Just before I start
in on the momentous news of the Greens’ policy on abortion, a tiny bit of
history. As many of you know, our current laws, which were passed in 1977, place
abortion firmly in the Crimes Act, and were based on a 400-plus page Royal
Commission report. I spent a whole chapter in my book “Fighting to Choose” pulling it to bits,
in between choking on my coffee, but here I’ll just pick out one bit that I
found particularly gob-smacking, and that I think has relevance to the 2014 Green-inspired
debate over abortion.
The report (and
subsequently the law) ended up deciding which reasons for having an abortion
would be legal (not criminal) and which would not. (You can look them up in the Act itself if you’re interested, go to section 187(A)1.)
The Royal Commissioners had to do a lot of fancy footwork to pull this off (and
tripped over themselves numerous times) but one thing they did not do was ever
find out the actual reasons people
have abortions. Here, I quote directly from the report: “In New Zealand no authoritative study has ever been made of the
reasons why women seek abortions.” (p. 201)
Just wow! You’re
making a criminal law about something you don’t know the first thing about. If
that doesn’t simply say: Sorry, no moral agency for you. No having your very
own personal reasons that relate to your very own life. We, MP’s with a “conscience vote”, will decide what reasons are
acceptable, even though we actually have absolutely no real knowledge of why any
of you do it. (Latest scare-mongering from the antis is that at least some of
us are doing it because we don’t want to have babies with female sex organs.
They want to outlaw something – sex selective abortion – that we have no
evidence is even happening. More on that below.)
So far as I know, the
“no authoritative study” of the reasons is still
the case. They still don’t know, but still want to say what the reasons
“should” be, by law. (Reminder: the Royal Commission decided against
recommending that rape be a ground for abortion because women would lie about
being raped. A majority of 1977 MPs agreed.)
Which brings me (I
know, when was I going to get here?)
to the Green Party policy, and why it’s a big deal. It’s basically saying (my words, not theirs) that the
Greens believe the state should not treat abortion as a criminal matter that, for
the vast majority of us, can only be excused if we can get two certifying consultants to state
that we are not mentally sound enough to go through with our pregnancy. And
that is what the antis are busy
calling “extremist”. Under the policy, abortion care will remain regulated, as every other
medical procedure is – it’s not like we have a medical Wild West out there for
health care that isn’t in the Crimes Act – i.e. pretty much everything else.
But aside from that really obvious ways it’s a big deal, there are lots of less obvious ones. A couple:
