Anti-abortion bill comes to Australia by stealth

By Gabrielle Jackson

The latest American cultural import comes to Australia via the Democratic Labor Party Senator for Victoria, John Madigan. He has introduced a bill to ban Medicare funding for sex-selected abortions in Australia.

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Especially when you consider that most sex-selected abortions result in the termination of female foetuses.

Or does it?

If we believe a woman has the right to choose, then we must believe that all women have the right to choose, whatever her reasons may be. We cannot say that only educated, liberal, westernised feminists have the right to choose because their reasons are more amenable to our beliefs.

A woman’s reasons for choosing to abort are neither my business nor my concern. Her right to choose is my only concern and it must be defended at all costs. I’m not sure whether –in countries such as Australia – the provider should even have the right to ask a woman’s reason. Aren’t we capable of making this life-changing decision all by ourselves? Or do we still need the circumspection of others (usually men) to ensure we’re making the ‘right’ decision?

It’s the same argument that is used for free speech. I don’t believe in that right because I like to listen to the opinions of people who agree with me. I don’t defend women’s right to choose because I assume she’s choosing to abort because she was raped, or she’s young, or for any other ‘good’ reason. Women, and men, fought for abortion to be legalised because they believed a woman had the right to control her own body. To start introducing clauses is to diminish the crux of the defense of abortion in its entirety.

And therein lies the secret of this spurious bill. There is no evidence to suggest that sex-selected abortions are happening at a concerning rate in Australia at all. The bill, called the Health Insurance Amendment (Medicare Funding for Certain Types of Abortion) Bill 2013, has been referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration, which has received many hundreds of submissions, overwhelmingly in support of the bill.

The Women’s Centre for Health Matters also made a submission, pointing to the lack of evidence that sex-selection was even an issue in Australia.

‘Were sex-selective abortions taking place in Australia on a systematic basis, this would be revealed through skewed gender ratios. Australia has a normal ratio of male-to-female births.

‘Looking at data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics from 2011, just over half (51%) of all births registered were male babies, resulting in a sex ratio at birth of 105.7 male births per 100 female births. This is a biologically normal sex ratio at birth and does not indicate a skewed sex ratio in Australia.

‘Taking a view of the population overall, we see that at June 2011 there were 124,700 more females than males residing in Australia, with 11.2 million females and 11.1 million males.’

In the latest posting of Anne Summers Reports – which does a good summary of this debate – Summers claims that the make up of today’s parliament is no longer pro-choice. What will happen to women’s right if the anti-abortion activist Tony Abbott becomes prime minister is anyone’s guess. (Let’s not forget that as Health Minister Abbott tried to personally veto the import of the abortion drug RU486 - a drug that is on the World Health Organisation's list of essential medicines and is already available in more than 50 countries. Under the current government, it has been recommended for cover on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which would make a safe, legal abortion available for as low as $12. A final decision is imminent.)

This isn’t to say that sex-selected abortions aren’t a public health issue everywhere. I was in many hospitals in India and was confronted with countless posters and pamphlets addressing the issue. Posters reminded doctors and patients that sex-selected abortions are illegal. Doctors face heavy penalties and even licence restrictions for performing these terminations. But these penalties were framed within a wider public campaign promoting the dignity of the girl child.

Of course, this campaign has a long way to go. Girls who aren’t aborted are often left to fend for themselves. Abandoned, abused and ignored. All countries, not just India, should be looking to build a society in which it is not a burden to give birth to a girl, where her rights are respected and she can grow up to be a valuable, loved and loving, member of her family and the society she lives in.

If we don’t want women to abort female foetuses, we should be promoting equal opportunity for women, not banning her right to control her own body.

And we should see this bill for what it is in modern day Australia – an underhanded way to restrict abortion by stealth.

Do look up this Anne Summers Reports newsletter, which includes an impassioned article by the American feminist and abortion provider Merle Hoffman.

Gandhi on women

I went to the Gandhi museum today. I haven't seen much in Delhi but this had the principle attraction of being air-conditioned, so off I went.

Of course, I was humbled and awed at what an insightful, wise and generous spirit he was, and his thoughts and teachings on women really stood out as ahead of their time.

Here are a few quotes:

ON PURDAH: (the practice of concealing women from men)
"And why is there all this morbid anxiety about female purity? Have women any say in the matter of male purity? We hear nothing of women's anxiety about men's chastity. Why should men arrogate to themselves the right to regulate female purity? It cannot be superimposed from without. It is a matter of evolution from within and, therefore, of individual self effort."

ON EDUCATION
"I believe in the proper education of women. But I do believe that women will not make her contribution to the world by mimicking or running a race with man. She can run the race, but she will not rise to the great heights she is capable of by mimicking man. She has to be the compliment of man."

ON INDIAN SOCIETY:
"Women in our country is brought up to think that she is well only with her husband or on the funeral pyre. I would far rather see India's women trained to wield arms than that they should feel helpless.

"Women is described as man's better half. As long as she has not the same rights in law as man, as long as a birth of a girl does not receive the same welcome as that of a boy, so long we should know that India is suffering from partial paralysis. Suppression of woman is a denial of Ahimsa."

ON ASSAULT:
"When a woman is assaulted she may not stoop to think in terms of himsa or ahimsa. Her primary duty is self-protection. She is at liberty to employ every method or means that come to her mind in order to defend her honour. God has given her nails and teeth. She must use them with all her strength and, if need be, die in the effort."

