This has very little to do with Australia directly but as it affects women all over the world I’m posting on it. And because I’m so excited and happy it has happened I want to share it with everyone!
Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration’s ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information. These are usually clinics that also work on other aspects of reproductive health care and HIV/AIDS and the result of the ban is generally the closure of free and/or low-cost rural clinics. Bush’s policy made it more difficult for women around the world to gain access to information and health care services, meaning many women are deprived of contraception and other health services in poor countries, leading to back-alley abortions and deaths
“Rather than limiting women’s ability to receive reproductive health services, we should be supporting programs that help women and their partners make decisions to ensure their health and the health of their families.”
- Hillary Clinton
ALSO! Obama also said he would restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programs that attempt to reduce poverty, protect women’s health, prevent HIV/AIDS, and ensure that “every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.” They’re big on gender equality being a human right and the importance of empowering women, supporting projects that improve women’s health and expand their choices in life. 180 other nations are already involved and the U.S. Congress has approved $40 million every year to go to the fund. Every single time the Bush administration blocked the funds.
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund responded to the action with the following:
“The president’s actions send a strong message about his leadership and his desire to support causes that will promote peace and dignity, equality for women and girls and economic development in the poorest regions of the world. We are confident that under the new president’s direction, the U.S. will resume its leadership in promoting and protecting women’s reproductive health and rights worldwide.”
This signals fantastic things for women in the world, particularly those living in poorer nations. I am so excited that these actions are some of the first Obama would take and it signals to me a continuation of his wider commitment to women’s rights. With Obama, Biden and Clinton is such powerful positions I’m really excited about the progress that could be made in women’s rights internationally in the next four years
P.s. Think this isn’t that big a step? Check out the major league voices of dissent… oh Charmaine Yoest, how you make my uterus bleed. (We won’t even go into the comments from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell or the House Minority Leader John Boehner. Ick.)
Further updates from the front line in the abortion law reform debate in Victorian Parliament indicate that the reforms could very well be passed sooner rather than later, with a number of key MPs previously opposed to the reforms now indicating their support for the changes. Labor MP Jenny Mikakos’ response was particularly notable:
The shock move came as Labor MP Jenny Mikakos also backed change despite her strong religious background, declaring that Christian values did not override her belief in an individual’s right to choose.
“I can reconcile myself as a Christian as being both anti-abortion and pro-choice,” she told Parliament last night.
Labor’s Jenny Mikakos also admitted having doubts about abortion because of her strong Greek Orthodox faith, but decided she would support it because she believed she could not deny the choice of abortion to other women.
In other words, while you may not believe in obtaining an abortion yourself, or for your partner, who are you to prevent others with differing belief systems from doing so?
It’s a shame there aren’t more people like Mikakos speaking up in this debate; it’s essential to get it out there that personal religious beliefs shouldn’t trump general human rights (can someone fax Denis Hart?) when it comes to the health and wellbeing of a woman versus an unborn “child”.
I use inverted commas around “child” in this context because, despite what the anti-choicers seem to suggest, I don’t see that there will be a huge increase in either abortions full stop, or late term – post-24-week – abortions if this reform is passed; thus, the majority of terminations will occur well before there is any chance of the foetus having any chance of even heavily assisted survival outside the womb.
I was in the city on Saturday for a function and we walked past Parliament steps, where an anti-abortion protest – “Matt’s Protest”, according to their homemade sign – was in progress. The protesters – count ‘em: two – were at one point outnumbered by Police and Parliament security staff. Both protesters were men, and both over the age of 35 (at least).
It was all I could do to stop myself from ducking into the 7-11 and giving them a few more eggs, since they seem to care so much about zygotes, in the face. Fortunately, I counted to ten and kept walking. But why is it that:
- Those who have the most to say about abortion are, inevitably, older males?
- That anti-abortionists care more about embryos and foetuses than about women?
