The Greens and the campaign for a woman’s right to choose

A woman's right to choose has been centre stage in terms of policy and campaigns for the Greens NSW since the party was formed in 1984. The party's first federal election candidate, Daphne Gollan, and activist member Jenny Ryde did ground breaking work on this key issue. On being elected to parliament Kerry Nettle, Lee Rhiannon and Mehreen Faruqi all continued their public support for abortion rights. This history of the Greens and the party's work for reproductive rights is another clear example of the role that social movements play in driving progressive change.

The 1960s

The freedom many, but by no means all, young Australians experienced in the 1960s was unparalleled: a booming economy meant it was not a question of whether you would get a job, but which job you'd take. Significant increases in university scholarships created opportunities previously unimaginable for children from working-class families.

Popular culture and social protest movements slowly undermined perceived social and religious certainties.

And into this mix was thrown, in February 1961, an easy-to-use, easy-to hide reliable contraceptive, Anovlar. For the first time in this country, a woman's ability to control her fertility became a reality.

But it was not a reality for all. The pill was available only on prescription, which many doctors refused to provide to an unmarried woman; advertising contraceptives was forbidden; the pill was subject to an exorbitant 27.5% luxury tax; and it was useless after the event. From 1946 until the early 1970s, out-of-wedlock pregnancies continued to rise.

For some, the emerging women's liberation movement posed questions that demanded answers: Was domestic bliss all it was cracked up to be? Why was a man admired for sowing his wild oats while the woman was damned as a whore? Did a woman ask to be raped?

Thus, at the very time that it was becoming easier for a woman to prevent a pregnancy, the women's movement directed its energies to advocating a woman's right to terminate a conception. The unifying principle, of course, was a woman's right, free from duress, to choose whether or not to bear a child.

In May 1970, a coalition of groups at a public meeting at Sydney University had formed what became the Women's Abortion Action Campaign to challenge Australia's abortion laws. Their efforts paid off some 15 months later when five staff members of Heatherbrae Clinic in Sydney were acquitted of charges that they had assisted in the performance illegal abortions.

The ruling of the presiding judge Aaron Levine - that the overriding principle was the welfare of the mother - meant that thenceforth in New South Wale it was possible for most women to obtain a safe abortion even though it was technically unlawful under the state's Crimes Act.

Confronting that 'technicality' has been an on-going objective for pro-choice advocates, Greens members and for Greens MPs at both the state and federal levels.

The Greens

The Greens NSW is the only significant political party in Australia to advocate from its inception that a woman had the right to determine her reproductive destiny.

In 1984, historian Daphne Gollan, an active member of Women's Liberation in Canberra in the 1970s, was the first Greens member to stand for election. In October 1984, The Greens in Sydney issued a draft election platform that outlined the party's policies under each of the four foundational pillars. Under 'Social freedom and democracy' the party's first priority was

For women, the right to reproductive freedom and an unrestricted right to economic independence,as part of a process of breaking down hierarchical structures and beginning to re-order values by eliminating the division between the public and the private domain.

Long-term activist for human rights and social justice, and early Greens member, Jenny Ryde was involved in organising the International Women's Day March and Reclaim the Night. Before her death in 2001, she ran for The Greens at state or federal level on five occasions and consistently advocated a woman's right to reproductive freedom.

Lee Rhiannon's election to the NSW Parliament in 1999 and Kerry Nettle's to the Senate in 2001 saw Greens MPs advancing the issue at both state and federal levels. Among other issues, Kerry focused on the 'morning after' pill, RU486.

The World Health Organisation had trialled the drug, the results demonstrating that it was a safe and effective method of terminating a pregnancy. Throughout the 1980s it was easily accessible in many countries and by the 1990s it looked as though it would be available in Australia.

1996 saw the conservative Howard government elected but without a majority in the Senate. DLP Senator Brian Harradine, a determined opponent of women's reproductive rights, held the balance of power. He did a deal with the devil and agreed to support the privatisation of Telstra in return for restrictions on the importation of abortion-inducing drugs. By June 1996 legislation was in place that enabled the Minister for Health to veto importation and listing of such drugs.

After months of debate and with Tony Abbott as Minister for Health, in February 2006, a cross-party group of women senators introduced a private members bill challenging the 1996 legislation. Kerry Nettle, wearing a T-shirt sponsored by the Young Women's Christian Association and bearing the words, 'Mr Abbott, Get your rosaries off my ovaries', attracted widespread attention. On 9 February, the Bill passed the Senate and subsequently the Lower House.

But, although ostensibly available in Australia since 2006, the drug was expensive and only 200 doctors were authorised to prescribe it. It took until 2012, on an application by Marie Stopes International, for its importation to be approved. Lee Rhiannon, by then a Greens NSW Senator and spokesperson for Women, paid tribute to the women Senators who in 2006 had worked to bring this about.

On International Women's Day in 2012, Rhiannon's article on reproductive rights was published on the ABC's 'The Drum'. It highlighted the tactics of a small group of placard-waving individuals whose activities intimidated patients and staff of clinics that provided abortion services.

As a Greens NSW MP, Rhiannon regularly raised, in the parliament and on the streets, women's reproductive rights. In May 2009, she sponsored a forum in the NSW parliament on abortion law reform in NSW and a month later presented a petition calling for decriminalisation of abortion and referral of the matter to the NSW Law Reform Commission for inquiry. She spoke out regularly on the case of a young Queensland couple who were arrested under that State's Crimes Act for procuring an abortion. She again called for law reform to remove abortion from the NSW Crimes Act and for it to be 'regulated like any other medical procedure'.

Mehreen Faruqi, who had entered the NSW parliament in 2013, continued Rhiannon's efforts to decriminalise abortion in NSW.

Although the courts had held that abortion was lawful when deemed necessary to prevent risk to the life or health of the woman, whether a specific procedure was 'lawful' was dependent on the interpretation of an individual judge – a totally unsatisfactory position for women and for doctors, and one that was inconsistent with overwhelming public support in NSW for women who choose to have an abortion

Faruqi's bill to decriminalise abortion and provide safe access zones around clinics was introduced into the Upper House of the NSW Parliament on 11 May of this year. The Greens mounted the #End12 campaign in support of this parliamentary work. The bill sought to bring NSW into line with laws in Victoria, the ACT, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory.

Its defeat, when every member of the Liberal and National parties voted against it, ensured that NSW would continue to be out of step with modern medical practice and community opinion.

Faruqi deplored the outcome but commented that she was 'proud of the campaign we have run over the last few years and will continue'. She is now focusing on employment discrimination against pregnant women.

Campaigning for woman's right to choose has a long history among The Greens.