WOMEN’S BODIES: HISTORY OF ABORTION AND ABORTION LAW REFORM

History of abortion

Abortion has been practised throughout history in almost all communities. Often it was sanctioned or even enforced by the community in times of famine and during treks, or if the pregnancy had been conceived with the ‘wrong’ man or was the result of incest or rape. Means of trying to induce abortion included a variety of drugs and magic rituals, introducing objects into the uterus and physical interventions such as lifting and carrying heavy loads and constricting or pummelling the pregnant woman’s belly.

Early Christian teaching permitted abortion before the ‘soul had entered the body of the foetus’, 40 days after conception for’ males and 80 days after conception for females (how the sex of the foetus was determined isn’t stated!). Later, abortion was allowed until quickening (movement) was felt by the mother during the fifth month of pregnancy.

The Church’s condemnation of abortion of an ‘animated’ foetus is based on a passage in the Bible (Exodus 21:22-3) dealing with assault on a pregnant woman leading to miscarriage. If no other harm was done to the woman, the attacker was fined to compensate her for the lost child. If the woman died, the attacker was executed, paying ‘a life for a life’. The (inaccurate) interpretation of this resulted in abortion being held as a crime against God.

Most civil laws making abortion criminal offence were not passed until nineteenth century. In 1869 Pope Pius decreed that any abortion was murder, and around the same time new legislation in Britain (and subsequently Australia) outlawed all abortions except those done preserve the life of the mother.

History shows that women in need seek abortion whether or not it is legal, even at considerable risk to their safety.
The anti-abortion laws resulted in the development of underground or ‘bасk-street’ abortion rackets. Clandestine, unsanitary abortions were performed by unscrupulous, often unqualified practitioners. Outrageously high fees were charged including large sums for police ‘protection’. Anaesthetic wasn’t used for painful procedures because recovery would have been too slow: abortionists didn’t want patients hanging around their premises No aftercare was provided.

The illegal abortion racket discriminated against the poor. Women who were well connected and well off could usually find and afford a doctor to perform abortion: poor women had to accept the less expensive services of unqualified people or try to induce their own abort using overpriced (and harmful or useless)
drugs or devices.

Many women died or suffered haemorrhage or infection and became chronic ill or infertile after illegal procedure their own attempts to abort. Women needing treatment of complications from abortion filled about half the hospital gynaecological beds (and still do where abortion remains illegal). They were treated as criminals. As one woman, now in her sixties, said: ‘The doctor said it served me right to be so ill’. The whole story of the illegal abortion racket is a disgrace to humanity.

Abortion law reform

Agitation for abortion law reform began in the UK in 1936, but it wasn’t until 1967 that the British parliament passed the Abortion Act which, though it didn’t repeal the previous criminal law, broadened the circumstances in which abortion could be lawfully performed. Abortion was regarded as lawful when the risk to the life, physical and mental health of the mother and of her existing family was greater if the pregnancy continued than if it were terminated. Abortion was also permitted when there was a risk that if the child were born it would suffer serious mental or physical handicap. To comply with this law, two doctors had to certify ‘in good faith’ that the conditions of the Act had been satisfied, and the operation had to be performed in registered premises. The decision was entirely in the hands of doctors and depended on their beliefs and trades.

In Australia criminal law is a State matter, and each State’s Crimes Act includes unlawful abortion as a criminal offence. In 1969 South Australia amended its criminal law on abortion in line with the 1967 UK Act. The changes made in South Australia also applied in the Northern Territory. No other State has amended or repealed its abortion laws, but rulings by judges in Victoria and New South Wales about 20 years ago have been used as precedents to extend the circumstances in which abortion is lawful. These can be broadly stated as a sincere belief, on reasonable grounds, that it is in the best interests for the welfare of the woman and her existing family to terminate the pregnancy. Social and economic factors, both present and future, could be taken into account in reaching this belief.

Since these rulings, abortion has become widely available in New South Wales and Victoria, and is now performed in Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia in the hope that the rulings of New South Wales and Victoria would be taken into account if criminal charges were laid. However there is always the risk that the rulings could be overturned and the present criminal law strictly enforced.

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