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Salient. Victoria University students' Newspaper. Volume Number 39, Issue 7. April 12 [1976]

Won AAC Submissions Attacked

Won AAC Submissions Attacked

Dear Sir,

Re Salient issue 6, 5 April in which you have printed the submissions of the Women's National Abortion Action Campaign's sub-missions to the Royal Commission on Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion.

The submissions are, to say the least, simplistic. They ignore the complexity of the issues involved. Unfortunately ignoring them wont make them go away.

1.The submissions claim that because the incident of illegal abortion, the solution is to legalise abortion. Now many countries (eg Sweden. Japan, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, East Germany and Yugoslavia) have had legal abortion for up to 20 years. But in none of these countries has the problem of illegal abortions been solved by this legalisation. In East Germany, quite the reverse. In East Germany an increase in legal abortions following liberalisation of the abortion law was accompanied by an increase in illegal abortions'1 'One cannot assume that liberalisation of the abortion laws will invariably result in the replacement of all, or even most, illegal abortions with legal terminations of pregnancy'2 WONAAC is duced abortion'3 'Even for relatively healty as a ground for legalising abortion. We will still be left with the horror of illegal abortions.
2.I find it amazing that what should be properly researched submissions should include this sentence 'We are convinced there is no doubt that early abortions performed on healthy women under proper medical conditions are even safer than childbirth'. No evidence is provided for this sweeping claim. However counter-evidence is abundant. 'A man is more likely to have a sterile wife or a still born or premature or defective child if he marries a girl who had an induced abortion's. 'Even for relatively healthy women the risks from abortion are considerable ....physical damage from legal abortion includes a rising percentage of sepsis, significant haemorrhage, perforation of the uterus, pelvic infection'4 Abortion is neither safe nor simple.... Abortion frequently reduces a woman's future reproductive capability.... and subsequent children are at higher risk'5
3.The submissions make continual reference to women's rights. Even an elementary knowledge of social justice makes it clear that no group's rights are absolute. The issue WONAAC ignores is the rights of the unborn child - which have been established in law for centuries. These rights are summed up in a unanimous declaration of the United National 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1959)', "the child by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection before as well as after birth.
4.I find WONAAC makes a curious distinction between 'human life' and 'human being' I have never heard of human life existing other than in human beings - so the distinction of human life is the destruction of a human being. Yet this distinction means the breakdown of the principle that is the cornerstone of life in a democratic (a dirty word with some WONAAC supporters?) community the equal right of all human beings to life.

The submissions fail to come to grasp with the real problem - the need to provide adequate social welfare and other aid so that women may have their children without the worry of being unable to support them. If abortion is the answer, why aren't Britain, Sweden etc the perfect places to live in? In these countries, the politicians have simply legalised abortion to save society (and themselves) the cost of providing adequate care for mothers-to-be.

Carl Telford.