortion clinics, for example, though they sometimes mount "silent protests" there.
Anyone who used violence would be drummed out of Cherish Life, Martin says. "In no way, shape or form would we accept that."
The case has already exposed deep-seated problems with the abortion laws in Queensland. Cairns obstetrician and professor of medicine Caroline de Costa, who was at the forefront of the campaign in 2005-06 to bring RU486 into the country and established the first clinical service using the drug, has stopped prescribing it because of what she says is the uncertainty in the law.
There were two factors in this decision, de Costa says. Strictly speaking, elective abortions are banned by statute law in Queensland. Section 282 of the criminal code, however, does allow an abortion to be performed "for the preservation of the mother's life".
In 1986, Brisbane judge Fred McGuire interpreted this exemption broadly to create one of the planks in Australian case law that gives women access to elective abortion, even when it is banned by statute.
De Costa's primary concern is that the legal situation is unstable, and the prosecution of Leach and Brennan reinforced that.
"Cairns has become something of a centre of abortion radicalism, if you like, compared to the rest of Queensland," she says. "And so when this case presented we felt it just wasn't a coincidence."
The second issue she has with the existing law is the wording of section 282, which refers to "a surgical operation" to save the mother's life. How does the common law defence apply to her work with RU486, she wonders, when it is medical in its application, not surgical?
"It's not about the ethics or morality or what anyone thinks about abortion," she says. "It's about making sure that the law is clear and consistent with the rest of Australia."
All of which is something of a headache for Premier Anna Bligh, just what she doesn't need right now when the unions are kicking up over the state government's $15 billion assets sell-off and the Labor mates affair continues to unspool.
Bligh's Labor predecessors Wayne Goss and Peter Beattie each reformed Queensland's antiquated laws on prostitution but shied away from abortion. Bligh, to date, has continued to follow the path of least resistance, saying she would support a private member's bill if it happened to lob in parliament, but the legislation wouldn't come from her, and if it were presented she doubted whether it would pass.
Bligh, a former women's activist, said she feared access to abortion could be made more restrictive if the legislation were amended "in its manifestation through the debate".
That would be a terrible outcome for women, the Premier said.
Leach, awaiting her day in court in trepidation with her boyfriend, could probably tell Bligh a thing or two about that.
Australia- Abortion laws 'feed illegal drug trade'
Abortion laws 'feed illegal drug trade'
By Bronwyn Herbert for The World Today ABC News Australia
The president of the Australian College of Obstetricians has renewed the call for abortion to be decriminalised throughout Australia.
For many women, attending an abortion clinic is unaffordable or out of reach, so increasingly it seems some women are turning to what is known as a "medical" abortion - in others words, terminating a pregnancy by drugs rather than by surgery.
And the obstetrician Caroline de Costa says many of them are illegally buying a drug to induce their own abortions at home.
"The drug Misoprostol, which is legally available for a number of reasons in Australia, is also being used undercover or covertly by some women for procuring an abortion for themselves in Australia," she said.
"I think this is probably most common amongst some immigrant women from China and from south-east Asia, where the drug is widely used in this way anyway."
Dr de Costa is a professor of gynaecology and obstetrics at James Cook University's School of Medicine in Cairns. She is also an advocate of medical abortions carried out under a doctor's supervision.
Dr de Costa says it is disturbing to hear of women buying the drug illegally.
"I'm aware of anecdotal evidence that this is happening; I've spoken to colleagues who have also mentioned that they have come across cases," she said.
"We know that it is easy to access the drug on the internet, it is sold in Australia and prescribed in Australia for other purposes so it can be illegally accessed that way."
Medical abortions are available in many western countries including the US, Sweden and New Zealand, but not in Australia unless you visit one of a handful of gynaecologists.
Edith Weisberg is the director of research at Family Planning New South Wales and a senior clinical lecturer at Sydney University.
"I think the problem is that Australia is one of the few western countries that doesn't have medical abortion available as an option for women needing an abortion," Dr Weisberg said.
Another drug used for medical abortions is RU486 and Dr Weisberg says it is concerning to hear that some women in Queensland have also been illegally sourcing this drug.
"The problem is that first of all we don't know where they're sourcing it from and how good the product is - that's the first thing," she said.
"And the second thing is that RU486 used as an abortifacient is only about 85 per cent effective if you use it by yourself, so these women may in fact have incomplete abortions and need surgical evacuation of their uterus afterwards."
Ted Weaver is the president of the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians.
"We think that if people have to resort to backyard approaches for doing these things then we think that's probably not a good idea," he said.
"There's a potential for harm for women; these drugs aren't without risk and whatever the rights and wrongs of abortion we think that women, if they choose to do this, should be able to access a safe service."
Dr Weaver says abortion needs to be decriminalised nationwide.
"There needs to be legislative certainty for doctors that they won't be prosecuted for performing abortions, if that's what they want to do, and that women shouldn't be prosecuted for trying to access one, if that's also what they want to do," he said.
"So we need to take it out of the criminal code, essentially.
"Some states have enacted law reform, Victoria has and South Australia has, but in Queensland abortion is still contained within the criminal code.
"The College's position would be that it should be taken out of the criminal code and if people want to access that service, and that's their business, then those services should be provided in a safe way."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/04/2645919.htm?section=australia
By Bronwyn Herbert for The World Today ABC News Australia
The president of the Australian College of Obstetricians has renewed the call for abortion to be decriminalised throughout Australia.
For many women, attending an abortion clinic is unaffordable or out of reach, so increasingly it seems some women are turning to what is known as a "medical" abortion - in others words, terminating a pregnancy by drugs rather than by surgery.
And the obstetrician Caroline de Costa says many of them are illegally buying a drug to induce their own abortions at home.
