The Secretary 09 February 2018 Queensland Law Reform Commission PO Box 13312 George Street Post Shop QLD 4003 Re: Submission to the Queensland Law Reform Commission s Review of Queensland s Laws relating to Termination of Pregnancy Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission to the Review of Termination of Pregnancy Laws in Queensland. I make this submission as the Greens NSW spokesperson for the Status of Women. The Greens NSW strongly support full decriminalisation of abortion and enactment of safe access zones outside reproductive health clinics. Many jurisdictions in Australia have moved to repeal criminal penalties for abortion, including Tasmania1, the Australian Capital Territory2, Victoria3 and most recently the Northern Territory4. These states have also enacted safe access zones outside premises where abortion services are provided. Queensland and NSW are the only two states where abortion offences remain unchanged in statute laws and no safe access zones outside reproductive health clinics are in place. I do want to acknowledge that in addition to women, people of diverse genders, including transgender men, gender non-conforming, and non-binary people need to access reproductive health care, including abortion services. In NSW, I introduced the first-ever abortion decriminalisation and safe access zones bill into Parliament in August 2016. The bill was debated in May 2017 after a huge community campaign across the State and widespread support from both experts and the public. Like Queensland, this reform was not successful in NSW this time around. While this was a disappointing result, abortion rights are now firmly on the political and public agenda in both Queensland and NSW. In this context, recommendations coming out of the Law Reform Commission review of these laws in Queensland will be vital in advancing discussion on this issue, including in NSW. It presents a significant opportunity to bring Queensland in line with other states in Australia and reform archaic abortion laws that criminalise women and medical professionals in both states, and to make changes that fully decriminalise abortion, enable the enactment of safe access zones outside clinics, and create provisions for abortion access in the public health system. 1 Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Act 2013 (Tas) 2 Health Act 1993 (ACT) 3 Abortion Law Reform Act 2008 (Vic) 4 Termination of Pregnancy Law Reform Act 2017 (NT)
Criminalisation of abortion acts as a direct barrier to women accessing vital reproductive health services and continues the persisting stigma and shame associated with abortion. This is only exacerbated by the ongoing harassment of patients by anti-choice groups protesting outside clinics, putting the health and safety of women accessing reproductive health services at risk. It is unacceptable that the medical privacy of patients, which is considered a right for all medical procedures, is so often breached for abortion. Termination of pregnancy is a medical and health issue, and it should be treated as such, not as a criminal matter. The criminalisation of abortion also contributes to creating a severe lack of access. Many doctors do not perform abortions due to the fear of prosecution and persecution. Abortions are not routinely provided in public hospitals. This makes the procedure both hard to access and expensive, especially for women in rural and regional areas5. In addition to this, the criminalisation of abortion further impedes access to abortion services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, immigrant women and those from low socio-economic backgrounds6. Below, I have responded in detail to the key matters being considered by the Queensland Law Reform Commission. Community Attitudes towards Abortion Law Reform and Access Polling shows that nationwide support for women s right to obtain an abortion has been steadily rising in Australia. In the latest Australian Election Study (2016), which assessed the attitudes of 2,818 voters following the 2016 Australian election, researchers from the Australian National University found that support for women to obtain an abortion readily has gone up to 69%7. This is the highest nationwide support that has ever been recorded and shows the community supports the right to abortion. The first ever independent and statistically significant polling conducted in NSW to measure attitudes to abortion law reform showed overwhelming community support for the removal of abortion offences from the Crimes Act. The polling was conducted by Lonergan Research in September 2015. Overall, 73% supported the removal of abortion from the Crimes Act. People living in regional and rural NSW were more likely to have a view that abortion should be decriminalised (77%), compared to people in Sydney (70%). There was majority support for decriminalising abortion regardless of party affiliation, including Liberal/National (75%), Labor (77%) and Greens (86%). There was majority support amongst both men (71%) and women (75%) and across all age groups with support strongest among those aged 65+ (81%)8. 5 Christine Forster and Vedna Jivan, Abortion Law in New South Wales: Shifting from Criminalisation to the Recognition of the Reproductive Rights of Women and Girls (2017) 24 Journal of Law and Medicine 850. 6 Ibid 851. 7 Australian Election Study, 2016: http://www.australianelectionstudy.org/ 8 Lonergan Research, Polling on Attitudes Towards Abortion, September 2015: http://www.mehreenfaruqi.org.au/firstever-polling-of-abortion-issues-in-nsw-shows-overwhelming-support-for-abortion-law-reform-and-exclusion-zonesacross-political-party-affiliation/ and Natalie O Brien, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 September 2015: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/polling-shows-overwhelming-support-for-a-womans-right-to-choose-20150925-gjvfyu.html 2
