Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I begin my remarks on the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial responsibility for approval of RU486) Bill 2005 by acknowledging the depth of conviction thoughtfully held by my colleagues on both sides of the House on this issue. I have listened to many of their speeches, and I am aware that their points of view are very genuinely held. However, I have heard nothing that can persuade me from voting against this bill.

In the time available to me, I will set out some of the major issues that are raised in this Senate amendment bill. Firstly, it must be pointed out that this bill is not about the accessibility of abortion for Australian women. Surgical abortion is available in every Australian state and territory and has been for many years.

Secondly, the subject matter of this debate is an abortifacient called RU486, which, if this bill succeeds, will be approved in the normal administrative processes of the Therapeutic Goods Administration, as are all other pharmaceuticals before they are dispensed in Australia. It is the role of the TGA to evaluate and approve each new drug for its safety, efficacy and quality. However, the TGA can only evaluate drugs on the basis of physical efficacy, not on the basis of any psychological or emotional effect.

At the present time, RU486 is subject to section 23AA of the act and, because it is an aborting agent, it is classified as a ‘restricted good’, which means that the TGA can evaluate RU486 only after the approval of the Minister for Health and Ageing. This amendment will mean that the minister’s approval is no longer required. RU486 will be assessed by the TGA in the normal course of its administrative activities, as if it were a normal therapeutic drug.

Thirdly, as an aborting agent, RU486 can end a developing human life. It has been suggested by the proponents of this Senate amendment bill that the bill is strictly about process and only process. However, precisely because RU486 is an abortifacient and can end a developing human life, it also raises issues of ethical, moral, social and political concerns and issues of health and safety for the mother.

Fourthly, this matter is about the accountability of the process. It is about ministerial responsibility and accountability. I cannot imagine any other circumstance of great ethical, moral, social, and political import that calls upon a minister to exercise his or her authority in the way legislation such as this does. Such concerns are not able to be appropriately considered by an administrative body. That is not the function of the Therapeutic Goods Administration. No matter how worthy its members may be, they are not accountable to the people of Australia. That is not their responsibility. As I have earlier pointed out, the role of the TGA is an administrative one. They are bureaucrats. In our system of government, it is the minister who, standing between the people and the bureaucracy, carries the responsibility for policy. It is the minister who, as an elected representative, is responsible and accountable to the people of Australia.

In 1996 when the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill was passed, it was agreed by both sides of the House that drugs such as RU486 should not be allowed into Australia without the approval of the health minister. In the debate on the bill, Senator Harradine pointed out:

People on both sides of the abortion debate agree that the importation, trials, registration and marketing of such agents ... should not be left in the hands of bureaucrats and science technologists. There should be ministerial responsibility ...

I wholeheartedly agreed with the Senator’s statement then, and I do now. I see no reason to change it.

Further, I cannot help wondering whether, if the present minister was of a mind to approve the referral of RU486 to the TGA, we would be debating this legislation today at all. While the present Minister for Health and Ageing is not of a mind to give his approval to the TGA to assess this abortifacient, a future minister may well be inclined to do so. Such a decision will be a matter for that minister, and he or she will be accountable for that decision to the people of Australia.

Fifthly, another very important aspect of this debate is the issue of the health and safety of the mother. I understand that it was noted on ABC 666 last Wednesday morning that the UK Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has highlighted that it is difficult to come to a definitive conclusion on RU486, simply because the scientific evidence is inconclusive. Moreover, what science has been conducted regarding RU486 is considered by the college to be very problematic or ‘grey’ in nature, given its ideological slant either way. I also understand that science has not yet discredited the argument that RU486 contributes to breast cancer.

RU486 is a highly controversial agent, and we in this place must also be concerned that there is documented evidence in the United States and in Canada of women dying after the use of RU486. Moreover, I understand that, even after using RU486 to induce an abortion, a number of women haemorrhage and still require a surgical abortion. I am informed that the Italian government has also placed a limited ban on RU486 because of these same concerns, in that one in 20 women experienced partial abortions and excessive bleeding. I understand that the warning label on RU486 clearly indicates that some women may need a surgical procedure afterwards, either to complete the termination or to address excessive bleeding. The proponents of RU486 clearly warn that this agent should only be administered under strict medical supervision.

In this regard, I find it difficult to understand the argument put by the proponents of the bill that this agent should be available to women in rural areas who, because of a shortage of doctors in their areas, are unable to access surgical abortions. This situation raises a number of serious ethical questions about how we can best provide women in rural areas with the best possible health care, along with their right of personal choice in such matters. We certainly cannot leave women to the effects of a drug whose manufacturers recommend that it be administered ‘only under strict medical supervision’, when those women live in rural areas where there is no medical supervision available.

