Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Members of that Senate would be aware of the impending conscience vote in the parliament set down for 17 September. That vote relates to a motion to disallow item 16525 of regulations that provide Medicare funding under the Health Insurance Act of 1973. The aim of the disallowance motion is to withdraw Medicare funding for second trimester abortions and late-term abortions. There is also a pending conscience vote in the Victorian parliament regarding the freeing-up of access to late-term abortions. The effect of the federal motion and the state legislation is to bring to the parliaments for the first time a debate centred on late-term abortions.

The history of abortion debates in the past has focused on early-term abortions. It is true that late-term abortions are a modern-day phenomenon due to the advancement of medical procedures and scientific breakthroughs. Late-term abortions were not even contemplated in the 1969 Menhennitt judgement, which effectively introduced abortion on demand. It was a ruling for the early term. However, in the past decade or so the number of late-term abortions—at least up to 32 weeks—have increased, and there is estimated to have been over 300 in Victoria in the past year. These late-term abortions are undertaken not only in specialist private abortion clinics but in Melbourne’s leading hospitals, such as Royal Women’s Hospital, which undertakes some 44 late-term abortions per year.

The use and refining of ultrasound has enabled the contemplation of what was once unthinkable—that is, to abort on the grounds of a disability that is in the eye of the beholder. It is known that there are late-term abortions available for disabilities as minor as a cleft lip, or as acceptable a disability as dwarfism. A new category has also slipped into the vernacular, being ‘psychosocial’, which means that the baby is not wanted on social grounds. Regrettably, the disability of Down syndrome has become an increasing reason for late-term abortions.

Given that these issues are relatively new medical and social phenomena, this is an overdue debate in society. It is an issue that has been successfully hidden away, wrapped in society’s acceptance of early-term abortions, but the procedure is much worse, as are the reasons for it. The gravity of the issue is clearer. We are dealing with a fully formed, viable baby. If you are a pro-choicer, within the confines of past debates you would have specifically dealt with early-term abortions. There are competing rights in the early term between the adult and the baby. A clear choice is available. The answer that the pro-choicer gives is that the woman’s right reigns. However, the question is not the same for late-term pregnancies. There are no competing rights between the mother and the baby. The baby is viable at some 20 weeks and can live away from the mother. So the question in the debate on late terms is: do the adults have an unfettered right over the children?

This is the basic human rights question that society must decide. Another reason society must answer this question of limited or unlimited choice is because, as time goes on, the violence of the act increases. The medical process of the late-term abortion must be distinguished clinically from early-term abortion. The method is a more invasive and difficult surgical procedure. The doctor must undertake a greater physical and mental intent to terminate the baby as distinct from early-term pregnancies.