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Risking women's health, breaching Australia's laws

By Jocelynne Scutt - posted Friday, 11 May 2007


Lately, what the US does, Australia does. The federal government seems set on apeing George W. Bush’s administration, whatever Australians want, think, need or say. Now, consistent with US policy and practice, it’s gone so far as to put women’s health at risk, and breach Australia’s discrimination laws.

In July 2006, a US minority congressional report said federally funded “pregnancy resources centers” were “incorrectly telling [American] women that abortion results in an increased risk of breast cancer, infertility and deep psychological trauma”. Sound familiar?

In August 2006, Reproductive Choice Australia issued a press release headed “Over 15,000 Australians Plead: ‘Stop Deceiving Women’”, reporting that Senators Natasha Stott Despoja (Dem), Judith Adams (Lib.), Claire Moore (Lab.) and Kerry Nettle (Greens) had joined together in support of Despoja’s Transparent Advertising and Notification of Pregnancy Counselling Services Bill 2005.

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A Senate inquiry heard that women had been told by pregnancy services receiving federal government funding that “terminating a pregnancy was ‘a sin’ and … was ‘killing the baby’”. Callers and clients were denied the possibility of pregnancy termination, receiving misleading information about its “risks”, “including an alleged link between breast cancer and abortion”. The services also tell women that abortion causes post traumatic stress or at least inconsolable psychological pain.

The purported link between pregnancy termination and breast cancer has been disproved by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Breast Cancer Council of Australia, and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (RANZCOG).

As for trauma, many women speak of the relief  experienced upon termination, consistent with their decision that now is not the right time for them to bear a child.

Some women may suffer psychological distress, but the reasons  are not as stark as the pregnancy counselling services seek to suggest. Rather, social pressure, religious force, political posturing and pestering along with family renunciation may cause stress and upset. Mostly, distress may arise for women wanting a child, but whose  health or fetal indications stand in the way. Abortion is not the problem. Being unable to have a healthy child is.

False and misleading information will hardly assist these women, nor protect them from mental harm.

In support of the Bill, Despoja affirmed the “urgent need for legislation to outlaw "misleading and deceptive advertising’ by pregnancy counselling services, to ensure anti-abortion services are upfront about their stand, and women are not misled”.

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Around the same time - mid-2006 - the federal government said it would designate a Medicare number solely for pregnancy counselling accessed by women unsure of whether or not to continue their pregnancy. In the government’s words, the Medicare number was for counselling (PDF 125KB) for “women who have, or have had, an unintended pregnancy, or who are unsure about whether to continue with a pregnancy”.

In September, the government said the number would apply to all pregnancy counselling. Nonetheless, that a policy so invasive of Australian women’s privacy could be suggested indicates a lack of concern for women’s health and privileging of fundamentalist religious views scapegoating abortion and women who contemplate it. It prioritises these over the non-judgmental provision of health care and services.

Both policies - funding organisations providing misleading information and failing to give women all pregnancy options, including termination; and having a special pregnancy counselling Medicare number - run directly counter to federal and state anti-discrimination laws and breach women’s human rights.

With pregnancy termination, the federal government pursues policies detrimental to women’s health, women’s health care and the health of Australians generally, ignoring the majority of Australians - who believe in women’s abortion rights.

The 2004 Australian Election Study (AES) found more than 50 per cent of respondents “believe a woman should be able to readily access ‘abortion on demand’”. Almost 90 per cent of respondents supported abortion when that included allowing termination “under special circumstances”. Only 4 per cent said “abortion should not be allowed under any circumstances”.

In its 2003 study, the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes found 81.2 per cent of respondents agreed  a woman “should have the right to choose whether or not she has an abortion”. Of those surveyed, only 9.4 per cent denied a woman’s right to abortion. Only 4.4 per cent disagreed “strongly” with this right.

Support for women’s right to control our own bodies has increased steadily over the past 30 years, from the 1980s - where 38 per cent of respondents to AES in 1987 said women “should be able to obtain an abortion readily, when they want one”, to the responses of this century.

Yet the federal government continues to target women who undergo abortion.

Why should a Medicare number cover a specific type of health counselling, namely for pregnancy? Shouldn’t there be one universal “health care counselling” number covering anything from prostate cancer counselling, to counselling for radical surgery, to counselling for asthmatic conditions, to counselling for pregnancy services?

A Medicare number, targeting women receiving pregnancy counselling targets women as women, breaching women’s right to equal treatment by reason of pregnancy and sex-gender. Isolating pregnancy counselling means pregnancy is treated differently from any other health condition, just as it means that women are being treated differently from men. Men will not require pregnancy counselling so will never be labelled by this special Medicare number. The question then is whether this different or unequal treatment causes detriment to the women seeking it, who will now wear the label. Clearly, it is - and does.

