Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak against the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial responsibility for approval of RU486) Bill 2005. I did not come to this place to be a moral crusader, but on issues such as this I will seek to stay true to my convictions. As such, I will vote against this legislation. I cannot support any legislation where my vote, as much as the legislation itself, has the potential to encourage more abortions. At a personal level, I believe abortion is one of the most difficult and confronting issues facing society. It is no doubt a deeply personal and traumatic matter for so many women; and while the fate of the foetus is practically and ultimately a decision of the individual woman it can be a deeply personal and traumatic matter for the father of the foetus.

For those like me who believe that human life begins at conception, it only magnifies the moral dilemma and, despite what many in this debate have suggested, it is a moral issue for men and women alike. For that reason I am acutely conscious of any decision I take in this House which might telegraph support for a lessening of the absolute seriousness of the decision to have an abortion. My concern is that a yes vote by the community’s federal parliamentary representatives to delegate responsibility for the availability of the abortion pill to a purely technical process will send a powerful message, especially to young people, that we as a community are becoming more indifferent to, or blase about, abortion. It will further condition Australians to see pregnancy as merely another medical condition, where abortion is seen as elective surgery or an elective drug treatment without at the same time encouraging our fellow Australians to also consider the moral, ethical and social dimensions surrounding such a momentous personal decision as aborting a foetus.

We must not underestimate the impact of the public policy decisions we make in terms of their effect on the moral compass of Australians. Take, for instance, the situation in China. The Chinese government has for many years advocated a one-child policy. This has meant that many couples in China routinely carry out terminations in order to comply with this policy. This has reportedly created a ‘conditioning’ of that community, where terminations are acceptable, almost routine, like the removal of a wisdom tooth.

In the same way, a yes vote for this bill will have the effect of absolving those people who may unfortunately be confronted with this most difficult issue from properly considering also the moral and social aspects of such a decision. A decision by this parliament to delegate responsibility for the use of an abortion drug to a technical committee would further the aim of those in our community who would prefer to medicalise pregnancy as though it were simply another medical condition. Whatever personal decision an individual arrives at, to me it seems seriously wrong and dehumanising to encourage the decision to be seen as principally a medical matter, to downplay or to expunge the spiritual and social dimension of any decision to have an abortion.

As well, the revolution in biotechnology is seeing the development of a range of most extraordinary drugs that will go to market over the next decade. The member for Bowman yesterday identified drugs to do with intellect enhancement and mood elevation, biopharma developments of drugs in plants and food, and other abortion medications, to name a few. The use of any of these drugs will pose highly controversial moral and ethical considerations for our society. I cannot see how the community in the future will accept that the decisions about the availability and use of these future drugs should be left simply to a technical committee which looks only at the safety and efficacy of a particular drug, just as I cannot accept that this current debate is only about the safety and efficacy of RU486. These are all decisions which have much broader ramifications than safety and efficacy. These are decisions we have been elected to take because they are important matters that, in the end, can very materially shape the type of society in which we live. We must not shirk our responsibilities in this regard.

The strategy of those advocating this amendment has been to narrow the debate—to assert that it is not about abortion, to claim that this bill is purely about removing the responsibility of the health minister of the day to decide the quality, safety and efficacy of this drug and to place the decision with the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Yet, in the way this debate has unfolded, it has become political. It has become about abortion. I suspect it always was. Ironically, this is evidenced by the fact that the mountain of correspondence urging me to vote yes invariably includes advice to me that my electorate is undoubtedly pro-choice and that I should vote accordingly. How we vote on this bill will be read in the broader context of the parliament’s general attitude about abortion.

Narrowing the debate to supposedly technical matters is a clever strategy. It is a strategy which allows people to have a foot in both camps. It allows individual members and senators to profess opposition to abortion while voting, wittingly or unwittingly, to further numb the community’s sensibilities to the moral and social issues that should also be in the minds of people when contemplating abortion.

In voting no, I am not trying to impose on others my ultimate views about abortion. Rather, in all good conscience, I cannot be party to a yes vote which will further condition the community to see abortion as merely a medical condition and, in doing so, send a message that encourages more abortions.

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