The proponents of the Senate amendment claim this bill is not about abortion, but the many speeches that I have read all mention abortion to some degree—and, in some cases, to a very personal degree. In dealing with any legislation before this House, each and every one of us has to be mindful of its consequences within the wider community. With this particular piece of legislation, that is especially so.

Abortion is available in Australia and, while women may exercise their choice, I would also like to see the government give women more choices. Every unborn child has the potential to make a significant and wonderful contribution to our great nation. I believe as a government we should actively invest in that potential and provide Australian mothers with more practical support, more financial assistance, more accommodation options, more education and training for themselves and more appropriate provision of child care, so that they can have more choice with respect to keeping their children rather than more choice with respect to how to abort them. I note the amendments on the table which give parliamentary scrutiny of the legislation to the House. I support the member for Lindsay’s amendment, which maintains ministerial responsibility.

I now wish to refer to certain statements I have made in recent days in considering RU486—and to some media reports on my comments, especially those that accuse me of being a racist. I am not a racist, and I never have been. Most of the colleagues on both sides of the House with whom I have had the privilege of working for these last 10 years know that I am not a racist and never have been. I utterly and totally reject such accusations as those that have come from some sections of the media. Regrettably, some members of our fourth estate have gone over the top in their reporting of this issue, and I believe they are striving to find racism where there is none. However, I need to clarify the point that I was trying to make in a media interview the other day when, in saying that Australians are aborting themselves almost out of existence, I made reference to Muslim Australians. Muslim Australians place a high value on their children and, like many other faith communities, see that the core issue is the right to life of the unborn child; and, indeed, that sexual conduct carries with it a responsibility. I also note that the Muslim community of Australia continues to oppose abortion. I strongly share this belief.

The reported estimate of abortions in Australia, somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000, has to be alarming to each and every thinking Australian. Australia today, for most of us, is a wonderful, comfortable, modern, convenient, instant, high-tech indulgent society. We are constantly told that if we want it we can have it. For most of us, we have such control over our lives. Importantly, since the sixties we have also had control over our own fertility in a way that no generation before us in all of human history has. This has given us unprecedented power over who we are and what we want to become. It has also given us a terrible control over the next generation. We appear to exercise this control without any thought as to the cost—and nothing is free. The cost is ultimately paid by all of us in the kind of society that we have become today.

The core issue of this debate is the right to life of the unborn human being. Let us make no mistake about it. We can call it ‘process’, we can refer to ministerial accountability, but ultimately the core issue of this debate is the right to life of the unborn human being. This debate is about the sanctity of life itself. We were made by love, we were made to love and we were made to be loved. We were born to recreate. In our history, the values of religion and faith communities were centred on the principle of the sanctity of life. Today, we do not value life simply because it is a life, and I believe the loss of this core value in the wider Australian community, evidenced by the large abortion rate—albeit an educated estimate—impacts on so many other aspects of Australian society today.

Once upon a time in our history, children were seen as producers and wealth creators for their families and the future sustenance of their village communities. Children were valued. In our self-indulgent, convenient, modern, easy contemporary Australian lifestyle, children are now seen in some sections as consumers and polluters and just plain hard work. Of course, there are many children who are treasured by their families, but the increasing numbers of children across Australia who are neglected and abused must be a concern to us all.

We can also point to the decline in civil society. Graciousness and good manners are no longer seen as an attribute.  We often hear complaints of lack of respect generally, of children who are uncontrollable, of concerns about an increasing number of children who are, for want of a better word, ‘feral’. I am mindful of the two 14-year-old girls in Sydney who are currently charged with murder. Such children are products of the society we have become—and collectively, as a society, we have failed these two girls.

We also see signs of the weakening of the fabric of our society in the way in which we treat our mentally ill and our disabled citizens—or anyone else, for that matter, who is not considered to be perfect. In other words, because we have such control over our fertility, the cost has been to lose respect and awe for human life itself. Hence, human beings in contemporary Australia have become another commodity. Human beings are capable of exceptional rational thought and judgment and of full and rampant emotions. Human beings can show laughter and sadness and are capable of awesome heroism and defiant bravery. Human beings are capable of exquisite poetical expression, groundbreaking innovation and invention. Human beings have an unbounded potential to contribute to the welfare of their fellows and are the epitome of God’s creation. But contemporary Australia, based on those large abortion numbers, has lost sight of the true meaning of a life—a human life, valued by the rest of its community simply because it is a life.

We can see the impact of this loss in the society we have become. I use this opportunity to call for Australia to return to the core values of our forebears, who, unafraid of the hard road and the harsher life, made this country, this Australia, the great nation that it has become. Then, together with all of the various faith communities in our land, we can face our future in understanding and mutual respect. I do hope that this clarifies in some way what I was trying to say in a very clumsy way in a live interview the other day, for I deeply regret any offence that might have been taken by members of the Australian Muslim community.

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