By Penelope Dawson

The decriminalisation of abortion across the Western world has provided a ‘back-up’ option for women in cases where contraception has failed, meaning that no man need ever fear a shotgun wedding.

When motherhood became a biological choice for women, fatherhood became a social choice for men. Or, as the comedian Dave Chapelle has put it (in jest, but describing a real attitude):

“Not only do [women] have the right to choose, I don’t believe they should have to consult anybody except for a physician…Gentlemen, that is fair. But ladies, to be fair to us, if you decide to have the baby, the man should not have to pay…..My money my choice.”

Chapelle’s joke is abhorrent. But unfortunately, when using the same philosophy as pro-choice proponents, it rings invariably true. The claim to furthering bodily autonomy and female sexual liberation conceals the truth underlying all abortion policy: that men are the true beneficiaries.

Around this time last year, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion in the US. Now, the decisions on the legality of abortion are left to the states meaning access to abortion will vary dramatically depending on where you live.

It is in Roe’s long shadow that the Australian Labor government is making bold moves on reproductive health care. Pharmacies and medical practitioners are now able to prescribe a pregnancy termination pill under major changes aimed to slash red tape around who can dispense abortion medication.

In Australia, unwanted pregnancies are terminated in one of two ways: surgical or medical. Labor’s reforms concern the latter. The medication is called MS-2 Step which was approved for use in Australia by the Therapeutic Goods Administration in 2006 but was not widely available until 2012.  It can safely be used within the first nine weeks of pregnancy and consists of two drugs, Mifepristone and Misoprostol which block the production of progesterone, and metoprolol. Taken together, they terminate a pregnancy in a less invasive and easier way, (even within the confines of a woman’s home) compared to the surgical option which can be performed after the nine week mark.

In the decade since the drug’s first introduction, doctors prescribing the two pill medical regiment and the pharmacists who stock it had to have special certification. That meant only about 10% of doctors and 30% of pharmacies across Australia have been able to offer it. But, from 1 August 2023, those requirements have been removed meaning all doctors and nurse practitioners will be able to prescribe MS-2 Step and all pharmacies will be able to stock it without the need for special training or certification. According to the Royal Australian College of GPs, the abortion drug would now be treated “just like any other medicine”.

The Risks to Women’s Health

This decision to overhaul the special certifications required to prescribe and dispense the medication was ultimately driven by the aim to increase access to abortion medication in regional and remote communities. However, these reforms are not accompanied by the critical infrastructure required to resolve the implications of the expansion of abortion pill access which could put women at risk of complications, or even death. The National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynae­cologists president Gino Pecoraro said allowing nurses to prescribe the abortion pill would see “lesser trained practitioners” handing out the medication. Dr Pecoraro said he had been called in to help save the life of a 40-year-old woman earlier this year who was flown in from ­regional NSW after being prescribed the abortion pill and experiencing significant side effects and bleeding.

Of course a significantly vulnerable demographic common to remote and regional communities are Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women experience higher rates of pregnancy risk factors, adverse perinatal outcomes, and adolescent pregnancy compared with non‐Indigenous women. Although the removal of safeguards will increase access to sexual and reproductive medication, it is at the expense of the health and safety of women who might not have received adequate education and guidance on the complications that may arise from having a medically induced abortion.

It is not disputed that access to women’s sexual and reproductive healthcare requires further improvement, particularly in regional and remote areas. However, simply removing safeguards to enable the greater dispensation of medication does not improve a woman’s understanding of the consequences in taking such medication nor protect her in circumstances where the medication may enhance the risk of complications to her health or even life. Greater accessibility does not necessarily improve a woman’s choice.

The Moral Dimension

The decision to undergo an abortion should never be made lightly. It is a serious decision that stays with a woman for her entire life and often carries a burden of regret or guilt. However, increasingly, women are blithely accepting the claim that all of the downsides of the new sexual culture are just a small price to pay for personal freedom.

Labor’s reforms remove the seriousness of this decision and have instead enabled policy concerning women’s reproductive healthcare to become substantially lopsided. While the country is giving a lot of support to women who may be pressured into keeping the pregnancy and ensuring she has the right and access to an abortion, that same focus is not there for women who may be coerced into having an abortion and do want that support in order to continue with their pregnancy. The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, and Archdeacon, Kara Hartley, accurately echo this sentiment, saying:

the rhetoric around this issue has been focused on access rather than the impacts of abortion. Women are often unprepared for the physical and psychological impact of terminating their own pregnancy, and without sufficient counselling are unprepared for the confronting experience of delivering a dead foetus at home. The effects can be traumatic.

The impact of allowing self-administration of medication which terminates the life of an unborn child up to nine weeks of gestation is profound. Without proper consultation, support and after-care, medical abortions can cause infection, increase a woman’s risk of infertility or miscarriages in future pregnancies, but most commonly lead to elevated rates of mental illness.

Just like the contraceptive pill, abortion is slowly being perceived as an additional avenue for women to exercise and even ‘enjoy’ their sexual liberation. It invokes a despicable narrative that killing an unborn child or a foetus (whatever you want to call it), is completely acceptable and even encouraged. In the contemporary United States, about half of women who have abortions report that they were using contraception when they became pregnant, and about a quarter of all pregnancies end in abortion. Even Hillary Clinton, who has long been an avid supporter of abortion and women’s reproductive rights, said “abortion should be safe, legal and rare”. But going down this route of increasing accessibility to MS-2 Step will inevitably lead to abortion becoming a “contraceptive option” for all women.

The British columnist Virginia Ironside reflected on the effect on young women of the introduction of the Pill and the decriminalisation of abortion, writing:

It often seemed more polite to sleep with a man than to chuck him out of your flat. True, we’d been brought up to say ‘no’ to sex, but the only reason for that was because we might get pregnant…. But now, armed with the pill, and with every man knowing you were armed with the pill, pregnancy was no longer a reason to say ‘no’ to sex. And men exploited this mercilessly. Now, for them, ‘no’ always meant ‘yes’.

Similarly, every man now knows a woman is both armed with the pill and the freedom and dare I say, expectation, to procure an abortion when the unexpected happens. In a culture where casual sex is normalised and encouraged, it is inevitable that abortion will become an avenue women will be pressured to pursue.

Increasing accessibility doesn’t give a woman more choice, especially when it is not accompanied by proper medical support and a holistic approach to informing the woman of the implications of having an abortion. It decreases the likelihood of a woman taking the time to seek out or understand alternative options to abortion. It pushes women into ending the life of an unborn baby without much thought of the consequences that may affect her mental or physical health. It makes it easier for men to coerce a woman into taking such medication, and subsequently, it will always be the most vulnerable and under-educated women of society who suffer.

While the bid to decriminalise abortion has been successful in Australia and seems legally irrevocable, Labor’s reforms actually remove what is at the heart of the pro-choice campaign: the ability to make an informed choice.

Penelope Dawson is the Events Director of the University of Sydney Conservative Club