What's next for abortion in New Zealand?
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz
16.06.08
How desperate would a woman have to be to abort her child, at the hands of a stranger, lying blindfolded in the back of car?
The dark days of the 1930s and 1940s, raised last week as cautionary tales by Family Planning, were frightful indeed.
The tales of women from that era are what made historian Barbara Brookes the staunch feminist she is today.
"I talked to women who'd had abortions under all sorts of horrendous circumstances," Brookes says.
"One guy used to drive around in his car and women would meet him on a corner. They would be blindfolded so they never knew who he was and he'd do the abortion in the back of his car."
She wrote her dissertation on 1930s' abortion in 1976.
The following year, she was door- knocking in Christchurch, gathering signatures for a Women's National Abortion Action Campaign petition.
By year's end, Parliament had passed the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977, actioning the recommendations of a royal commission of inquiry into abortion.
The legislation made abortion illegal except in certain extraordinary circumstances. Women's groups, and many men, were outraged by the conservatism of the law.
The Sisters Overseas Service flew women seeking a safe, legal abortion to Australia, where the procedure was more accessible.
Liberal National MP Marilyn Waring spearheaded a campaign to repeal the law. "They were heady days for the pro-abortionists," Ms Waring recalls.
Progress was slow, however. Ms Waring's 318,000-signature petition was rejected by Parliament.
In 1982, anti-abortionist Melvyn Wall failed in a bid for a judicial review of an abortion he considered unnecessary. It was a turning point for the interpretation of abortion law in New Zealand.
"The heat only died from the issue once doctors were secure that they could interpret the law liberally without fear of prosecution," Brookes says in a forthcoming book.
That meant doctors taking women at their word when they said they needed an abortion for the sake of their mental health.
This is what has been challenged in last week's ruling by Justice Miller.
More than 98 per cent of abortions are authorised on the grounds of risk to mental health, a figure the judge considers remarkably high.
He says the Abortion Supervisory Committee might take a more active role in reviewing the legality of abortions.
That does not worry the chairwoman of the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians, Gillian Gibson.
An audit would simply prove the law is being faithfully followed already, she says. "What we have at the moment is a very safe and accessible service for women. It is a lawful service and legal abortions are being performed."
Even if the committee takes a more vigorous approach, there are clearly defined limits to what they can ask. The confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship presents a big roadblock.
Youth health specialist Sue Bagshaw says it would be difficult to prove a doctor had acted in bad faith certifying an abortion on the grounds of mental health.
The mental health justification is a broad definition, she says. "Pregnancy is incredibly stressful if it's not planned and not wanted."
Protecting a woman's mental health by allowing an abortion means protecting her "sense of complete mental wellbeing".
An Australian study published this year in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry seems to support that view.
The study, in which 32 women were interviewed one year after having an abortion, found "the most important and frequent effect of abortion" was to make women feel more competent in managing their lives.
But there is a cost to a hands-off approach by the supervisory committee.
Concerns about the privacy of women seeking abortions stopped clinicians alerting authorities to botched sterilisations by Roman Hasil at Wanganui Hospital, exposed this year.
Contrary to the Australian study, a New Zealand study in 2006 by David Fergusson showed evidence of the emotional damage abortion can cause.
Even when previous mental health problems were taken into account, Professor Fergusson found, statistically, young women who had abortions had rates of later mental disorder that were about 1.5 times those of women not having an abortion.
SUCH data spurred independent MP Gordon Copeland to write a bill designed to improve the information given to women seeking an abortion.
His Abortion (Informed Consent) Bill is a rare modern example of a politician forcing the issue on abortion.
He says abortion is a political no-go zone these days. "Parliament should address it . . . But people have still got this view that it will be the death knell of your political career if you speak out about abortion."
The silence from Labour and National after Justice Miller's judgment last week proves his point.
If we can't expect legislative change, where does that leave abortion law today?
A delighted Ken Orr, of the Right to Life group, which brought the case that the judge ruled on, is in no doubt of the result.
"We would expect a substantial reduction in the number of abortions done in New Zealand each year," he says.
The Crown may yet appeal against the judgment.
But will practitioners toe the line?
"Well, I guess they'll have to," Family Planning's Jackie Edmond says.
"If it's in the law and the committee is asking them to do that, they'll have to. But for us the worry is that it could make access to abortion more difficult for women."
THE JUDGMENT
The judgment by Justice Forrest Miller found that:
* The Abortion Supervisory Committee had "misinterpreted its functions and powers under the abortion law".
* "There is reason to doubt the lawfulness of many abortions".
* NZ law says abortion must be authorised by two certifying consultants using a limited number of grounds.
* Some certifying consultants decline few or no abortions.
* Justice Miller said the committee was wrong to interpret the law as meaning it had no power to review or scrutinise consultants' decisions.
* Statistics NZ figures show there were 17,930 abortions in 2006. Of those, 17,732 were authorised on the grounds that pregnancy posed a serious risk to the mental health of the mother.
* Justice Miller has not recommended that the committee take any particular action but he may do so in the future.
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