Abortion is a “fashion” and a proposal to allow abortion drug RU486 into the Northern Territory could provide “a pathway to a coroner”, the Northern Territory parliament heard during a controversial debate on Wednesday night.
The parliamentarians will eventually cast a conscience vote on the proposed legislation which would bring the NT in line with the rest of Australia, but debate will not resume again until the next sittings in May. The legislation would allow doctors to prescribe the drug which can induce a medical abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.
The debate on the private member’s bill to amend the Medical Services Act was adjourned midway through speeches which voiced concerns about the capacity of Indigenous women to understand the drug, fears the proposed law would lead to a death, and wishes to outlaw abortion altogether.
Currently women in the NT can only access surgical abortions in hospitals, which often requires long-distance travel to a metropolitan centre, and where there may be a significant wait. A medical abortion is available only in very restricted circumstances in a hospital.
Dr Suzanne Belton from the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, has previously told Guardian Australia the restrictions place the territory 10 years behind the rest of Australia and 20 years behind other countries.
While a number of speakers on Wednesday night noted the debate was not about abortion itself, Independent MLA Gerry Wood said the issues could not be separated, and RU486 would provide for “abortion on demand”.
Wood said he believed a human life began at conception and that support for abortion was a “fashion” and a “fallacy”.
“It’s a bit like asking me, ‘would you like to be hit by a bus or a car?’ The end result is the same,” he said.
He said a woman’s right to an abortion should be questioned “when other rights are overridden”.
“No one asks the unborn if they think it’s safe,” he said.
The position of Larissa Lee, member for Arnhem, where 80% of her constituents are Indigenous, was unclear.
Lee said she was concerned about the consequences of the drug in remote communities away from hospitals, and worried about the lack of support for people there who undergo a medical abortion.
She accused Aboriginal health workers of not having the capacity to work with the medication, and said the trauma of a medical abortion would have a greater impact on remote-living young Aboriginal women and girls.
Independent member for Goyder and parliamentary Speaker, Kezia Purick, who introduced the private member’s bill, was criticised for distributing the most recent amendments to the other members only that morning.
CLP member Lisa Finocchiaro said she had spoken to a number of stakeholders and people in her electorate and, on the information she had, the number-one concern of Territory women was safety.
“There is no question the amendments are significant and I won’t hide from the fact I’m disappointed proper time was not afforded all members of the house,” she said.
“The bill is too important to get wrong”.
Finocchiaro said she had confidence in medical bodies to determine guidelines around its provision, and she generally supported reform of the Medical Services Act to allow RU486.
“I’m a proud Territorian and there are plenty of ways we do things differently and are proud of it. But certainly, and unfortunately, there are examples where the Northern Territory’s difference are not to be proud of, and I’m thinking specifically of issues affecting women,” she said, citing domestic violence and access to RU486.
Health minister John Elferink and Labor MLA Gerry McCarthy were in agreement that the bill was “bad legislation”, and suggested the proposed amendments could provide, as McCarthy described, “a pathway to a coroner”.
Elferink, who retires in August, said he supported change but this bill would leave a future health minister “unrestrained in this space” and able to change the policy.
If that happened “the first time we would become aware of it is when a coroner is investigating a death,” he said.
“Rubbish, absolute rubbish,” Purick interjected.
McCarthy also equated an abortion resulting from RU486, which is taken between five and nine weeks into a pregnancy, with the physical result and emotional impact of a stillbirth.
Labor members Natasha Fyles and Nicole Manison spoke in support of the bill.
“This is not about termination; that was decided many years ago,” said Fyles.
“The passage of this legislation would allow Territory women access to a safe medical termination, something that women overseas gained in the 1980s and 1990s,” she said.
She dismissed Elferink’s concerns about access and availability, pointing to “clear guidelines” from the royal Australian and New Zealand college of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
Manison said “it was absolutely time we catch up to the rest of this country and have some faith that our medical professionals certainly can work with somebody to assist them to obtain a medical termination and know they’re going to follow the best possible practices to assure the safety of that person”.
Purick, the former opposition leader Delia Lawrie, and Labor member Lynne Walker have previously spoken in support of the bill.
Debate will resume in May, with 20 minutes left for Wood to speak.
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