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The Queensland Agenda
Campbell Newman participated in The Queensland Agenda OurSay in January, where you asked the questions in the lead up to the Queensland election. His responses to the three most popular submissions can be found on our blog at blog.oursay.org.
The Question
Queensland abortion law dates from 1899 and makes abortion a crime for women and doctors. It's the oldest and most restrictive abortion law in Australia, and severely limits the provision of safe abortion services to Queensland women. Eighty percent of the voting public believes abortion should be legal. Will you commit to a review of abortion by the Queensland Law Reform Commission if elected as Premier?
How would mandatory full medical disclosure with the latest in high tech gadgetry go towards modernising the laws? For example ultrasounds and fetal heart rates, medical and psychological problems associated with those who have had abortions. There are states in the USA pushing for these 'modern' scientific tools to enable informed consent abortions only, instead of the "If you don't tell me, I'll try to ignore it and forget it is a real human being." Or worse, being told by medical people the old lie that it is not a human, it's just a lump of cells. (But we won't tell you that those cells are ONLY ever going to be a human.)
Kate, you are clearly ill-informed if you believe 80% of the voting public believes abortion should be legal, since 66% of Queensland's population on the 2006 ABS Census profess to be of the Christian religion which are generally are anti-abortion in stance. Where are your sources?
Hey Sharon, as a friend and family member of many pro-choice Christians I would disagree with your assumption that Christians are generally anti-abortion in stance. Making such assumptions hardly allows you to be in a position to call Kate ill-informed. Do you have sources? There have been many polls done to indicate that the majority of Queenslanders do support a woman's right to choose. A quick google should link you to a lot of that research.
Full medical disclosure is already mandatory. Ultrasounds happen prior to every termination (they need to verify the pregnancy hasn't miscarried). Everyone agrees the morula/blastocyst (both are scientifically a bunch of cells) or embryo (no longer just a bunch of cells) is a distinct member of the human species. The psychological problems from early termination are neglible compared to the psychological consequences of having to go through unwanted pregnancy (and there is plenty of counselling available both before and after abortions (whereas an unwanted pregnancy carried to term requires a lot more support than just counselling, which Christians are often uninterested in committing to giving). If you were really concerned about reducing the number of terminations (which I agree are a tragedy), you Christians would be more supportive of effective birth control being easily accessible from a young age, rather than naively promoting willpower as a contraceptive. Do you really want to send women who have terminations to jail and have their termination added to their criminal record to make it more difficult for them to get a job? What sort of jail term would you suggest? If you don't want women who have terminations to be treated like criminals, DECRIMINALISE abortion. There are other ways to lower the abortion rate without resorting to banning it outright. Banning it outright will result in backyard abortions and vulnerable women (those who survive the backyard abortion) being criminalised. If you are concerned about it being more than just a bunch of cells that are being terminated, legalise RU486 so that the pregnancy can be safely miscarried while it is still in the bunch of cells stage rather than having to wait for six weeks of development to take place before a termination procedure can be carried out.
Hi Sharon, thanks for asking about public opinion. The 2003 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) found that 81% of those surveyed believed a woman should have the right to choose whether or not she has an abortion.[1] The 2003 AuSSA also found that religious belief and support for legal abortion are not mutually exclusive, with 77% of those who identify as religious also supporting a woman’s right to choose.[2] A survey conducted by Auspoll in 2009 of over 1000 Queenslanders found that almost 4 out of 5 voters wanted the law changed so abortion is no longer a crime.[3] A review of over 20 years of data on attitudes to abortion published in October 2009 found that “more than half the electorate in Australia and in Queensland support freedom of choice, and a further third support the availability of abortion in special circumstances… As far as attitudes are concerned, Queensland is no different from the rest of Australia.”[4] On average, between only 5% - 9% of the Australian community are opposed to abortion in every circumstance.[5] 1&2. K Betts “Attitudes to Abortion in Australia: 1972 to 2003” People and Place 22, 2004. 3. Queensland voters’ attitudes towards abortion Report prepared by Auspoll, May 2009. Polling commissioned by Children by Choice. 4. K Betts “Attitudes to Abortion: Queensland and Australia in the 21st Century” People and Place vol 17, 2009. 5. Australian Reproductive Health Alliance What Do Australians Think About Abortion 2005. Available online at http://www.arha.org.au. I think Naomi has thoroughly covered the aspects of health and disclosure and done it brilliantly. :)
I would like to know if you plan on being an advocate for the women of Queensland. The abortion laws as they stand are not in line with best practice. As a health care professional and a woman, this is a subject that is of some significant concern for me. Best Practice is a term that I base my professional career on and to see that any government is prepared to sit back and do nothing about an outdated law that is detrimental to the health and well being of their female constituents because they fear the outcome of a reality based conversation, disappoints me greatly.
this question should be number 3. Muster up your girl power troops and get them voting. The crazies are out-campaigning you.
Qld lags way behind other states in recognising that supporing women's right to choose is supporting better health outcomes for women. Current law and practice in Qld is outdated and has to be changed.
I don,t know where the 80% figure came from, show me your scource. Instead of aborting children, why don,t we poison peoples food, and water, or put products on the market to cause cancers, If that dosn.t work maybe we could start another world war? Sound familiar?
Queensland needs to bring itself in line with the rest of the country with regard to the outmoded abortion law. Moralising arguements aside, its 2012 not 1899 and our laws should reflect that.