Page 2715 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 26 September 2007
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such is the nature of our court system, that a child was wrongfully born—again, a legal term—as the result of medical procedures they contracted and paid for. Some see it as a moral question. Others have described it as the commoditisation of reproduction. I have articles kindly provided by the Assembly library which argue all those views. Some I agree with, but others are so glaringly coloured by personal conviction that they make me squirm.
I admit, Mr Speaker, that I come to this bill with my own baggage. There would not be too many women, or men for that matter, who do not bring some life experience to these intense debates related to reproduction. It has been necessary for me to prune through all my own thorny bits of emotion and unconsidered assumptions to get to the bones of this bill. As an MLA, someone with the right—indeed, the duty—to speak on the record on a topic like this, I have to speak beyond my opinion and try to come to a position that is based on the law and the society we live in, and to balance the complex and intertwined rights issues involved. Now, I cannot say I have really succeeded in this. After all, these are far-reaching issues that require long thought and research, and we never have that time in this place, as we should. I would hope, Mr Speaker, that, if there is ever a minority government again, we would be prepared to give issues like this the time and the debate that they deserve.
This bill is an attempt to rein in the ramifications of a reproductive technological revolution which has proceeded along several courses, most of them focused on the female reproductive body, and they include: diverse effective methods of contraception—not all of them as safe as they are effective; sterilisation through tubal ligation, which does not any more involve major invasive surgery; assisted conception methods from donor insemination to embryo implant; surrogacy arrangements; technologies to ascertain sex and other foetal characteristics at earlier and earlier stages; the increasing medicalisation of birth, with disproportionate numbers of medically unsubstantiated caesareans; and the ability to keep babies born prematurely alive from earlier stages.
The list is long and it goes on. All of these technologies are available to women of moderate income in most parts of the world these days, and genetic manipulation may be just around the corner. Most of us have either stood by quietly while these technologies were developed or we have actively welcomed them. I am not sure that there is any point at which this continued march of progress in relation to women’s ability—but also others’ reach—to take some control of their reproductive lives could have been stopped. The entire parade has been conducted to the mantra of choice: a woman’s right to choose. Yes, but also the wider notion of choice, which is used by economists as one of the glories of the market. Of course, women’s reproductive bodies offer a rich market—from tampons and pads to the contraceptive pill, with the latter I note, incidentally, only available as a 10-year-old version on the subsidised pharmacy list because the current federal government has not authorised the inspection and review of newer and, people claim, safer methods, but which women have to pay the full price for because they are not subsidised.
So these issues are market issues, but they are also political issues. Not that there have not always been voices firmly raised in opposition to each new landmark in the expansion of women’s choice; but I have noted that such voices are loudest around issues that relate to women’s right to terminate a pregnancy. They have been known
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