Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial Responsibility for Approval of RU486) Bill 2005 removes the restricted goods category from the Therapeutic Goods Act and in so doing places the onus of determining the safety and effectiveness of RU486 and similar drugs into the hands of the Therapeutic Goods Administration. This bill does not require us to make a decision about the rights or wrongs of the use of RU486 for abortions in Australia. Nor does it force it. This bill is not about abdicating responsibility that elected representatives should exercise. Ethical decisions should be made by parliament, but, in the case of abortion, those decisions were made decades ago by state parliaments. At the federal level Medicare helps pay the cost of a surgical abortion. That decision too was made some time ago. Let us be clear: this bill fixes an anomaly where RU486 and similar drugs are the only drugs in this country that are to be approved or not by the minister for health rather than the TGA.

The question before us is this: is the TGA competent and capable to rule on the safe and effective use of RU486 for Australian women? The answer for me is an unequivocal yes. If it were no, it should be of grave concern, given the drugs approved for use in Australia by the TGA. The TGA has overseen the approval of nearly 50,000 drugs, many of which are dangerous and have serious side effects. The TGA is independent and operates on the basis of expert assessment and constant review. The TGA’s decisions cannot be amended or challenged by the sponsors of drugs or by parliamentarians.

So even though all that this bill does is correct that anomaly, the debate surrounding this bill has become one of: should women have access to medical abortion or not?  My view is that women should have control over our reproductive lives. The reproductive experience is a difficult one. Contraception, pregnancy, miscarriage, termination and difficult births are all part of our reproductive reality over about 40 years. Women have to treat these possibilities seriously, and we do. Decisions about control over our fertility are first and foremost ours to make, and we take these decisions very seriously.

Over the ages abortion has been a serious issue for women, because our fertility is not fully controllable. Women understand the need for access to reliable contraception, but the reality is that no contraceptive method is foolproof. Every woman’s body is different and reacts differently to contraception. It is because our fertility is not fully controllable that safe and legal options for abortion are necessary and should be accessible to those women who want to choose them.

Women are also the main nurturers and carers of children. Of course we understand the implications of terminating a pregnancy, and it is no wonder that this issue provokes such gut-wrenching emotion or deep-seated feeling. We women can and do deal with these hard questions, but we need safe choices. The need for safe choices in difficult situations and the belief that a woman and her doctor are perfectly capable of making decisions about termination of pregnancy guide my view.

My own thinking on abortion has altered over the years. I find it a very complex issue on a range of emotional and personal fronts, but I continue to believe that women must always have the choice of terminating a pregnancy safely. I do not know any woman who would find abortion an easy choice; it is always a difficult and emotional decision. But the decision to have an abortion is not made any easier by the fact that our society expects women to be silent about their experiences, their pain and their anxiety. The public reaction to Senator Lyn Allison is proof that the personal experiences of one in three Australian women are almost never part of the moral or political debate, so we have a very long way to go before we stop demonising individual women and start supporting them in their difficult choices.

Of course we need better education to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and more support for women if they are making a decision that might be to terminate their pregnancy. No-one concerned with basic human wellbeing would call themselves pro abortion or anti life. Nobody I know says that there should be more abortions. Nobody I know wants to see more women going through the turmoil that terminating a pregnancy can involve. But the key to reducing abortions is reducing unwanted pregnancies, not restricting access to safe and legal abortions. Restricting access to safe and legal abortions means one thing: women die. It is a simple fact, a fact that unfortunately still has such a serious impact on so many women throughout the world.

Accessibility is crucial, and that means abortions must not just be legal but be available, affordable and safe for all women. In many countries RU486 is an alternative for women who cannot or do not want to go through a surgical procedure. It is also an alternative that doctors can offer women in regional areas who do not have access to surgical abortions. It disappoints me that some people think that RU486 could lead to more abortions in Australia. I am appalled by the health minister’s argument that if RU486 is licensed we could see a spate of backyard miscarriages. No-one supporting this bill wants to see women taking RU486 without medical supervision. Throwing around words like ‘backyard miscarriages’ is not only misleading but inflammatory and manipulative, and the health minister should not play around with people’s emotions in that way.

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