In polling conducted by Essential Research in February 2017, 82% of the people surveyed in Queensland agreed that, in consultation with a medical professional, it should be legal for a woman to decide to terminate her pregnancy9. Overall, reliable polling has consistently shown that the vast majority of people in Australia support a woman s right to choose and the decriminalisation of abortion. In New South Wales, more than 300 medical practitioners from across the State signed an open letter to members of State Parliament calling for decriminalisation and imploring them to take action to get rid of the archaic laws that have kept abortion offences in the NSW Crimes Act 190010. Over 100 law and criminology academics also signed an open letter to members of NSW Parliament saying it is time to remove abortion offences from the NSW Crimes Act 1900 and calling for the enactment of safe access zones11. In addition, in NSW, the Greens Abortion Law Reform Bill 2016 was endorsed by many organisations including the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties, NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, Public Health Association of Australia, Women s Legal Services, New South Wales Teachers Federation, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, the National Tertiary Education Union, Family Planning NSW, White Ribbon and Marie Stopes among others. Such widespread community support, and significant support from medical and legal experts and stakeholders is evidence of the problems with current laws governing pregnancy termination and why they need to be changed. Abortion Law Reform and Reproductive Autonomy Fundamentally, the question of abortion law reform is a question of women s rights over their own bodies, to be able to make decisions for themselves, and their reproductive autonomy. Decriminalising abortion gives women and all other people needing access to reproductive healthcare the right to make their own medical choices with full certainty of the law behind them. The complete decriminalisation of abortion fully recognises the autonomy of women and girls over their bodies and any decisions related to their reproductive rights. A model of full decriminalisation would more effectively support, recognise and enable the fulfilment of women s and girls reproductive rights12 (C Forster and V Jivan). 9 Fair Agenda, New polling shows criminalisation of women's healthcare is a vote changer, 21 February 2017. Online at: http://www.fairagenda.org/blog_abortion_polling 10 Doctors for Decrim, Open Letter to Members of the NSW Parliament from Doctors in Support of Decriminalising Abortion. Online at https://doctorsfordecrim.squarespace.com/ 11 Bridie Jabour, 11 August 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/11/law-academics-nsw-governmentabortion-criminal-code 12 Christine Forster and Vedna Jivan, Abortion Law in New South Wales: Shifting from Criminalisation to the Recognition of the Reproductive Rights of Women and Girls (2017) 24 Journal of Law and Medicine 3
Later term abortions are an area of the discussion where misinformation about pregnancy terminations is most common. Therefore, it is helpful to turn to the facts which state that in Australia, only 0.7% of abortions take place after 20 weeks, and over 95% of abortions take place within the first 13 weeks of gestation13. Since 2002, the Australian Capital Territory has had laws related to abortion in place that do not impose any gestational limit. There is no evidence of any increase in late term abortions in the ACT since those laws came into effect. This clearly demonstrates that women and health and medical professionals can be trusted to deal with this health procedure. Conscientious Objection Patients rely on their health practitioners for knowledge and expertise. They expect to be provided with information about all the options that are available to them, including termination. Patients trust medical professionals to offer the full range of choices available to them. The law should make it clear that any health practitioner who is asked to advise a patient about abortion, or perform, direct, authorise or supervise an abortion must advise the patient that they have such an objection and refer the patient to another doctor who does not have such an objection. However, a conscientious objection must not be not allowed in emergency situations, Safe Access Zones Termination of pregnancy is a medical and health issue, and patients should be afforded the same medical privacy for this as for any other health matter. The community overwhelmingly supports the enactment of safe access zones outside clinics. Exclusion zones must be established outside all reproductive health facilities to enable women and all people needing reproductive health care to access abortion and related health services in safety, dignity and medical privacy. In conclusion, women should have the unambiguous right to make decisions about their reproductive health and be able to do so with the full certainty of law, and in safety and medical privacy. Hence, I recommend the following: Full decriminalisation of abortion in line with the principles of reproductive autonomy. Enactment of safe access zones outside reproductive health clinics. Provision of pregnancy termination services across public hospitals. Access (cost and location) and availability of surgical and medical terminations, especially in rural and regional areas. I sincerely hope that you consider the recommendations in this submission. 13 Victorian Law Reform Commission, Law of Abortion: Final Report, Report No 15 (2008) [3.36]. 4
Please do not hesitate to contact me or my office for further information. Kind Regards Dr Mehreen Faruqi MLC Greens NSW Spokesperson for the Status of Women 5