2016-05-26
Speech in Parliament in response to the Infant Viability Bill 2016: The Greens will not be supporting this bill as we do not believe that it is necessary. We believe that this is a retrograde step in the way we think about women’s reproductive rights. Women are smart, and they can make their own decisions about how they live their lives. They do not need the Parliament to tell them how they will live their lives. I was here for the 2008 debate when this Parliament decriminalised abortion. It was a long and difficult debate, and we covered all of this ground extensively. The Greens were in favour of the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 then, and we remain in favour of abortion law reform. We do not believe it needs to be amended, and we will continue to campaign against any attempts to take back the rights of women to make choices about their own lives.
I was briefed this week by Dr Christine Tippett, who is a past president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. I will not list the rest of her CV because that would take at least 15 minutes. I suggest people google her so they can see the extreme amount of experience that she has had. In the briefing it was explained that this bill is inconsistent with good medical practice for the following reasons: it imposes an arbitrary definition of ‘late term’—24 weeks—which is inconsistent with best medical practice; it attempts to legislate health care, and it will have many unintended consequences, including undermining the professional relationship between a patient and her doctor by requiring the doctor to do certain things even when those things are against his or her professional or ethical judgement; and it does not take into account the last decades of advances in the way all aspects of pregnancy, including premature births, are now dealt with.
Dr Tippett took us through how very premmie babies who require palliative care are cared for in hospitals. I have to say I found that part of the briefing quite difficult because the amount of care and consideration that was given to these tiny babies was quite clear. Having a friend who has suffered several miscarriages at around the 24-week mark, I know how the hospital supported her and took care of her very, very tiny babies. Dr Tippett said to us that it was very clear that there is a real lack of understanding in this bill of the care and compassion with which decisions around late-term abortions and unviable births are treated in our hospitals in Victoria.
The bill removes the decision about whether to end the pregnancy from the parents, and then parents are expected to cope with the aftermath.
Clause 10 is particularly serious as it criminalises doctors. While the bill does not directly criminalise women, it risks driving the very rare practice of late-term abortions underground—an obviously unnecessary risk to women’s lives and health.
The current laws are working well. They provide enough legal certainty to allow doctors and hospitals to do what they do best, which is to support people through very difficult and often traumatic decisions. Let us remember that usually these pregnancies have started as being wanted—babies that were anticipated and babies that would have been loved—but these pregnancies are not successful.
The bill does not do what Dr Carling-Jenkins and her supporters believe it does. I have a number of points on this. In terms of holistic care, we are told that clause 4 of the bill facilitates the provision of holistic care to pregnant women in distress. That is actually not what clause 4 does. Clause 4 only requires a medical practitioner to refer a pregnant woman to one or more services, regardless of whether that service has capacity or even exists to help that woman. As Dr Carling-Jenkins concedes, this is an issue of policy and resourcing, not legislation.
The choice between the mother and the child: we are told that this bill will somehow mean that doctors will not have to choose between a pregnant woman and her unborn child.
Actually what clause 5 appears to do is force a doctor to choose the unborn child over the pregnant woman in all circumstances, although inconsistencies in this clause actually make it quite unclear. Every case is unique, and every decision to terminate or continue a pregnancy is one that must be left to medical staff and the pregnant woman in consultation with family, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and other appropriate medically trained people—not the Parliament. Clause 5 is an extraordinary clause that could introduce so much uncertainty that it would mean that time-sensitive medical decisions could get referred to courts so that lawyers could argue about them, regardless of the medical realities.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has made it very clear what its position is on this issue. Even though during the Greens briefing with Dr Carling-Jenkins she told us that this was not the AMA’s position, it has reissued it twice, so I believe that it is quite factual. I want to read one particular section of it:
‘The perinatal and neonatal care provided in Victoria is determined by doctors and their patients. It is world class, safe, legal and clinically appropriate. The Australian Medical Association (Victoria) strongly opposes the Infant Viability Bill’, Dr Lorraine Baker, president of AMA Victoria, said…
‘The bill suggests that the neonatal intensive care provided at the Royal Children’s Hospital, the Royal Women’s Hospital, Monash Medical Centre and Mercy Hospital for Women is inappropriate. This is insulting and wrong.
‘By attempting to legislate medical care, this bill jeopardises good medical practice and decision-making on a case-by-case basis. AMA Victoria urges the Victorian Parliament to vote down this bill.
That is exactly what the Greens will be doing. We believe that far from supporting women in difficult circumstances, this bill would make those times even more difficult and fraught by imposing the will of a small minority and by taking certain options, including certain life-preserving options, off the table. I actually believe this bill is an affront to the professionalism of medical and other hospital staff, the people we actually rely on to make these decisions with us—not the Parliament. Women and their families need care, compassion and professional advice in these incredibly difficult circumstances, not judgement from the Parliament. We do not need this bill, and the Greens will not vote for it.
This bill was not successful.