Christian politicians cannot check their faith into the parliamentary cloakroom and be otherwise indistinguishable from everyone else…
Why isn’t the fact that 100,000 women choose to end their pregnancies regarded as a national tragedy…
Mr Abbott had hoped to encourage a private member's bill on what he termed the "epidemic" of abortion, and was advocating an inquiry.
Given the recent public debate on Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott’s attitude to women, there was an interesting ABC TV Q&A exchange between the Labor Minister for Employment Participation and the Minister for Early Childhood and Childcare and the Liberal Shadow Education Minister and Manager of Opposition Business on Monday 8 October 2012:
KATE ELLIS: Well, I just think if you want to talk about his record and if you want to talk about his record as Health Minister, I think we should talk about his record over a number of decades. But if you want to talk about when he was Health Minister, why don’t you talk about the way he restricted access to RU 486 for Australian women across the country because his religious views did not agree with that. Let’s talk about that because is his record...
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, he restricted it...
KATE ELLIS: That is his record and he had to be overruled by the parliament when we voted in a conscience vote because, as Health Minister, he refused to do it.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Actually the Department of Health's advice, Kate, because I was the Parliamentary Secretary for Health at the time with responsibility for the Therapeutic Goods Administration, was that RU 486 was and is a dangerous drug and the recommendation is it should not be approved for use in Australia.
Apparently Christopher Pyne would have us believe that when he was the Federal Minister for Health in the Howard Government, Tony Abbott was opposing the introduction of this drug based on advice received from the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
"This use of the drug is sufficiently controversial, if you like - there are sufficient public interest issues involved - for the added accountability of a ministerial decision to be part of that process," Mr Abbott told the Nine Network.
The abortion pill is too risky to leave to medical officials, argues Health Minister Tony Abbott. In 1996, the ederal [sic] parliament decided that decisions about abortion drugs were too important to be made by unelected, unaccountable officials…. The parliament decided that it was not just the science of abortion drugs that mattered but the circumstances surrounding their use. Experts can explain fads [sic] but politicians then have to resolve the values that are to be placed on those facts to the satisfaction of a democratic electorate. The parliament decided that ministers rather than bureaucrats should have the final say on these drugs’ availability because polilicians [sic] are accountable for their actions in a way that officials are not….
So far no application to use RU486 has been finalised by the TGA for ministerial consideration.
I suppose this is why I pose the question to him and others: why does he trust the head of the TGA, whom he does not know and cannot question, to make these decisions, rather than a minister whom he does know and can question and apparently trusts? I have great respect for the officers of the TGA, but I simply pose the question: why should the head of the TGA, a person whose name would not even be known to most of the members of this House and who has never given an interview, be responsible for making decisions on some of the most fraught questions facing our society, rather than being responsible for simply providing expert advice?.....
So the big issue is not RU486 but what can be done to ensure that the women of Australia have real freedom of choice. That is why I am so pleased that the cabinet will shortly be considering new support for pregnant women facing very difficult decisions.
I believe that, in essence, this private member’s bill before us is a political statement by its sponsors that there should be no external restrictions or controls on abortion whatsoever. I think that society should not be indifferent to the fate of up to 100,000 unborn babies every year, and it will not always remain as indifferent as it currently seems. At the very least, this debate has at least focused attention on how, in this respect, our nation falls so very far short of its best self.
A spokesman for Mr Abbott responded that ''administration of RU486, as with other drugs, is a matter for the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the Coalition will not change that''.
Or has it? Do we have this change of heart in writing?
