Tory Shepherd: Hey Barnaby, keep your abortion myths to yourself
If you listened to Barnaby Joyce, you’d think Australia was a country of murderous mothers and heartless couples gender-selecting babies, writes Tory Shepherd. How about some abortion facts for a change?
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You can have your own abortion opinions but you can’t have your own abortion facts.
If you’ve been tuning in to the rantings of former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, you’d think Australia was filled with murderous mothers planning to leave their still-wet babes in the woods.
You’d picture malevolent couples planning perfect babies by aborting those they didn’t like. And heartless doctors hurling live infants into buckets to die.
This week, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian faced a (sorry, abortive) leadership challenge over her handling of proposed reforms (she wants NSW to join the rest of Australia in decriminalising it). Mr Joyce chimed in with a stock of cock-and-bull stories.
He said people would abort foetuses if they didn’t like the gender, or the colour of their skin. He talked about babies dying in corners.
Mr Joyce, arbiter of all ethics when it comes to reproduction?
He’s a man of fist-shaking high emotion, spluttering rage, and incoherent rants. These, chillingly, are the sorts of histrionics that can work.
Invoking emotion in politics works better than laying out the facts. Even if the “facts” are all fictions.
MORE FROM RENDEZVIEW: Stop lying about women who have abortions
Mr Joyce is not alone in his smearing of women as part of the anti-abortion push. There is a set of well-developed myths that are wheeled out relentlessly here — most of them copied from the US.
Here’s just a sampling of the grab-bag of bollocks used by the anti-abortionists:
Sex selection: The anti-abortion movement think that there is so much anti-female sentiment in Australia that women would decide to abort female foetuses. (OK, let’s be honest, they’re just dog-whistling about some communities). But evidence shows that decriminalising abortion does not lead to sex selection.
To be clear: There is some evidence that it may already happen, rarely, and no evidence that decriminalising abortion would change that.
Mr Joyce, once he’d wound himself up tighter than an IUD, suggested decriminalising abortion would lead to people getting rid of foetuses that were too black, or too fair. (It’s not clear how easy it is to detect skin tone in utero).
Contraception: This argument that women will use abortions as contraception suggests gaggles of irresponsible teenagers who would rather have a medical procedure than the Pill.
The latest South Australian figures are due out shortly (SA keeps better stats than most). And chances are they’ll show — again — what they’ve shown before.
MORE FROM TORY SHEPHERD: US abortion bans are closer to home than many realise
There are fewer teenage pregnancies, and fewer overall abortions. No rocketing rates. Most abortions are in women aged from 20 to 29, followed by those aged 35 to 39. Often women who’ve already had children seek them out.
Many of these pregnancies happen despite contraception. Others, because of rape.
Babies in the corner: This line about babies left in corners to die is either a misunderstanding of a famous quote from Dirty Dancing or it’s one of a range of misleading or false claims about the foetus.
The age limit on abortions is always controversial, and mired in myths about heartless doctors and foetal pain.
Post Abortion Syndrome: This is one of the most insidious lies told by the anti-abortion industry, because it is cloaked in fake concern for the women.
Part of it focuses on the physical danger of abortion, and that’s just plain wrong. Childbirth is more dangerous than an abortion.
The other part is the focus on mental health. They say women should be getting psychiatric care.
MORE FROM RENDEZVIEW: Talking about abortion should not be taboo
There’s even a mob in Adelaide who run “healing retreats” for women. What rot. Their clear aim is to promote a false idea of an abortion’s impact.
Most women are not traumatised by their decision. But they can be traumatised by other people interfering in or judging their decision.
The likes of Mr Joyce are certainly entitled to their own opinions on the matter of abortion. There are moral and religious nuances that may affect others’ opinions on the matter.
We just need to be clear that those opinions are worthless when they are based on lies.