Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to say at the outset that I am extremely troubled by abortion, and should in no way be seen as an abortion advocate. Clearly, there are too many abortions and, as others including the member for La Trobe and the member for Port Adelaide have stated, we need more education. In addition to that, we also need to ensure that women, prior to having abortions, actually receive the counselling that they should, as is enshrined in many states. However, this is not an abortion debate. Abortion, as has been stated, is legal in Australia. So what is this debate really about? The member for Port Adelaide is correct in saying that, at its core, this debate really is extremely simple and it has been way overcomplicated.

It all distils down to a really simple premise: parliament determines whether a procedure or a treatment is legal or not, given moral and ethical imperatives. That is where the moral and ethical arguments come into play. Once a treatment or a procedure has been determined by this parliament to be legal, analysis of the methods, treatments and drugs should be up to the professional body, the TGA. If it is deemed by parliament to be an illegal procedure—fair enough; the drug does not get evaluated.

There have been numerous arguments put by members in this parliament and in the other house. For example, Senator Joyce was suggesting that, if the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial responsibility for approval of RU486) Bill 2005 gets up, members who voted for the bill would be responsible for any deaths that occurred as a result of RU486. Quite frankly, that is a spurious argument which could be turned around. It could be said that if RU486 is determined to be safer than surgical abortion then extra women that die as a result of surgical abortion have died as a result of members voting against the bill. I do not accept either of these arguments.

I have also heard arguments about the safety of RU486. Quite frankly, these are parliamentarians’ viewpoints, where they have obtained evidence purely to support a preconceived viewpoint. This is not the way to objectively determine safety. I have also heard arguments about elected people and not faceless bureaucrats making decisions. What are we doing here? I think that elected members of parliament are making a decision on this. Elected parliamentarians make decisions about treatments and procedures; domain experts determine whether a specific drug, procedure or treatment is safe. Hence, parliament is making a decision on the moral and ethical imperatives in determining whether these treatments or procedures should be legal; the TGA is actually making a decision on expert evidence. That is an area that is best left to the experts.

If we, as parliamentarians, get into the area that is best left to experts, then there is a whole area of unintended consequences. For example, let us examine RU486. It can be used for numerous medical treatments, not just abortions. In fact, RU486 was developed by Roussel UCLAF as a treatment for serious endocrine disorders. It was not developed for chemical abortion.

Going back to the original bill in 1996, I was quite interested to read some of the comments by Senator Harradine. Senator Harradine put out a briefing note during 1996 and read it into Hansard. He claimed:

A major factor propelling the research and promotion of the drug is its ultimate use in the armoury of population controllers.

As I said, Roussel UCLAF developed it for serious endocrine disorders. I do not see the population controllers getting involved in that aspect. Senator Harradine also stated:

The question should be asked: how were those drugs brought in and for what purpose were they brought in? The drug RU486 was principally developed to be used in developing countries for population control.

Clearly this is incorrect and clearly Senator Harradine was incredibly paranoid about the issue of population control. Apart from these arguments, at the time, in 1996, I agree that bringing in RU486 might have been problematic given that in WA alone abortion was illegal. That is not of concern today.

In terms of the other uses for RU486, there are possibilities for a number of medical applications, including inoperable meningiomas, Cushing’s syndrome, breast cancer, prostate cancer, glaucoma, depression, endometriosis and uterine fibroids. I have made contact with the University of Texas, which is currently undertaking research into the effects of RU486 on uterine fibroids. I am also aware of clinical trials sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health in the United States using mifepristone for the treatment of bipolar depression. It has also been shown to be effective in surgically intractable Cushing’s disease or Cushing’s syndrome and other progestogen or glucocorticoid secreting tumours.

Prostate cancer is the most common registrable cancer in Australian men. Each year around 11,200 Australian men are diagnosed with prostate cancer, with more than 2,700 men dying each year from the disease. Each year a significant number of women have hysterectomies due to endometriosis or uterine fibroids. How many of us are aware of clinical trials involving RU486 being carried out to look at these aspects of the drug’s capabilities? As I said, clearly we do not have the expertise and we are not aware of these unintended consequences or additional research that is carried out.

The fact is that chemical abortions still happen despite the fact that at the moment RU486 is not legal. Unfortunately, as I said, the Harradine amendments have not prevented chemical alternatives for terminations over surgical terminations. The futility of having parliament or the minister blocking the availability of abortifacients is made clear by recognising that other drugs are already used to abort. In Sydney it was reported that a doctor had carried out 60 abortions using methotrexate, which blocks folate, which is necessary for cell division. Obviously, if the embryo does not divide its cells, the embryo dies. Another doctor prescribes misoprotol—Cytotec—which is a prostaglandin. This drug induces uterine contractions and can be very painful. In other countries it is usually used as the second stage after RU486. Here it is being used as the primary method. Chemical abortions are occurring, and will occur whether RU486 is legal or not. We are currently condemning women to suboptimal treatments.

This clearly demonstrates exactly why the issue of determining whether drugs should be allowed or not is best left in the hands of experts. What we parliamentarians need to decide is whether the treatment or procedure should be legal or not. This is the proper place for that debate, with all of the moral and ethical complexities that are inherent in it. The proper place once that decision has been made and affirmed is that the TGA, the expert medical body, should be making decisions on the safety, efficacy and cost of those alternatives.

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