"The drug Misoprostol, which is legally available for a number of reasons in Australia, is also being used undercover or covertly by some women for procuring an abortion for themselves in Australia," she said.
"I think this is probably most common amongst some immigrant women from China and from south-east Asia, where the drug is widely used in this way anyway."
Dr de Costa is a professor of gynaecology and obstetrics at James Cook University's School of Medicine in Cairns. She is also an advocate of medical abortions carried out under a doctor's supervision.
Dr de Costa says it is disturbing to hear of women buying the drug illegally.
"I'm aware of anecdotal evidence that this is happening; I've spoken to colleagues who have also mentioned that they have come across cases," she said.
"We know that it is easy to access the drug on the internet, it is sold in Australia and prescribed in Australia for other purposes so it can be illegally accessed that way."
Medical abortions are available in many western countries including the US, Sweden and New Zealand, but not in Australia unless you visit one of a handful of gynaecologists.
Edith Weisberg is the director of research at Family Planning New South Wales and a senior clinical lecturer at Sydney University.
"I think the problem is that Australia is one of the few western countries that doesn't have medical abortion available as an option for women needing an abortion," Dr Weisberg said.
Another drug used for medical abortions is RU486 and Dr Weisberg says it is concerning to hear that some women in Queensland have also been illegally sourcing this drug.
"The problem is that first of all we don't know where they're sourcing it from and how good the product is - that's the first thing," she said.
"And the second thing is that RU486 used as an abortifacient is only about 85 per cent effective if you use it by yourself, so these women may in fact have incomplete abortions and need surgical evacuation of their uterus afterwards."
Ted Weaver is the president of the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians.
"We think that if people have to resort to backyard approaches for doing these things then we think that's probably not a good idea," he said.
"There's a potential for harm for women; these drugs aren't without risk and whatever the rights and wrongs of abortion we think that women, if they choose to do this, should be able to access a safe service."
Dr Weaver says abortion needs to be decriminalised nationwide.
"There needs to be legislative certainty for doctors that they won't be prosecuted for performing abortions, if that's what they want to do, and that women shouldn't be prosecuted for trying to access one, if that's also what they want to do," he said.
"So we need to take it out of the criminal code, essentially.
"Some states have enacted law reform, Victoria has and South Australia has, but in Queensland abortion is still contained within the criminal code.
"The College's position would be that it should be taken out of the criminal code and if people want to access that service, and that's their business, then those services should be provided in a safe way."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/04/2645919.htm?section=australia
Thursday, July 30, 2009
It's Time The State Faced Up To Abortion Realities
The Irish Examiner - Letter to the Editor
It's time the state faced up to abortion realities
Thursday, July 30, 2009
HOW ironic if, as Dan Buckley suggests (July 21), a European Court of Human Rights decision in the A,B and C abortion cases becomes Europe's equivalent of Roe v Wade.
Anti-choice groups have influenced the Irish state's policy on this matter to the extent that it has failed even to legislate on the protection of a woman's life when, in the words of the X case judgment, there is a "real and substantial risk" that she will die because of her pregnancy.
It is surely no defence to claim that every woman in the country who finds herself in situation where she wishes to choose abortion has the option of exposing her most intimate concerns before a court in order to seek permission. It is time the state was honest and admitted that far from being a shining example of difference from our European neighbours, abortion is commonplace here.
Failure to face up to that reality and give Irish women access to those reproductive rights shared by most European women has meant that, as US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg recently said of the situation in the USA, "we have a policy that only affects poor women ... and I don't know why this hasn't been said more often".
A period of recession can only deepen the inequalities between Irish women who have the means to define and exercise their right to choose abortion and can travel to Britain, the Netherlands or further afield and those who do not. The matter of abortion involves complex issues of rights and ethics which Irish politicians have grappled with only at the most simplistic level – and rarely with a focus on the rights, experiences or health of women.
The Irish state's failure to address this issue and its lack of interest in or understanding of the difficulties pregnant women may face deserves to be exposed in an international arena.
Dr Sandra McAvoy
Douglas Road
Cork
Read more: http://examiner.ie/opinion/letters/its-time-the-state-faced-up-to-abortion-realities-97641.html#ixzz0MjQGEMI0
It's time the state faced up to abortion realities
Thursday, July 30, 2009
HOW ironic if, as Dan Buckley suggests (July 21), a European Court of Human Rights decision in the A,B and C abortion cases becomes Europe's equivalent of Roe v Wade.
Anti-choice groups have influenced the Irish state's policy on this matter to the extent that it has failed even to legislate on the protection of a woman's life when, in the words of the X case judgment, there is a "real and substantial risk" that she will die because of her pregnancy.
It is surely no defence to claim that every woman in the country who finds herself in situation where she wishes to choose abortion has the option of exposing her most intimate concerns before a court in order to seek permission. It is time the state was honest and admitted that far from being a shining example of difference from our European neighbours, abortion is commonplace here.
Failure to face up to that reality and give Irish women access to those reproductive rights shared by most European women has meant that, as US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg recently said of the situation in the USA, "we have a policy that only affects poor women ... and I don't know why this hasn't been said more often".
A period of recession can only deepen the inequalities between Irish women who have the means to define and exercise their right to choose abortion and can travel to Britain, the Netherlands or further afield and those who do not. The matter of abortion involves complex issues of rights and ethics which Irish politicians have grappled with only at the most simplistic level – and rarely with a focus on the rights, experiences or health of women.
The Irish state's failure to address this issue and its lack of interest in or understanding of the difficulties pregnant women may face deserves to be exposed in an international arena.
Dr Sandra McAvoy
Douglas Road
Cork
Read more: http://examiner.ie/opinion/letters/its-time-the-state-faced-up-to-abortion-realities-97641.html#ixzz0MjQGEMI0
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