"Women's rights inferior to those of the foetus"

Vanguard March 2014 p. 6
Louisa L.

International Women's Day this year is marked by an open attack on the people, the complete expression of imperialist economic and foreign policy attached to extremely conservative social policy.

Economically women suffer disproportionately because on average they are much poorer than men.

Promised pay increases to childcare workers are scrapped, a royal commission against unions begins, and financial protections (introduced after Storm's collapse stole millions from Australians' life savings, especially superannuation) are removed. Industries shut down. Prices rise. All this hammers women.

But there's another dangerous pill for women to swallow.

In November last year the NSW Lower House passed an amendment to the Crimes Act, which will create personhood for a foetus for the first time in Australia. It comes before the Legislative Council in early March.

The bill was created after a drugged driver hit a heavily pregnant woman, Brodie Donegan, causing terrible injuries, and the loss of her unborn child. Mrs Donegan, who supports abortion rights, wants the driver charged on behalf of her unborn child.

Wide opposition ignored

The Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), have all vocally opposed the bill, which creates a foetus's personhood after 20 weeks, raising concerns about its far-reaching implications on women’s reproductive rights. They say the wide-reaching 2010 Campbell Review got the balance right.
 

According to Wendy Carlisle, (RN Background Briefing 10/11/13) the NSW Bar Association says it will be almost impossible to quarantine the human rights of the foetus into one small corner of the Crimes Act under the heading of grievous bodily harm.

Bar Association President Phillip Boulten SC said, “What’s the difference really between a special law saying that if you cause grievous bodily harm to a foetus that’s one thing, why would it not be the logical next step to criminalise the deliberate killing of a foetus or the deliberate and wilful killing of a foetus? That could be manslaughter or murder.”

The NSW Law Society, a medical indemnity organisation, civil liberty groups and most women's groups also oppose the bill.

US experience

Our Bodies Ourselves have pointed out that attaching rights to a foetus has been the first step for many American anti-choice groups seeking to limit access to abortion.

Christine Donayre illustrates this, "Alicia Beltran was 14 weeks' pregnant when she told her doctor, during a pre-natal medical visit, about the pill addiction she had successfully beaten the year before.

“The doctors accused her of endangering the foetus. Beltran was taken in shackles before a family court commissioner and refused a lawyer, while her foetus had already been assigned a legal guardian to represent it in court. She was ordered by the court to report to and stay at an inpatient facility for drug rehabilitation as she had refused to take an anti-addiction drug she didn't need.

“Beltran's case is not unique, nor is it new. The US National Advocates for Pregnant Women have documented hundreds of similar cases”. (Guardian Australia, 10/11/13)

US Law professor R. Alta Charo, who also analyses consequential restrictions on medical research and the banning of cancer, Parkinsons and arthritis drugs because they are used in abortions, put it this way: women's "rights were seen as inferior to those of the foetus."

Australians overwhelmingly support women's hard-won rights to safe, legal, affordable abortions.

We need to protect those rights. Two protests have already started the ball rolling, but there's a big battle ahead.