Real question on SA abortion care is who decides?

As a controversial anti-abortion lobbyist announces she is taking SA police to court, academic Dr Judith Dwyer AM says the real question about abortion care is “who gets to decide”?

Anti-abortion lobbyist Joanna Howe has filed a $5000 claim against SA Police in Adelaide Magistrates Court over being told to leave a voting booth during the state election. Following a recent, controversial third attempt to pass legislation to restrict later-term abortions in this state, Dr Judith Dwyer recognises the issue won’t go away but says the real question at the heart of this debate is not ‘should there be more restrictions on abortion care?’.

Last month when members of the Legislative Assembly voted overwhelmingly (36 to 9) to defeat the most recent bill seeking to restrict abortions later in pregnancy, it wasn’t mostly about conscience.

Almost everyone in the chamber knew that the vote was about preserving the 2021 abortion law. The Bill was a rearguard action against that law, arising as part of a collection of right-wing populist campaigns that make up the current ‘culture wars’.

The seven men and two women who voted to restrict access to care that night were reflecting their personal beliefs about the moral status of abortion, although for the four One Nation members it was a party position not a conscience vote.

The 36 who rejected the Bill so convincingly (most of the ALP, all the independents and three Liberals) were clear that the law as it stands provides a fit-for-purpose framework within which decisions about abortion and abortion care are made.

Meanwhile, the advocates for treating abortion as what it is – an essential component of women’s........

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