Posted by John, October 5th, 2009 - under Women's liberation, Women's oppression.

Tags: Abortion, Democracy

The majority of Australians support abortion on demand; the majority of politicians don’t or, more accurately, won’t.

According to a new study in People and Place Journal 57 percent favour a women’s right to abortion without restrictions. One third support abortion in specific circumstances. Only 4 percent oppose abortion on any grounds.

45 percent of Catholics support a women’s right to choose.

Katharine Betts, the author of the study, told Adele Horin from the Sydney Morning Herald (Right to choose abortion wins strong support) that the idea that liberalising abortion laws was a vote loser was wrong. She said:

Politicians feel it’s dangerous to try to change the status quo in the face of a very vocal anti-choice lobby. But they’re wrong. Voters are more likely to vote for a pro-choice candidate than an anti-choice candidate.

In both the ACT and Victoria Labor Governments have decriminalised abortion.

In Canberra the Labor Government lost its majority, but the swing was to the Left, with the pro-abortion Greens the main winners.

In Victoria it looks as if the Labor Government will be returned at the next election.

The other States and the Northern Territory still have abortion as a crime, but liberal interpretations of what is a legal or illegal termination have saved politicians from addressing the issue. Until now.

In Queensland police have charged Tegan Leach with procuring her own abortion (or miscarriage) and her partner, Sergei Brennan, with supplying drugs to procure an abortion (after dropping the charge of attempting to procure an abortion against him).

As a consequence, advice to hospitals and clinics cast doubt on the legality of abortions in Queensland.

The Bligh Government amended the criminal law to supposedly reinstate the status quo without decriminalising abortion.

The nominally pro-choice Premier, Anna Bligh, refused to decriminalise abortion because to do so would have split the Government. Her Deputy, Paul Lucas, is virulently anti-choice.

So the majority clearly support abortion, yet their representatives refuse to express that view by de-criminalising abortion. As Dr Betts put it they ‘have been bluffed by anti-choice groups or are cowardly.’

In a real democracy we’d throw these unrepresentative swill out today and put in delegates who did what we told them.

But as the ongoing criminality of abortion shows, we live in a guided democratic system at best,where the whole parliamentary process is aimed at reflecting the interests of capital, at times mediated through the wishes of working people.

There have been glimpses in the past of a truly democratic society – the Paris Commune in 1871, the short lived Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, Shanghai in 1927, Spain in 36-39, Hungary 1956, Portugal 1974, Iran 1979 and Poland 1980-81 to name a few.

In Russia for example the workers’ and peasants’ government legalised abortion. We in Australia have yet to win the legal status the Bolsheviks implemented 92 years ago.

Short of revolution, how can we win abortion rights?

The gains of the past that women won through mass radical action give us a pointer. In those days there was a women’s liberation movement.

Much is still needed – free and accessible child care, equal wages, long term fully paid maternity leave, free contraception, abortion on demand…

Electing the likes of nominal pro-choice Queensland premier Anna Bligh or having Julia Gillard as Deputy Prime Minister isn’t going to deliver any of that.

Only a mass movement from below can force the do-nothings from Labor to legalise abortion.