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Salient. Victoria University Students' Newspaper. Volume Number 39, Issue 6. April 5 [1976]

Effects of Restrictive Policies

Effects of Restrictive Policies

Women continue to have abortions. A few may succeed in having themselves certified as on the verge of mental collapse and obtain a legal abortion. Increasing numbers with cash and connections are flying to Australia. Others resort to self-induced abortion or find a 'backstreet' page 2 abortionist. It is extremely difficult to get an accurate picture of how many women suffer through lack of access to safe legal abortion. The facts are buried under a heap of secrecy and hypocrisy. The only serious study we know of is the National Research Bureau Survey made in early 1972, which was commissioned by the Abortion Law Reform Association. That survey estimated that about 6,500 illegal abortions took place annually and that attempts at abortion totalled about 11,000 per annum. The total population in 1972 was just under 3 million. Per capita this means there were less illegal abortions than in 1936 and is in the ratio of one abortion to ten live births. Medical advances have substantially reduced maternal mortality resulting from septic and induced abortion. However morbidity figures indicated that about 3,000 women per annum required public hospital treatment as a result of criminal abortion over the period 1964-68.5

Other figures have a bearing on the question of compulsory pregnancy. There is the continuing high rate of extra-nuptial births, the numbers of women under sixteen who give birth, and the proportion of brides who are pregnant (widely claimed to be one in three). It is ridiculous to pretend that all the births involved in these cases are voluntary. It is very difficult to assess the effect of the abortion laws on married women: they have little recourse to adoption and must resign themselves to an addition to their family if they have an unwanted pregnancy. According to the above-mentioned survey, married women accounted for well over half of those seeking abortion.

It is clear to us that the timid attitudes of the medical profession and successive Ministers of Health towards birth control, sterilisation and the continued incidence of illegal abortion have, along with the restrictive laws, been responsible for bringing a great deal of strain and misery into the lives of many thousands of women over the years.