2015-11-24
Speech in parliament: I will speak for only a few minutes as my colleague Nina Springle has covered what the Greens believe and how we want to approach this, so I am going to make some quite personal remarks about this bill. I would like to start by thanking Fiona Patten, whose private members bill triggered this process, and the Andrews government, especially the Minister for Health, who understands that harassment and vilification of women seeking an abortion—which is, I must remind members, a legal medical procedure—is an act of violence.
I have had many emails from people who claim they are just giving counselling, that it is not violent harassment. I have been down to the clinic, I have spoken to the staff and I have spoken to the women, and what I have seen has been harassment. It seems to me that part of this is because they just cannot stand the idea that a woman can be smart enough to make up her own mind about what she wants to do with her life. My intern, who wrote the report, also filmed some of those demonstrations, and what I saw was pure and utter harassment. It is not just harassment of the women going into the clinic, it is also the ongoing harassment of the staff. From what staff have told me over the years, it includes being followed, being harassed going into work and being vilified, with violent threats being made against them. For everything that the group wants to say about having never done this, I have evidence from the other side to say that is exactly what has gone on.
For probably 20 years now I have been involved in various campaigns for women’s reproductive rights. In the Parliament in this last 10 years the Greens have had a strong history of being involved in these issues. Much of this has come about from a fairly informal group of pro-choice MPs who have worked together to make sure that this kind of legislation is introduced, such as the decriminalisation of abortion, on which we worked closely together. There are so many women who worked over the years on all these things that I cannot name all of them, but I am sure they all know who I am talking about. I am not allowed to look in the gallery and smile at any of them, so they can just take my thanks for granted.
I do want to mention one particular person, and that is Susie Allanson, who is the psychologist at the East Melbourne clinic and who has for years campaigned on this issue. She is tough, she is brave, she is tenacious and she is so stubborn. Anybody who ever thought that they would get around Susie on this issue was very, very mistaken.
I do want to respond to a number of things Dr Carling-Jenkins said tonight, especially about the effects of abortion on women. I had an abortion 34 years ago. I am not suicidal; I am not depressed. I am in a long-term loving relationship, so I am not sure where she gets her information, but it is certainly not what my experience is and it is not the experience of other women I know.
As other people have said as well, we have a bubble zone around the Parliament, so why should we not have a bubble zone around abortion clinics? I have no problem with people protesting outside the gate every morning that Parliament sits. They absolutely have a right to do that, but they do not have the opportunity to harass me the way they harass the women and the staff going into clinics.
I actually feel a great deal of pride as a member of the Greens that I am able to vote on this legislation today, because for me this is part of keeping women safe from violence, from intimidation and from harassment.