Safe access zones—Abortion clinics
Statement
Hon Dr Katrina Stratton (Parliamentary Secretary) (6:07 pm): I stand tonight to remind the house of why it is that the Labor government in its last term legislated to create safe access zones around abortion clinics, for it was neither my experience nor that of the multitudes of other women who were seeking a legal abortion that we were greeted by sweet, gentle old ladies wanting to offer support. As I said at the time in my speech in full support of that legislation, we all have the same right to seek and access legal health care, regardless of the medical intervention sought. Safe access zones were about the right to seek a legal medical intervention with safety, respect, compassion and dignity.
In my career as a social worker at King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women, I walked alongside women in their reproductive health journeys, including at times when the very difficult but often loving decision was made as a parent to end a pregnancy. It was primarily at two abortion care sites run by private providers at Marie Stopes and Nanyara Clinic where people seeking legal medical care were largely targeted and most impacted by the behaviour of protesters. It is fair to say that that behaviour negatively impacted not only the women who were seeking that care, but also their partners and support people, the medical, legal and counselling staff at the clinics and the neighbouring businesses.
With permission at that time, I shared three stories of women seeking a termination, women whom I know, love and respect. Their stories highlight the complex decision-making that often goes into terminating a pregnancy and their grief as well as the impact of the deliberate behaviours of those protesters, behaviour that was anything but sweet and polite.
I will tell these stories in the first person, as they have been told to me. I will read some of them, with your indulgence, so that I ensure that I do them justice. The first story, according to my notes, states:
We are going back twenty years now, when I was in my early 20s. I was in a longterm committed relationship. We planned to get married and have kids together eventually. The pill failed for us. The pregnancy wasn't planned, and I was taking Roaccutane, a medication so incompatible with a successful pregnancy that I had signed a stat dec saying I wouldn't get pregnant. If we had gone ahead, my baby would have had a short and very painful life if the pregnancy had gone anywhere near term at all. We made a very clear decision that terminating the pregnancy was right for us, and right for our baby. We cried making that decision. I woke up from the procedure crying. That the decision was clear did not mean that it wasn't hard … When we arrived at the clinic, protesters were blocking the entrance, a group of them walking around the door in circles. We had to literally duck and weave to get to the front door. There was verbal abuse directed at both of us. My partner was asked whether a real man would let his wife terminate a pregnancy. What was a sad event in our lives was made traumatic by the behaviour of those protesters.
Another friend told me about when she was 28 years old and became pregnant with her first child. During a routine ultrasound at month four, the doctors noticed that the baby's bone density did not look normal. They were so concerned that they booked in further testing. They waited for results of tests for rare syndromes. Babies born with those syndromes often do not survive birth and if they do survive birth, they suffer greatly and have multiple health issues, living merely months. While they waited for the results, they met with their team of doctors to discuss what our options would be. The protests outside the abortion clinics were now so routine that part of the discussion was about how they would manage and navigate those protesters. According to my notes, the story states:
There were protesters in front of the clinic every day, often as many as 20 protesters. So not only was I already dealing with the emotional trauma of having to make a decision to possibly having to terminate a pregnancy, but I was also forced to have a discussion with my husband and medical team on how we could access the clinic without having to walk the gauntlet of protesters—not to give me support but to condemn me for a decision that I felt had been taken out of my hands.
The third story, according to my notes, states:
I was in my early 30s, and discovered I was pregnant for the first time. I was 14 weeks along when I found out. The pregnancy was not planned, because the coercive relationship that I was in meant that I didn't have control over preventing a pregnancy. My partner would force me to have unprotected sex because he didn't like to use condoms and because he liked to control me. My partner and I had separated a month earlier due to his escalating physical violence and I decided not to tell him about the pregnancy. I had had to tell my family about the violence so they could help me. There was great shame for me in that—a professional and independent woman finding herself in a violent relationship and now another layer of shame. I desperately wanted to be a mother and it was as a mother that I made the decision that I did not want to bring my child into a life of violence. I didn't want to tie myself to my violent ex-partner forever. I knew that the baby would become a pawn in his efforts to continue to control me. My 68-year old mother came with me to the appointment. There was a group of protesters waving placards with horrific images on them. They surrounded us. They called me names. They called my mother names. We both started sobbing as we made our way through the protesters, and yet they persisted. I am clear that I made the right decision for myself and for my baby. That eases my grief and sadness about that decision. What stays with me 10 years later and stays with my mother is the trauma that I live with from the behaviour of the protesters. The names. The intimidation. The fear. They didn't even bother to find out my story and I do wonder where they would have been while I tried to raise a baby on my own or, worse still, raise a child in a house of violence.
Whatever our reasons for deciding to seek a termination, we have the right and the capacity to make that decision and we have the right to seek medical intervention free from abuse and free from interference. Let us be really clear that those protesters were not offering support for decisions, they were not offering counselling and they were not offering education.
During the community consultation on that particular bill, the demographic of those against the legislation were more likely to be over the age of 55 and more likely to be men, neither group who would ever find themselves with a pregnancy that they were going to make a decision to terminate.
I would like to thank the passionate and dedicated staff who work across the variety of health providers that deliver abortion care and this kind of health care, the staff who work hard to deliver for women safe, accessible and supportive access to the termination of a pregnancy. I thank the staff who ensure that women in Western Australia have access to health care that is safe, and that is much more than just medical safety; it means being physically safe and free from judgement, free from prejudice, free from interference and free from trauma. We are entitled to medical care that is delivered with compassion, respect and dignity for us all.
