Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial Responsibility for Approval of RU486) Bill 2005, which seeks to transfer the approval process for importation of RU486 from the health minister to the Therapeutic Goods Administration. As has been stated, RU486, being an abortifacient, is no ordinary drug and there is no mistaking that this issue is a complex one—indeed, in many cases a personal one—which is invariably the case with issues that require a conscience vote

The correspondence I have received from the electors of Farrer reflects different value systems, different philosophies and different attitudes. There is no single position that I can take on this bill that is in harmony with everyone’s conscience. I pay the greatest respect to alternative opinions, even though I may not agree with them. My own conscience allows me only one option, which is to support this bill.

Like all members of this place I have been weighing up the evidence regarding the use of RU486. I have received numerous emails and letters, both supporting and rejecting the use of this drug, and I have spent countless hours researching the arguments. As I have done so, I have concluded that this debate is about the medical options available to women within the existing framework of women’s access to terminations. This is a debate about the health of women, not a debate about abortion. I do, however, accept that it is quite reasonable for people to use this debate to air their grievances concerning the current state of abortion.

It is important to have this discussion and debate. I have great disquiet, along with all members of this House, about the numbers of abortions in this country, variously estimated at between 84,000 and 100,000 terminations a year. No-one should feel comfortable with this statistic. It is a national disgrace and something that both state governments, which set their own laws on abortion, and the Australian government, which can influence education programs in schools and can encourage good quality counselling, must turn their attention to.

RU486, when used with a second drug, prostaglandin, brings about abortion. So, for many of the people I represent, this debate is about abortion. If I do not confront this I am dodging the issue. With this in mind I therefore propose to make some remarks about abortion. From time to time, particularly as a candidate for election, I have been asked about my position on abortion. My opinions have not changed and I have never sought to hide or misrepresent them. Abortion should be safe, legal and rare. Education and counselling should be the key planks in our efforts to reduce the number of terminated pregnancies. The decision to procure an abortion should be made by a woman, in consultation with her conscience and her doctor.

Many in this debate have brought personal experiences to this place. I have no personal experience of abortion but I often used to think about what I would do if I had an unplanned pregnancy. To the best of my knowledge of myself, I would not choose a termination but I would never impose my view on another woman, either in person or through the legislature of this country. Even if we believe we are protecting a mother’s health or the potential life of the unborn, we as governments should not be allowed to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.

Abortion raises moral and spiritual questions over which we can and probably should disagree earnestly and profoundly. There is no high moral ground in this debate. A woman who makes a decision to proceed with a pregnancy is not a better person because of her decision than one who seeks a termination. I urge those from both sides of this debate who would criticise and condemn to walk a mile in the shoes of the people whose views offend you. Amidst the sound and fury directed at me as a member of this parliament, I am reminded of a saying from the French novelist de Balzac: the more you judge, the less you love. How true that is. I have taken time to address the abortion question because my constituents who are opposed to the bill have couched their opposition in terms of abortion itself being a moral wrong.

May I now return to the substance of the bill: the approval process for RU486 leading to it becoming available in Australia, as opposed to maintaining the status quo. I have been asking myself, ‘Is this drug safe to use for women who live in rural and regional Australia—women such as those in my electorate of Farrer who may not have immediate access to either a doctor or to surgical abortion?’ Once the decision has been made to terminate a pregnancy, the safety and effectiveness of medical as opposed to surgical abortion is a question that needs answering.

So how safe is RU486? Reports vary widely, but there have been at least 10 reported cases of women dying because of complications linked to the drug. There have also been women who have needed immediate medical attention due to adverse side effects. This has to be weighed against the number of successful uses of RU486, which has been used by up to one million women worldwide over the past 18 years. I think the answer lies not in the use of the drug itself but in the way our health system and health professionals administer it and care for the patient both before and after its use. What is important for patients is to have the option of different methods of treatment, because not all patients will be responsive to, or indeed want, certain kinds of treatment.

Australia have one of the best systems of checks and balances when it comes to the approval of medication. Not only do we have the TGA to assess the safety of medications; we also have highly skilled, well-trained doctors, nurses and allied health professionals. For the most part, we have world-class hospitals and medical centres and a variety of professional organisations and standards of practice which monitor the qualifications, behaviour and conduct of our professionals. I do trust the experts to evaluate the data from overseas—including the claims of serious adverse health effects from RU486—and to come to an informed view about the risks versus the benefits. Furthermore, I trust our local medical professionals, some of whom I know are ethically opposed to this drug and will therefore not prescribe it. Doctors will decide whether they prescribe RU486 for some, all or none of their patients.

It has been argued that RU486 will make obtaining an abortion easier. I have seen no evidence that pregnancies would be terminated with RU486 which would otherwise continue. If anything, I believe the drug will mean terminations will happen earlier rather than later in the pregnancy. This is particularly applicable to rural and remote women. So I do not believe RU486 will cause more abortions. The drug was first introduced in France in 1988 without any noticeable increase in the abortion rate. Similarly, in England there was no increase in the number of abortions, and in Sweden there was a slight decrease following the approval of medical abortions.

I hope there is not an implication that a woman choosing termination should not find it too easy. I hope no-one feels that such a woman should face maximum difficulty in procuring the termination, that it should be a process that is as difficult as possible for her, or that we should accept a regime where, say, a young woman on a low income with no family support has to travel for hours—say, from northern rural Australia to Mildura or from rural Victoria to Melbourne—possibly in secrecy, to run the gauntlet of placard-wielding individuals who scream at her in protest and then, after a fairly traumatic procedure, make the trip home again alone to deal with the aftermath. We should not wish to punish women who choose to have a termination. Are they not punished enough by their families, possibly their partner and those who would seek to pressure them into a different view, but most of all by their own conscience? I refuse to accept that anything but the smallest minority of women seeking a termination are not hugely traumatised by the process. I wish the House well with its deliberations. I support the bill as presented.

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