And just who has been plastering those odious “arty” pro-life posters all around Carlton and Fitzroy North? At first you think, “Oh, that must be a Fringe project”, and then you look closer. I would like to congratulate whoever did their best to remove the paste-ups from the Rathdowne and Princes Street intersection this past weekend.
Some things to think about with your Monday morning coffee.
One particular aspect of the abortion debate that is rarely discussed is that if performing-slash-undergoing an abortion should be deemed an illegal act, then what is due punishment for the woman who commits this “crime”? Last year, Anna Quindlen of Newsweek wrote a compelling article addressing this conundrum, titled “How Much Jail Time?”.
Quindlen is not surprised by the responses of pro-lifers to this question in a mini-documentary:
The man behind the camera is asking demonstrators who want abortion criminalized what the penalty should be for a woman who has one nonetheless. You have rarely seen people look more gobsmacked. It’s as though the guy has asked them to solve quadratic equations. Here are a range of responses: “I’ve never really thought about it.” “I don’t have an answer for that.” “I don’t know.” “Just pray for them.”
It poses questions to those who classify abortion as murder. What do you propose as punishment? You consider it murder, so the first step would be incarcerating the medical team that perform and assist in the procedure. Will there be a non-parole period? Should the sentence differ if the aborted foetus is 1 week old or 28 weeks old? Surely not if you believe that “life begins at conception”. What of the woman that seeks out the aborting of a foetus? She’s a willing participant – perhaps a lesser sentence of say, manslaughter?
It’s stupid for me to play the guessing game, I’m pro-choice and believe abortion should be legal – so you tell me the answers. I’m fairly certain there would an uproar if we started to see women put through our courts and flung into jail for a harrowing decision they have made about their own body and pregnancy. Read the rest of this entry »
The abortion debate, and specifically, debate surrounding its decriminalisation in Victoria, is always bound to stir up highly emotive responses, and none more notably than when religious beliefs become involved. So, it’s no surprise to hear that Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart has thrown his two cents in.
What might be a surprise, however, is to hear the extent to which Hart will oppose abortion’s decriminalisation in Victoria – to wit, shutting down entire hospitals, if law reform makes providing either abortions or referrals for them (i.e. from medical practitioners and hospitals) mandatory.
Archbishop Hart said Catholic hospitals would not provide referrals for abortions — nor perform them — which would be mandatory under the law.
“In the worst-case scenario, if a government is determined to enforce such laws, we have no option. We might get out of hospitals altogether,” Archbishop Hart told The Age.
“Catholic hospitals cannot be part of any abortion. That has to be respected in the community. Even providing a referral is a co-operation in evil, and that impacts very strongly on us as Catholics,” he said.
He said the law would require Catholic doctors and nurses with a conscientious objection to abortion to break the law. “This poses a real threat to the continued existence of Catholic hospitals.”
To put that into perspective, Catholic hospitals in the Melbourne area include St Vincent’s (public and private), Mercy (public and private) and Cabrini, amongst others – roughly 15 in total – in other words, some of Melbourne’s major healthcare providers. And it’s safe to say that their general healthcare and emergency services provided would far outnumber abortions or abortion referrals, if the law reform comes through, no matter how much of an avalanche of terminations the pro-lifers always like to tell us will happen if abortion is decriminalised.
The excellent Lauredhel at Hoyden About Town has more on the topic.
The Victorian parliament is currently debating the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008. There is overwhelming public support for a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion, but it is still a crime under Victorian legislation.
This meeting will discuss why women should have control over their bodies at all stages of pregnancy and the right to safe, accessible, and legal abortion.
6.30pm, Thursday September 25
Trades Hall – New Council Chambers
Cnr. Victoria & Lygon Sts, Carlton South
Ph: 03 9639 8622 for more info
Speakers:
Colleen Hartland (Greens Victoria), Anne O’Rourke (Liberty Victoria), Prof Roger Short (Reproductive Biologist) and Mary Merkenich (Socialist Alliance).
