This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Doctors in regional Queensland routinely treat women seeking an abortion with “deep disrespect” and dictate scripture instead of dispensing medical advice, pro-choice GPs in the state say.

“Abortion is a mortal sin and you’ll go to hell,” one doctor reportedly told a woman in Cairns, who had asked about terminating her unwanted pregnancy.

Another doctor told a 15-year-old she had “good child-bearing hips” and should keep her baby. A married woman in her 30s was told to “keep your legs together next time”.

In another instance, a doctor just walked out of the room without saying a word.

Heather McNamee, a Cairns GP specialising in reproductive heath, said she helped each of these women after they initially sought treatment from other doctors.

Queensland women considered or tried to perform abortions on themselves, data shows Read more

Abortions are practised at a handful of private clinics but the practice remains illegal under Queensland’s criminal code. The impact of the 1899 law is felt most brutally in regional areas, where services, and a choice of doctors, can be extremely limited.

McNamee, who gave evidence along similar lines to a parliamentary committee last month, said another young woman who became pregnant after she was raped turned up at Cairns hospital in a frantic state. A registrar was told by his superior to tell the woman “abortion is illegal in Queensland”.

The woman returned to the hospital an hour later after attempting suicide.

“The law influences doctors’ behaviour,” McNamee said. “I’m always encouraging GPs to get on board and look at becoming prescribers for medical abortion. Doctors in Australia are already very conservative ... there’s a lot of fear about becoming an abortion provider. If you add the law into that, that’s just the last straw.

“Some doctors feel they have a right to dictate to women.

“A woman finding out she’s pregnant in Queensland has already been brought into shame and stigma, partly because of the law and partly because of restricted access to services. All of that gives her the message that she’s doing something wrong.”

McNamee said some doctors used “subliminal” tactics to talk women out of having an abortion, including telling them the procedure could make them infertile, or that they would be at risk of mental illness.

“They bandy around this term: post-abortion syndrome,” McNamee said. There is no medical evidence that it exists. There have been numerous studies. The incidence of psychological problems are higher in women who continue a pregnancy.”

This month the Queensland parliament is due to debate a bill that will remove abortion from the criminal code. It would allow for termination of pregnancy up to 22 weeks, and thereafter with the approval of medical professionals.

It is believed the proposal has the support of a narrow majority of Queensland MPs. But the knife-edge vote has some advocates nervous.

Labor has a two-seat majority and the support of two crossbenchers. But it’s understood there are enough uncommitted MPs on the government benches to potentially sway the outcome.

The opposition Liberal National party has not yet confirmed whether it will allow MPs a conscience vote, amid strong opposition from some sections of the party.

News Corp reported last month that the Queensland LNP president, Gary Spence, had told MPs their preselection could be overturned by the party’s state council if they supported the bill.

There have been public rallies in Brisbane to support and oppose the legislation. In recent months evangelical protesters have stepped up actions outside abortion clinics.

The Queensland branch of the Australian Medical Association has supported the bill. That support, including for clauses that force conscientious objectors to refer patients to another practitioner, has rankled with some doctors. The anti-abortion group Cherish Life last week criticised the AMA for not surveying its membership before taking a position.

Women are frequently forced to leave regional Queensland to access abortion services. The public health service in Cairns, Australia’s 14th largest city, will not provide surgical abortions.



The story is similar across the state. There is only one regularly-operating surgical termination clinic north of the urban south-east, in Rockhampton. Caroline de Costa, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at James Cook University, told Guardian Australia in July that 60 women, “some of them young and terrified”, had been sent away from Cairns, mostly interstate, for procedures in the first half of 2018.

In 2016, the last time Queensland debated abortion law reform, the entire obstetrics and gynaecology department at the Logan hospital, south of Brisbane, argued they should be exempt from having to perform procedures.

McNamee said ensuring access to abortion in every Queensland public hospital was a critical next step.

“In the UK you wouldn’t get a job [in a public hospital] in gynaecology if you were anti-choice,” McNamee said. “I think people will become aware that abortion is a modern medical procedure that should be provided, that the law has no role in it; that it’s a health issue, not a matter of law.

“I think people need to realise the harm that is being done on a daily basis by lack of access to abortion. Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures in the world, but there is harm that is being done by lack of access.”