PARTISAN!

Sylvia Ruhl discusses a recent attempt to restrict abortion access in South Australia in the context of similar ongoing attacks elsewhere in the country.

Renewed attacks on the reproductive autonomy of women have begun in earnest in South Australia. On the 25th of September, Opposition Liberal MP Ben Hood put forward a private member’s bill in the upper house of South Australia’s Parliament that would amend existing abortion legislation to require women seeking abortion after 27 weeks and six days of pregnancy to undergo induced birth. Late-term abortions – those after 22 weeks and six days, are allowed in SA after being deemed “medically appropriate” by two health practitioners, under abortion decriminalisation reforms introduced in 2021. Hood has suggested that women who undergo induced birth consider putting their newborn baby up for adoption.

Hood has gone out of his way to unsoundly claim that he supports the right of women to choose. He said of his amendments that: “This importantly balances and does not impinge upon the rights of a mother to choose termination”. This is obviously disingenuous on its face, as the proposal simply bans abortion after a period of 28 weeks. What further exposes shows this to be presumptuous, is the fact that the bill’s introduction was publicly supported in the preceding weeks by Johanna Howe, a Catholic anti-abortion lobbyist. On the evening of the bill’s introduction, two thousand rallied to support the bill. A much smaller counter-protest had been organised.

This follows the March 2024 introduction of a bill to Queensland Parliament by Katter’s Australian Party MP Robbie Katter which facetiously claimed to bring in protections for foetuses born alive following abortions. The practical effect, as any legal requirements on abortion do, would be to increase barriers to access to abortion. The Queensland Parliament’s Health, Environment and= Agriculture Committee recommended against the bill moving to the next stage of passage. Momentarily, this means that it was defeated as this allowed said bill to expire when Parliament was dissolved in advance of the next election. The anti-abortion lobby including Howe were out in full force campaigning in Queensland during the period this bill was under consideration.

Having failed to get a bill advocating for abortion restrictions before Queensland Parliament, the patriarchs in the anti-abortion movement have successfully gained attention through getting a bill voted on in South Australia’s Parliament. This has had the dual effect of galvanising their support base and acting as a warning shot for a wave of legislative attacks on access to abortion.

We should expect more such proposals in the coming years, and possibly even ones that manage to successfully pass. Queensland is likely to be the first state where more serious steps to reduce access to abortion will be carried out, given the likely victory of the LNP at this month’s state election.

This will result in a reaction by workers to struggle against such rollbacks, and in the absence of a communist worker’s party will be co-opted by Labor and the Greens. Both parties have begun this co-option even before the LNP have retaken power. Of course, we should point out that Labor will not adequately defend reliable abortion access against sustained attacks, despite the image they may project.

They clearly do not discipline their own members for voting in favour of abortion restrictions; two ALP members in SA’s upper house voted in favour of a similar bill proposed earlier this year and they have retained their party membership. Much has also been written elsewhere of the role played by Catholic-conservative factions in influencing Labor’s approach to social policy. It is only through workers struggle on this front, and the consequent building of feminist consciousness of workers that abortion access can be meaningfully defended and extended beyond the whims of a new government.