My initial instinct was to title this piece “WHAT THE F-CK, NEWS.COM.AU”, because for the first five minutes after reading the piece, my level of rage meant I found it hard to come up with anything more eloquent than that. However, instead I would like their “work” to speak for itself.
They have run a piece from the Herald Sun (who had better hope this little bit of photo editing only appeared online) today about a “legal loophole” that means women could theoretically still receive the baby bonus if they had a late-term abortion. More on that in a tic, but let’s just marvel at the gobsmacking insensitivity and idiocy of the news.com.au photo team, shall we?
No explanation is given for the choice of the photo, which pictures a preserved foetus in, I assume, an anatomical museum, being gazed at by a young-ish child.
Just a warning, you may find the image disturbing.
The Abortion Reform Bill looks set to take the safer approach in what the Age reported as an overwhelming push for the “compromise” bill in Victorian State Parliament yesterday, most notably by former Victorian Premier, and veteran campaigner for Abortion Law Reform, Joan Kirner.
The “compromise” bill, states that Victorian women will be able to have an abortion free from prosecution up until the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. However what happens afterward remains murky. After 24 weeks there still exists the opportunity for women to be treated like criminals, their judgement questioned by health professionals, who will undoubtedly be hostile to performing a late-term abortion.
Late-term abortions would be allowed only if at least two doctors believe it is appropriate on medical grounds and with regard to “the woman’s current and future psychologial and social circumstances”
The point I’m trying to make is that women should never be considered criminals for making what is, and remains for many, a heartbreaking and life changing choice.
For women who do choose to abort after 24 weeks, it will be a decision made under undoubtedly extreme emotional terms (very, very few women who had endured pregnancy for this long would not choose to do so otherwise).
These women should not be made to fear retribution or prosecution from moral or medical authorities.
Until women have the full right to choose, the bill will remain an indicator of “criminal” and “innocent.”
It suggests that while thankfully most women who make the choice to have an abortion are now “innocent”, women who make the choice late-term are once again rendered “criminal” and “immoral.”
For more info on the proposed Abortion Law Reform and info on how to further lobby Victorian State Government politicians visit the fabulous Pro-Choice site, prochoicevic.org.au.
On the day that the State Government of Victoria is likely to introduce a bill to decriminalise abortion in this state – yes, it’s still in the Crimes Act – Victorian Greens MP Colleen Hartland has spoken out about her own experience of abortion, when she fell pregnant aged 22:
“The timing was just completely wrong,” Ms Hartland says now, almost 30 years later.
Raised a Catholic, she could never tell her family. She confided in a couple of people, stored the memory away and for many years did not speak of it again.
[...]
For several months she thought about whether she wanted to tell her story. In the end, she decided it might help shatter the taboo that remains. And she is opposed to any move to restrict access to late abortions that take place after 24 weeks, the model the Government is tipped to go for.
“Leaving it in the criminal code means that somehow when you do this it’s wrong … and I think these things should be out in the open and people should not be judged,” she says.
Ms Hartland goes on to explain that, having been raised in a poor family, she knew that there was no way she and her partner – who was 24 and working in a factory; Hartland was working as a cleaner – could support and raise a child.
I think it’s great that Ms Hartland has spoken out about this, as it demonstrates that abortion is not something taken lightly by women and their partners, and that, well, it can “happen” to anyone – even respectable politicians.
There are still so many people who see abortion as “emergency contraception”, or as something that is undertaken willy nilly by irresponsible girls who have gotten themselves into a bit of a pickle. Too few people realise that, as emotive as the idea of falling pregnant can be, a child is not necessarily a precious gift – what’s more irresponsible, terminating a pregnancy, or having a baby when you know you can’t afford to care for it (either physically, emotionally or financially – or all three)?
I couldn’t not reblog this incredible spoken word performance by Sonia Renee that both Feministing and Feministe haveposted:
It’s easy to forget that but for the grace of relatively informed and ethical politicians, Australian women’s reproductive rights could hang by a thread. There is always another Tony Abbott waiting in the wings – stay vigilant!