ON DOWRY:
"A strong public opinion should be created in condemnation of the degrading practice of dowry and young men who soil their fingers with such ill-gotten gold should be ex-communicated from society. Parents of girls should cease to be dazzled by English degrees and should not hesitate to travel outside their little castes and provinces to secure true gallant young men for their daughters."

Are guns the answer to rape?

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Yesterday morning at breakfast time, I got talking to Lauren, an American woman who is in Lucknow volunteering for a women’s legal advocacy which provides legal advice and education on laws relating to women’s issues.

India’s laws regarding the protection of women are actually quite progressive, but the will to implement these laws by the police force is a far cry from the spirit in which those laws were enacted. What’s more, many women don’t even know of the existence of laws that are supposed to protect them.

A lot of the work Lauren’s charity does involves translating the laws from English – the Indian bureaucracy is conducted in English – into Hindu and a myriad of other Indian languages for general consumption. And it’s not just a matter of translation, says Lauren. The idea that there is a law to protect her from her husband’s abuse is just incomprehensible to many Indian women who still live in small, patriarchal villages.

When Lauren went to work, I came into my room and turned on my computer. On the Guardian’s homepage there was a story about an increasing number of Indian woman buying guns to protect themselves.

Navdeep, a middle class woman from Ludhiana, near Chandiargh in Punjab, explained to the Guardian why she needed a shot gun, ‘Our government cannot take care of so many people. They get to know about crime cases only once they occur. That’s why we have to take care of our safety on our own.’

This is not an unusual or unique view among Indian women. In fact, even Anandita, a smart, well-educated Indian woman I’ve met in Lucknow is considering buying a gun herself for the same reasons.

But is this distrust in the police justified, I wondered. And then I read the report from Tehelka, a respected Indian publication known for its investigative work.

Following a series of recent rape cases in which the response by the police was less than sympathetic toward the victim – in one case in which a bar worker was gang raped walking home after work, the police response was to issue a blanket curfew of 8pm, thereby denying women the right to work at night, or basically announcing that if they did they were asking to be raped – the magazine conducted its own investigation into police officers’ attitudes to rape.

Tehelka interviewed more than 30 police officers in 23 stations in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) posing at research scholars. Their mission was to answer the following questions:

Have we created a system that instills [sic] fear in the heart of offenders, promotes deterrence and ensures that offenders get exemplary punishment? While we may have excellent statutes to deal with crimes against women, do we also have the police machinery to implement the law in its letter and spirit? Are police stations of the NCR being manned by professional and efficient police officers who can deliver justice to hapless women turning up at their doors?

Their findings were a pretty resounding ‘no’. They found that more than half doubted that rape existed in most cases, citing that women were ‘asking for it’ by dressing immodestly, drinking alcohol, staying out late or by having relationships with men. One police officer even stated that if a woman had sex with her boyfriend, then she shouldn’t be surprised if his friends wanted in on the action. To him, this was ample justification for gang rape.

‘It’s very rare that a girl is forcefully picked up by 10 boys. A girl who gets into a car with boys is never innocent. If she does, she definitely has a relationship with at least one of them,’ one police officer told Tehelka’s researchers.

Another officer has this to say about women who drink alcohol with men: ‘If a girl asks for a birthday party and is alone with 2-3 boys and sees they are drinking, she knows what is likely to happen. When she herself goes for such a party, she can’t complain of rape. How can you call it rape if she is sitting and drinking with them?’

Overwhelmingly, the police officers interviewed seemed to believe that most of the reported cases of rape were instances of prostitution gone wrong. Some even claimed that women had made a business out of accusing men of rape.

‘People have understood this is a lucrative trade for women; it’s business. They’ve found an income source. It’s common; you’re short of money, your parents don’t give you money to spend. You make compromises.’

Tehelka reported that more than 17 officers spoke ‘about a supposedly dirty nexus of money, mal-intent, compromises and sex.’

In another case of gang rape, the victim was said to obviously be asking for it since her mother is divorced and now has a younger boyfriend.

‘The girl’s mother is divorced. She’s living with another man from the Yadav community. She’s 48 whereas the man is 28. It’s inevitable the two daughters will be wayward, isn’t it?

‘Now when two young girls watch their 48-year-old mother sleeping with a 28-year-old man, even they’ll be aroused. Sex is like hunger.’

The report is conclusive and convincing: the police officers investigating crimes against women are not in tune with the spirit of India’s progressive laws.

When we talk about this magazine investigation over breakfast the next morning, Anandita says, ‘Oh no, the men are never punished for the rape. That never happens.’ And this is why she feels she needs a gun. I can understand her sentiment.

I know that every woman and – I would like to think – man reading this is horrified at these quotes and attitudes. Thank God, I can hear you say, that we live in a country where people no longer have these attitudes.

And yet, in spite of these attitudes, the conviction rate of rape cases in Delhi is 34.6 per cent, a statistic Tehelka laments, but one which is almost 30 percentage points higher than the British rate. It’s true that there is a much higher rate of unreported rape in India than the West - one report found that for every reported rape 50 go unreported – and why would you report a rape if this was the attitude you would be met with?

I’m glad I don’t feel like I need a gun to protect myself in Australia or Britain, but maybe that’s just more to do with my opinion on gun ownership. Because what if I were raped while coming home drunk: Could I bear to be put on the witness stand and have my outfit scrutinised along with my drinking habits and sexual history? I’m really not sure.

Only one thing is clear to me: from east to west, as women, we all have a long way to go.