Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I think this issue, issues like it and the debate in the parliament confirm something that I have believed for a long time: the science and the knowledge we acquire from science, as hard as that is, are the easy part. It is how we as human beings adjust to new knowledge and, in this case, relatively new pharmacological ways of addressing a very vexed issue that is the much more difficult task. In fact, if all the scientific problems of life were ever solved, all of the important questions would still remain unanswered.

A generation ago in this country, the decision was made that under certain circumstances abortion would be lawfully available to women. There are many of us, myself included, who live uncomfortably with that fact. There are others amongst my colleagues on both sides of this parliament, for whom I have a very high regard, who in an ideal world, I suppose, would like to see those laws at the very least tightened up somewhat and in some cases perhaps even repealed. If you had listened to even a part of the debate that we have had in the last week or so through both the chambers, you would be forgiven for thinking that, in fact, we had revisited the basic issue of abortion itself.

I am privileged to be not only a parent and a member of the parliament but also, in a former life, a medical practitioner. The member for Lalor said of the health minister, ‘He is not a doctor.’ People who have medical or nursing or scientific qualifications bring no more or less to this debate than anybody else. Their views on this are no more or less important than the views of those who are not trained in any medical sense. In fact, it has often been my experience that people who are not medically trained bring a greater depth of wisdom to many of these issues. A lot of the problems in the medical profession derive from doctors not knowing when to stop as much as knowing when to start.

I spent 13 years of my life after graduating in medicine practising medicine, nine of them predominantly in a low-income housing area in the satellite suburbs of Hobart. Hobart is a capital city and large in many ways, but compared to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane it is not a large city. Whilst I saw surgical abortions being performed during my training, I have not ever actively participated in them, but I have had experience of women coming along to see me requesting a termination. I have also looked after and cared for women who have had terminations—and I have friends today who had terminations in earlier parts of their lives—and I can say that, with perhaps some few exceptions, there is not a woman who has had a termination of pregnancy who is not emotionally affected by it. It is just a question of degree.

In a city like Hobart in the mid to late eighties and the early nineties, it was interesting to see the ways things would happen. Educated women with money would get on a plane and go to Melbourne to have their pregnancies ended in an anonymous way, and life would go on. There were pregnancies within marriage, sometimes as a consequence of infidelity, sometimes as a consequence of failure of contraception and sometimes as a consequence of assault within the marriage or, indeed, by those close to a married couple.

Those who had less wealth had a choice. One choice, of course, was to continue with the pregnancy. In my own case I can only say that I did whatever I could to try to make sure that women were informed of all of the choices before them and had access to those who could counsel them in a dispassionate, humane and caring way. But those who had less wealth were required to book into the public hospital. People would know that they were there, they would know why they were there and of course the women would submit to a surgical termination.

What is being considered here is not whether or not abortion should be available in Australia. It is whether or not another option for procuring abortion should be available to women. Much has been said about the maternal death rates from abortion. No-one in this place should forget that the foetal death rate from abortion is 100 per cent. But the maternal death rate is about two per 100,000 for surgical abortion, and it is about that or slightly less for the use of RU486.

Anyone who thinks that women are going to enthusiastically embrace abortion because RU486 is available, whereas with only a surgical option they would continue with the pregnancy, is in my opinion seriously misguided and not sufficiently availed of the circumstances under which these decisions are made. RU486 will mean that in most cases a woman will go through a very painful, very messy and very prolonged period, relatively speaking, of having the foetus expelled from the uterus. In some ways, if you have ever had anything to do with women making these decisions, it is actually easier to submit to an anaesthetic and a surgical termination because someone else is doing it to you; whereas in consuming a drug you are obviously heavily participating in the process of procuring that abortion. Whatever any of us think, the reality is that about half a million women throughout the world will die this year from the consequences of unplanned pregnancy and from illegal abortion. Sadly, the reality is that there has always been—and there is today and there always will be—a demand for abortion. No matter how hard we try or whatever the moral values that any of us bring to the issue, that is the reality we face.

The question here is whether the health minister of the day should actually have a power of veto over the Therapeutic Goods Administration considering the safety and the efficacy of RU486 and making it available in the Australian community as it currently is in many countries throughout the world. I actually feel very sorry for the current health minister, who, in every other aspect, is doing an excellent job. But something the member for Lalor said is right. She said, ‘It’s not about you, Tony.’ It does not matter in this sense whether we have a coalition or a Labor government—and let us hope that it will be a coalition government for the foreseeable future. You could have arguably the most pro-abortion health minister—if there is such a person in this place, God forbid—but that veto will not ever be lifted to allow the TGA to consider it because, within any government, the pressure brought to bear on that minister from his or her colleagues and those who feel very strongly at the extremes of the debate is such that it will never, ever be exercised.

It is a similar situation with the amendments that are proposed here. Those who strongly oppose abortion—the member for Lowe, the member for Warringah and the member for Sturt, whose convictions should be admired—should definitely not support this amendment bill. But for those of us who live, no matter how uncomfortably, with the current arrangements in Australia there is no intellectually honest basis for not supporting the amendment bill. It has been said that we do not want ‘faceless’ bureaucrats making these decisions. As we have heard, these are not ‘bureaucrats’ where that is used as a term of derision to describe public servants. These are men and women who bring scientific and medical expertise to the task in terms of assessing safety and efficacy.

The traditional Liberal view is that, wherever possible and practicable to do so, we should return decision making not just from the bureaucrats to the elected members of the parliament but to individuals to make their own decisions. We have invested a lot of political capital and philosophical determination in workplace relations in that regard. We do so in relation to the hard-earned money of Australians in relation to tax. There is arguably no more powerful a driver of human need and behaviour than that of reproduction. It is more than appropriate—indeed, entirely consistent with the Liberal view—to put that decision making in the hands of the woman, her doctor and hopefully also her husband or partner. That is what this is about.

If the amendments proposed by the member for Bowman or the member for Lindsay are carried, we will be repeating this exercise every six to eight weeks. I do not know whether this has been covered here—I have been flat out with defence matters—but for those who are in what are known as marginal seats, imagine going through this issue every six or eight weeks. If the member for Lindsay’s amendment is carried and the health minister does not allow the TGA to consider approving RU486, the parliament will have no authority or power to overturn that veto.

I am privileged to be the member for Bradfield. Many of my constituents will not vote for me after what I have said, but my task here is to bring judgment and wisdom to decision making in the parliament in the national interest. I too believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the forgiveness of sins, the death and the resurrection and the life ever after. I am a Catholic, albeit far from a perfect one, and the attacks on the health minister and others who have adherently sought to remain true to their Catholicism are despicable. Such adherence is to be the subject of admiration and not derision, under any circumstances.

I will be supporting the amendment bill. I will do so, as with all my colleagues both for and against, consistent with my own judgment and free will—and thank God we live in a country where we can have these sorts of issues determined in this place.

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