Abortion bill doesn’t meet Liberal or social values test
If the NSW Government wants to decriminalise abortion there are better ways to go about it than rushing through half-baked legislation that doesn’t meet their party’s ideology or those of the voting public, writes Xavier Symons.
This week, New South Wales MPs began a marathon debate in the Legislative Assembly over Alex Greenwich’s controversial bill to decriminalise abortion across the state.
The Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 has been described ad nauseam as an “overdue update” to an “archaic” section of The Crimes Act. Section 82 states that abortion is a criminal offence punishable by 10 years in jail. Backers of the bill argue that we need to “modernise” legislation to make it consistent with contemporary liberal values — mainly the right of a woman to bodily autonomy. Indeed, Mr Greenwich apologised to parliament on Thursday that it has “taken so long to achieve this reform”.
Yet does this bill really reflect our liberal and democratic values?
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The proposed legislation is short and sharp. Yet in the little that it does say and in the volumes that it leaves out, it will enshrine in law a crude pro-choice logic that is, in reality, thoroughly illiberal and completely unrepresentative of the diversity of public opinion on abortion.
The bill states that a woman may request an abortion for any reason, or no reason at all, up to 22 weeks pregnancy.
At the moment abortions are permitted if a woman’s life or health is in danger. This may sound benign, but the dark reality is that Greenwich’s bill makes allowance for sex selective abortion, as well as abortion on the grounds of disability. So much for a bill that is pro-women and designed to protect the vulnerable.
Progressives place a premium on individual autonomy, yet this bill contains no safeguards to protect women from coercion.
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Under Greenwich’s bill, there is no cooling off period and no requirement of counselling independent of abortion providers, which means that when abortion is permitted for any reason, women become more vulnerable to pressure from their partners, family, or others than they were previously.
Freedom of conscience is also fundamental in a liberal society, and yet this bill requires that doctors with a conscientious objection refer patients to a medical practitioner who is willing to perform the procedure (i.e. a pro-choice doctor), even when a patient is simply seeking advice on their pregnancy options.
Considering the radical character of this bill, one would expect an unequivocal mandate from voters. So where is it?
The latest data we have on attitudes to abortion in NSW is a woefully vague and poorly worded 2018 survey commissioned by the Australian Greens, which focused on a cohort of participants that was in many ways unrepresentative of the broader population. And yet even that survey found that 37 per cent of respondents believed abortion should be allowed in “only in special circumstances” or not allowed at all.
A Galaxy Poll conducted in New South Wales in 2017 reported strong opposition to abortion past the first trimester. 74 per cent of respondents opposed late term abortions past 23 weeks, 60 per cent opposed mid-term abortions past 13 weeks, and 61 per cent said that doctors should have the right to refuse to participate in terminations in any way.
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This bill, then, is seriously out of step with public opinion on abortion. It relies on a mandate from Alex Greenwich’s inner-city latte and chardonnay set, not a mandate from New South Wales voters. I wonder if Greenwich has ever tried to defend his bill at a rally in Bankstown?
It is a poorly disguised bait and switch that relys on the Crimes Act, which has very little — if any — impact on the provision of abortion today. The rhetoric of modernisation is really just a ruse to ram through blatantly ideological legislation with no public consultation.
If the NSW Government truly wants to introduce a liberal abortion law, they need to bring forward something that strikes the balance between the competing pro-life and pro-choice views in the community and balances out women’s rights and a respect for human life.
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Instead, voters are faced with a neo-liberal law that services the interests of the abortion industry at the expense of vulnerable persons, purports to liberate women while tying the hands of some of our best clinicians and panders to an inner-city minority while ignoring the common view of voters in the Western suburbs, and, ironically, modern societal norms.
A parliamentary committee for adequate consultation is what’s needed — not just for the law to strike a balance, but for members hoping to hold onto their seats for longer than the next three years. But all the information coming out suggests that there is an intransigent and powerful minority of politicians who are intent on rushing the bill through, come what may.
But make no mistake, there will be consequences for their disdain. Because if anything is “archaic”, it’s pseudo-aristocrats looking down their nose at voters and saying “we know best what’s good for you”.
Xavier Symons is a research associate at the Institute for Ethics and Society, University of Notre Dame Australia
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