A moral smokescreen

By Leslie Cannold
November 26, 2005

THIS Tuesday is the moment of truth in the debate about RU486. That's because on that day the Coalition party room will decide whether they will support or oppose an Australian Democrats' amendment to the Therapeutic Goods Act designed to end the effective ban on the "abortion pill".

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has hinted that he will offer his colleagues a conscience vote on the issue. This is the route federal Labor has adopted to deal with longstanding and trenchant divisions in the party around women's reproductive freedom.

But a conscience vote sends all the wrong messages to parliamentarians and to the electorate about the nature of the vote on RU486. It asserts that the vote is about the moral or legal standing of abortion.

This could not be further from the truth. In reality, this is a vote about the integrity of Australia's framework for ensuring the quality, safety and efficacy of the medicines we take. It is a vote about whether or not the Therapeutic Goods Administration or the Health Minister should make critical decisions about which drugs are made available to patients, and in what circumstances.

A short history of the ban will help to explain why. In 1996, Labor and the Coalition agreed to amendments to the administration that were designed by their author - anti-choice Senator Brian Harradine - to forever deny Australian women access to RU486 and all other pharmaceuticals capable of inducing a non-surgical abortion.

The Harradine amendments speciously claimed that the rigorous quality, safety and efficacy analysis the administration does for all pharmaceuticals entering Australia was somehow inadequate for these drugs, and these drugs alone. In addition, written approval must be given by the health minister, and tabled in Parliament. In exchange for this warped dream-come-true, Senator Harradine horse-traded his vote to privatise Telstra.

The drover's dog could work out that the Harradine amendments would ensure no company would try to market RU486 in Australia. Registering drugs with the administration is time-consuming and expensive. No manufacturer would pay for this knowing that even if it successfully demonstrated that the drug was safe and effective the health minister could still refuse permission to sell it - without even needing to explain why.

The contempt both parties showed for women and patients in passing the Harradine amendments - and continue to demonstrate by refusing to remove them - is breathtaking. RU486 is used in the treatment of life-threatening conditions such as Cushing's syndrome, inoperable brain tumours, HIV/AIDS, ovarian cancer and some breast cancers.

By and large, Australians with such conditions miss out, or are forced to cope with intolerable delays.

The hypocrisy of anti-choice players in this drama also deserves mention. Mifepristone (RU486) enables women to abort very early in pregnancy - indeed, the moment they know they are pregnant. The earliest a surgical procedure can be done is six weeks.

However, despite opponents of choice consistently expressing particular concern about "late" abortions, they have worked tirelessly since the early 1990s to effectively ban Mifepristone, and to keep it banned.

Tony Abbott, the avowedly anti-choice Health Minister, commissioned the chief medical officer to provide what Liberal backbencher Dr Mal Washer called "lightweight answers" to "stupid questions" about the drug's safety.

That lack of professionalism has exposed the way the Harradine amendments twist the impartial, evidence-based processes that Parliament - through the Therapeutic Goods Administration - put in place to ensure Australians get timely access to good drugs and protection from bad.

Abbott's behaviour has clearly demonstrated why properly resourced experts who base their judgements on evidence, not a single individual with an axe to grind, should rule on the drugs to be made available to patients.

The Government and the Opposition should admit the terrible mistake they made nearly a decade ago in backing the Harradine amendments, and make amends to those injured by it by voting together - along party lines - to remove them from the Therapeutic Goods Act.

It wasn't an issue that required a conscience vote then. Why is one necessary now?

Dr Leslie Cannold is a medical ethicist at the University of Melbourne, the author of The Abortion Myth and a spokeswoman for Reproductive Choice Australia.
