A belated Blog for Choice post
Jan 23rd, 2008 by Rebecca
Yesterday was the 35th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade - and as such, Blog for Choice Day. This year’s theme is “why it’s important to vote pro-choice, but rather than join in on the many excellent posts about the worsening situation in the States, I’m going to write about the situation here.
It’s been heartbreaking to watch the slow degradation of the Roe precedent under repeated conservative attacks over the last couple of years. Yet, as Australians passionate about reproductive rights, we’re at a different stage of the battle to our sisters across the other side of the Pacific. In contrast to Roe, our local version, the Menhennitt ruling (and the near-identical rulings that applied it in other states), has held up near-completely over the years. Attempts to push its boundaries have been roundly crushed either by the legislature (as in Western Australia) or by the judiciary (as in New South Wales), and the one attempt to introduce fascist anti-choice legislation (in the ACT) lasted about three years before Labor got elected and decided to decriminalise abortion altogether.
So these days, the worst reproductive justice challenge on our watch is getting the vile Harradine regulations banning all use of Australian aid for family planning purposes repealed. It is an utter disgrace that because of the beliefs of one independent senator who’s already been out of parliament for three years, Australian government policies have directly contributed to the worsening of the already miserable state of access to family planning facilities across the Pacific islands. This has not got the attention it deserves, and I have real doubts that many MPs would stand behind it today if public attention was drawn to its continued existence. There is hope on this front at least, as Lauredhel wrote several weeks ago that both new Liberal leader Brendan Nelson and noisy pro-choice Liberal backbencher Mal Washer have come out in support of getting rid of the Harradine regulations. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a response from the Labor Party as of yet, but if Liberal support is ongoing, I suspect we’ll see Labor falling in line to stop their left faction hitting the roof about it. Fingers crossed, these evil regulations might well be consigned to the history books by this time next year.
At the same time, I think there’s a need to ramp up the pressure on our state MPs to make clear that there are votes to be had in following the ACT’s lead and getting abortion out of the criminal statute books altogether. The religious right has been on the back foot on abortion here for years - they’ve failed dismally in their attempts to get US-style laws here, and lost in federal parliament on the RU486 bill last year. Yet so far, they’ve proven effective in spooking both major parties out of following the ACT’s lead. Nowhere was this more clear than the Victorian state election in November, when state Liberal leader Ted Baillieu publicly came out in support of full decriminalisation, only to quietly back away from that position a few weeks later when the fundies ramped up the pressure. The groundwork is there for further victories on this front, with backbenchers in a couple of states keen to press Private Member’s Bills and the Victorian Labor government currently pondering a half-arsed attempt at decriminalisation themselves. We need to be making clear to Labor governments in each state and territory that there are more votes to be had in reproductive rights than in listening to the noisy wingnuts on the fringe. The precedent of the ACT provides the perfect evidence of this, as for all the braying of the religious right, the Stanhope government subsequently went on to win the biggest victory in territory history two years after passing their landmark bill. It would be a pretty impressive feat if this generation could be the last to have to see laws on the statute books making abortion a crime - and for once, I think that might be a possibility.