Abortion laws in Australia are determined on a state-by-state basis, with some significant variation between the various states. There is no Commonwealth law that establishes a set of rules across all jurisdictions in Australia. At the time of writing this there is a case in Queensland where a woman is being prosecuted for procuring an abortion by illegally obtaining RU486, yet abortion on demand is legal in the Australian Capital Territory.
The Sanctity of Life and Legislation in Australia
In Victoria, the law allows abortion for any reason up until the woman is 24 weeks pregnant, and allows the doctor to perform an abortion after 24 weeks where the doctor “reasonably believes that the abortion is appropriate in all circumstances”, and the doctor has consulted at least one other doctor who believes the abortion is appropriate. This means that abortion is allowed in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy for no reason, and in the remainder of the pregnancy for any reason. The effect of this is that abortion on demand is legal in Victoria in all stages of pregnancy. In addition to this, the Victorian law compels medical professionals to have involvement in abortion if requested, either by referral to another medical practitioner, or by requiring their involvement in a “emergency abortion”.
The abortion laws vary in the other states and territories as well due to a combination of state legislation and court rulings. In general, the laws in the other Australian states and territories allow abortion for the sake of life, physical health, mental health, or socio-economic reasons. This effectively results in a case of abortion on demand around Australia. Abortions are also partially covered under the Medicare system, which is Australia’s public health system. At the same time, most Australians support these laws, presenting a major challenge to those who wish to advance the culture of life in the face of an entrenched culture of death.
Public Sentiment and Legal Positivism
The Abortion Law Reform Act 2008 was introduced to the State Parliament of Victoria by the Government to align the abortion laws of Victoria with the existing practice of abortion in Victoria. In the words of Woman’s Affairs Minister Maxine Morand, “Legislation to come before the Parliament this week will provide Victorians with a modern legislative framework that reflects community attitudes and current clinical practice.” [1] This presents a major challenge to pro-lifers as the majority of Australians are in favour of legal abortion. But then, the majority of Britons were in favour of slavery when William Wilberforce began his Parliamentary career. It takes persistence.
Part of the issue surrounding abortion in Australia is that it is seen primarily as an issue in women’s healthcare, one that has everything to do with a medical condition called pregnancy, and nothing to do with killing an innocent human being.
A 2006 Roy Morgan poll asked Australians, “Do you approve of the termination of unwanted pregnancies through surgical abortion?” A clear majority of the Australians polled, 65%, approved of surgical abortion while 22% did not approve. An AC Neilson poll in February 2005 found that 56% of Australians approved of the existing abortion laws, 16% wanted the laws changed to make abortion more accessible, while 17% wanted the laws changed to make abortion less accessible.
There is a problem with legislating on the basis of opinion polls: What is true and just never changes, but public opinion can change from one year to another. The analogy with slavery has already been pointed out. Slavery has been a widespread practice in human society, with slavery only being abolished in the British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 . The abolitionists faced a tough battle to abolish slavery: Now the fact of the evil of slavery is taken for granted. But slavery was still an evil while it was practiced.
The argument that abortion is immoral is also based on premises that never change. The first premise is that it is always wrong to kill an innocent human being, innocence being the condition where someone is neither an aggressor nor has committed a crime where death is a just punishment. The second premise is that the unborn is an innocent human being. Of course, the purpose of an abortion is to kill the unborn child. The humanity of the unborn child from conception is a matter of scientific fact: The unborn is genetically human from conception different to his mother; the unborn is morphologically human from early in the pregnancy.
One of the interesting points that goes with this is that many of the arguments put forward for legal abortion are actually arguments attempting to justify the killing of an innocent human being. Arguments on the basis of rape, incest, or the socio-economic circumstances surrounding the pregnancy do not deal with the humanity of the unborn child: They argue that it is acceptable to kill an innocent human being given those conditions. Arguments on the basis of viability and fetal development are the only attempts to undermine the premise that the unborn is human.
The fact that the unborn is human is defended by a one of the leading pro-abortion thinkers to come out of Victoria, Peter Singer. Singer attacks the premise that it is wrong to kill an innocent human being. In terms of the argument that the unborn child is not a human being, Singer states that:
“[The argument that a fetus is not alive] is a resort to a convenient fiction that turns an evidently living being into one that legally is not alive. Instead of accepting such fictions, we should recognise that the fact that a being is human, and alive, does not in itself tell us whether it is wrong to take that being’s life.” Rethinking Life & Death
However, the fact that the law change was brought about on the basis of “community attitudes” should also give pro-lifers some hope. The law change was not brought about as a result of right reason, but rather by who could command a majority in the State Parliament. Community attitudes can be changed with much prayer and bearing witness to the humanity of the unborn child in day to day life. As an example of this, my wife and I wanted to find out if we were having a boy or a girl when we found out that she was pregnant last November as a way of bearing witness to human life, not just so that we bought the blue baby clothes. Our baby was known as “AJ” before then, short for “Abigail-Jacob”. We referred to him as Jacob once we knew that we were having a boy.
My Medical Practice, My Choice?
The Abortion Law Reform Act 2008 also constitutes an attack on the right to the free exercise of conscience by healthcare workers in Victoria. Section 8 of the act states that a registered health practitioner who has a conscientious objection to abortion is required to refer a woman seeking an abortion to another registered health practitioner in the same profession who the original practitioner knows does not have a conscientious objection to abortion. Both medical practitioners and registered nurses are under an obligation to perform abortions in emergency situations where the abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the woman.
This law does not respect the reason why people have a conscientious objection to abortion. The reason why people object to abortion is that abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human being, an act known as murder. By forcing doctors who object to abortion for conscientious reasons to refer a woman seeking an abortion to a doctor who does not hold that objection and would perform it, the State of Victoria is forcing doctors to co-operate in an abortion against their conscience, making them accomplices in murder. This is persecution of the pro-life doctors in Victoria, and has had objections raised against it by the Australian Medical Association[2] , amongst other professional bodies. It is a matter of great concern to all Catholic healthcare workers in this state. This is probably what many pro-abortion politicians would term “a sensible conscience clause.”
The law also establishes a fiction of the “emergency abortion”, which is not a real situation. Dr John Neil, an obstetrician stated in a speech at Parliament House in Melbourne that the law confuses the real clinical distinction between an early induction of labour and a late-term abortion. The difference is that the early induction of labour is performed when it is necessary to preserve the life of the mother, delivering a premature baby but with no intention of killing the baby despite the fact that the baby is likely to die as a result. On the other hand, a late term abortion is performed with the intention of killing the unborn baby. [3] [4]
Thus the early induction of labour is not even in the same ball-park as late-term abortion. Late term abortion is about destroying the unborn entity, whereas the early induction of labour is likely to result in the death of a premature baby, but that end is not sought: The baby would most likely be placed in an incubator to preserve his or her life if born alive rather than killed or left to die.
Taking Action
On Saturday 10 October 2009, the March for the Babies[5] will be held starting from Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne at 11am Australian Eastern Daylight Time. I would like to ask you to join those of us attending in prayer, to pray for a change in the hearts of the Australian people towards the sanctity of human life, and for this law to be overturned. This is necessary for this nation to have a future. No future Australians = no future for Australia.
[1] http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/minister-for-health/abortion-laws-to-be-modernised-in-victoria.html
[2] http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/sep/08092902.html
[3] http://www.doctorsconscience.org/pdfs/DrJohnNeil.pdf
[4] http://www.consciencelaws.org/Examining-Conscience-Legal/Legal37.html
[5] http://www.marchforthebabies.org.au/