Although pregnancy termination is legal under certain circumstances, it continues to carry negative connotations among some in the community. Unfortunately, those “some” in the community are known to engage in conduct invasive of women’s privacy, and to abuse women, potentially causing women psychological injury and even sometimes seeking to do women physical harm.

Picketing of abortion clinics, where picketers engage in roughhouse tactics by shouting slogans at women entering the clinic, showing placards with gruesome and explicit diagrams or photographs, shaking their fists, stalking and otherwise threatening the health and wellbeing of clinic clients and personnel, is detrimental to women seeking pregnancy termination.

The shooting of a security guard at a Melbourne clinic is further evidence of detriment. Not only may this conduct deter women from seeking health advice and treatment, it confirms the risk women run when they carry with them health records showing they have sought pregnancy counselling.

At minimum, this is a “flag” alerting the mischievous or retributive anti-abortion fundamentalist to women who may have sought or had abortions. It provides an indicator enabling those seeking to interfere with women’s health provision and health choices to invade women’s privacy and to inflict damage upon them. Confidentiality and privacy laws are little guard against the determined anti-abortionist.

Women are well aware of the negative consequences which may be visited upon them by the small minority seeking to control women’s lives, health care and health choices. No man will ever carry with him a health record labelling him as a target for abuse and attack. Hence, federal government Medicare policy breaches the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) and runs counter to state government policies embodied in state sex discrimination and equal opportunity legislation.

The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is similarly breached, and government reports to the CEDAW Committee ought to reflect this. The World Health Organisation (WHO) - which carries international responsibility for ensuring women have access to healthcare, advice and treatment without discrimination on grounds of sex-gender - should bear down upon the federal government, too.

The federal government is also complicit in promoting breaches of the Sex Discrimination Act, state policies and CEDAW in funding counselling services providing misinformation and no information on particular health care, viz pregnancy termination or pregnancy termination services. As well, the government breaches the Act in funding these arguably substandard services.

It is highly unlikely that the federal government would provide funding to services giving out false and misleading information about men’s health care and services. If a service purporting to cater for men’s health refused to acknowledge prostate or testicular cancer, or heart disease, as conditions for which men may require counselling and treatment, funding would likely be cut or never granted.

Why then is funding not only given to counselling services purporting to cater for women’s health, but given exclusively to those failing to provide full, clear information about all services - including pregnancy termination? This is unequal treatment on grounds of sex-gender and pregnancy, detrimental to women’s health and wellbeing. It runs counter to Sex Discrimination Act and CEDAW provisions, as well as state government Acts.

So too with hospitals or clinics receiving federal government funding and failing to provide the full range of services and health treatments, including pregnancy termination. Government funding policies breach sex-gender discrimination laws - international, federal and state. The hospitals arguably breach the legislation and put women’s lives at risk: pregnancy termination is a health-saving operation, recognised by medical practitioners and legal decisions alike. Failure to provide health-saving treatment may lead not only to discrimination claims, but provide an opening for negligence claims as well.

Not advising women of the full range of health treatments and services available in respect of pregnancy breaches the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) and state and international disability provisions, too. The law classifies pregnancy termination as a life-saving operation or one for the wellbeing of the patient - the woman who seeks and undergoes it.

Abortion is legal because it is necessary for the life, health and wellbeing of the putative mother. Hence, if a service fails to provide information about the treatment, or provides false and misleading information about it, this breaches disability laws. In funding services denying the right to information or the services themselves to women, the federal government ignores Disability Discrimination Act principles. Services, including hospitals, which refuse accurate information and treatment to women seeking pregnancy termination breach the Act’s requirements, too.

There are no over-arching federal Religious Discrimination or Political Discrimination Acts. The states and territories’ discrimination laws generally outlaw religious and political discrimination, though jurisdictional differences exist and some are more comprehensive than others.

Pregnancy counselling services which, upon religious or political grounds, provide misleading or false information about abortion, and hospitals which fail to provide the full range of health treatment for pregnant women, including pregnancy termination, arguably breach state laws. Services and treatment should never be provided so as to cater only for those who believe, on religious or political grounds, that abortion is unacceptable.

Health treatment should never be based in political and religious discriminatory policies. Sadly, Australia - like the US - currently is ruled by those appearing to adhere to policies based not in women’s health and wellbeing, but in politics and religion as a basis for women’s health treatment.

All members of federal Parliament who accept that women have a right to full and accurate information in respect of women’s health - including pregnancy whether carried to term or not - should be supporting the Transparent Advertising and Notification of Pregnancy Counselling Services Bill 2005.

In not doing so, members show themselves not only to be ignorant of Australia’s domestic discrimination legislation and obligations in international law. They may reveal themselves as supporting funding initiatives, counselling and health services that put women’s health rights second or even further down the list.

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About the Author

Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt is a Barrister and Human Rights Lawyer in Mellbourne and Sydney. Her web site is here. She is also chair of Women Worldwide Advancing Freedom and Dignity.

She is also Visiting Fellow, Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Jocelynne Scutt

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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