Nitpicking and a rant.
Since I have spent the day feeling somewhat distracted, I decided to read up on some pro-life arguments focusing on the current Victorian abortion controversy. After reading a few reports of the debates both in and out of Parliament, I stumbled across the Tell the Truth (TTT) Coalition. They had some rather interesting statements about what this bill did, so I felt obliged to comment.
Their pamphlets attempt to make a number of points about the reforms.
1) The reforms make abortions immediately prior to birth legal
2) The reforms will punish staff who conscientiously object to assisting in an abortion
3) The reforms do not protect women who are coerced into undergoing an abortion
4) The reforms allow violent offenders (presumably criminals) to kill fetus's without being liable for murder or manslaughter.
Dealing with each of these arguments in turn:
1) Section 7 of the reform bill would allow a woman who is more than 24 weeks pregnant to undergo an abortion if two doctors are agreed that it is appropriate in all of the circumstances. Strictly applied, this would allow an abortion immediately prior to birth if there was sufficient circumstances to make an abortion appropriate. It is difficult to imagine such circumstances outside an immediate risk to the mother's life. The fact that two different doctors must both agree does provide some safeguards against rogue practitioners, and the reasonableness requirement imposed mandates an objective assessment of the situation. If a doctor performs an late-term abortion without satisfying these provisions, then they could be subject to criminal prosecution for infliction of serious injury.
2) Section 8 of the reform bill allows a medical professional to deny an abortion if they conscientiously object to it if they clearly inform the woman of their belief, and refer the woman to another practitioner who is willing to provide that service. The only situation in which an objecting doctor is obliged to perform an abortion is in an emergency where the woman's life is in danger. This does strike a balance between the doctor's conscience and their obligations as a professional, however it is one that they should accept when seeking to practice medicine. If a doctor believes that their beliefs are more important to them than a patient's welfare, then they may be in the wrong profession.
3) The reforms do not make any reference to protecting a woman for being coerced into having an abortion. That said, the previous law in abortion never expressly touched upon this issue. As semi-legal abortion has been available in Victoria for almost 40 years, I am surprised that this is suddenly being raised a serious objection to the codification of this field of law. I suspect that the medical law on consent would regulate issues of coercion. If so, I can see no reason why special provisions should be made.
4) This argument is one of the WTF?! variety. After looking over the proposed law and the explanatory speeches made in parliament, I can't find a single hint that it does anything of the sort. The only explanation I can come up with is that the reforms replace the child destruction offence with an expanded serious injury offence. TTT's suggestion that these reforms deny the foetus legal protection outside legal abortions ignores the fact that other offences remain applicable. They're just not sexy enough to be mentioned by CSI.
They did provide some other information, in particular an explanation of how some abortions are performed. The procedure described (Dilation and Extraction) is not commonly used for abortions, though it does lend itself to graphic descriptions. While it can accurately be described as gruesome, most medical procedures would fit into that category. The actual process of birth is no less gruesome, and lends itself equally to graphic descriptions of the process.
Okay, this rant got a lot larger than I expected. It's probably blatantly obvious at this point, but I am in favour of the new law. It clarifies the law for the public, lawyers and doctors. Whether you like or hate the Mennenheit ruling that effectively legalised abortion, it is a bad idea to allow social norms to form around a court decision that hasn't even tested by on appeal and could easily be reversed.
All that's needed now is the Legislative Council (the Victorian upper house) to accept this law.
Tonight's rant has been brought to you by:
Tell the Truth Coalition, for all your Truthful needs.