Make no mistake: Zoe's law is an assault on women's reproductive rights | Van Badham | Comment is free | theguardian.com
24/11/2013 21:40
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Make no mistake: Zoe's law is an assault
on women's reproductive rights
It's not a coincidence that those who design 'foetal
personhood' bills are often associated with anti-abortion beliefs.
Australian women have to fight back
Van Badham
theguardian.com, Thursday 21 November 2013 22.46 GMT
Protesters on the pro-choice march against Zoe's law march in Sydney. Photograph: Richard
Milnes/Demotix
What they’re calling Zoe's law, a "foetal personhood" bill, has passed in the New South
Wales Liberal party-controlled lower house by a vote of 63-26. The bill was co-crafted by
Brodie Donegan, who was horrifically deprived of a much-wanted baby daughter after
she was hit by a car 32 weeks into her pregnancy. She argues that her daughter, whom
she planned to name Zoe, deserved to be recognised as a person.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/22/make-no-mistake-zoes-law-is-an-assault-on-womens-reproductive-rights/print
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Make no mistake: Zoe's law is an assault on women's reproductive rights | Van Badham | Comment is free | theguardian.com
24/11/2013 21:40
People unfamiliar with the term "foetal personhood" have perhaps not followed
the ongoing campaigns of anti-abortion politicians and activists in the US. An American
woman's right to legally pursue abortion was guaranteed by their supreme court's
landmark 1973 Roe vs Wade decision, but conservatives have organised to circumvent
that judgment and legally regain control of women's bodies ever since. US women now
face county-by-county, state-by-state anti-choice legislative activism aiming to send
them back to the coat-hanger era of family planning.
One of the strategies employed is the appending of the legal fiction of "foetal
personhood" to a fertilised clump of cells glued to the wall of a woman's cervix. Cells
may not be able to breathe or think, nor do they possess any agency, but if there are
more than 400g of them or they've been there for 20 weeks, their existence within a
human body has been enough for NSW politicians to legislate that they’re an entity of
equal legal recognition to the breathing, thinking, sentient adult human woman who
carries them.
No less than the Bar Association and the Australian Medical Association condemn the
new legislation (pdf) for what it really is: not the provision of "rights" to human beings,
but a legal precedent to enable challenges to terminations. Smiling proponents have
sought to assuage suspicion of their true intentions with reassurances that the bill
allows that harm to a foetus occurring as part of a medical procedure with the mother's
consent is not a crime. The bill eludes what are the legal repercussion for women who
cannot consent – for example, if they are unconscious, under a guardianship order, or
declared temporarily insane. For these reasons, an immediate concern is that insurance
companies covering medical professions may reject coverage for women's health
providers who perform abortions, because the law has confused a doctor's legal
standing.
A likely reduction in available abortion services could be the sly intention of the
exercise. Make no mistake: it's not a coincidence that those who design these bills are
most often those already associated with anti-abortion beliefs. The US right's tactic to
personalise explicitly anti-women legislation by giving it an emotionally-resonant name
has been borrowed by the bill's proponents in NSW. Rather than the more accurate
"Cells Are Suddenly People Because We Politically Say So Law", the bill presupposes
human identity with the name of a "Zoe's law".
Donegan has herself has come out as saying that she is pro-choice, but the fact is that
her profound and understandable grief is informing legislation that is not. The reverend
Fred Nile himself first introduced the bill into NSW parliament – without Donegan’s
consent. This in itself reveals much, as proponents of “personhood” demonstrate ready
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/22/make-no-mistake-zoes-law-is-an-assault-on-womens-reproductive-rights/print
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Make no mistake: Zoe's law is an assault on women's reproductive rights | Van Badham | Comment is free | theguardian.com
24/11/2013 21:40
eagerness to ruthlessly exploit the justified grief of families in order to promote their
ideological project to restrict female agency. This must be exposed and fought.
The NSW Liberals’ far right have been eager to homage their inspirational cousins in the
US Republican right wing for quite some time. Despite the fact that the majority of
Australians support the full legal right to safe abortion-on-demand, with such a massive
majority of their own in the NSW legislature, Zoe’s law is merely the Liberals indulging
their internal ideological predilections with electoral nonchalance.
Disgracefully, nine of the votes backing the bill came from the spineless Labor party
opposition – nearly half their parliamentary numbers. As individuals offered a
conscience vote either side of party lines, the bill’s supporters can afford to be both weak
and indulgent: the direct anti-female implications of a "foetal personhood" law affect
only the 20% of NSW lower house members who are actually women.
I have previously referred to Julia Gillard as the "flame-haired Cassandra" of Australian
politics, and I am now forced to do so again. At her Women for Gillard launch last June,
the first female Australian prime minister urged vigilance against conservative
legislation that could strip Australian women of rights should the Liberals be
elected. For raising the spectre of attacks on abortion rights specifically, she was
attacked by conservatives and their media allies for an attempt to start a "gender war".
There's a war alright – but Gillard did not start it. It has begun in NSW, today – and the
whole country needs to heed its implications. Tony Abbott's anti-women and antiabortion politics are not only a matter of personal beliefs, but demonstrated political
activism – remember, Australia, that he did not hesitate to veto abortion medication
RU486 when he was health minister.
Zoe’s law is yet to face the upper house, but a conservative majority indicates it is likely
to pass fully into legislation. I am one of many who advise the women of this country to
grab a spear and strap their armour on, right now.
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Make no mistake: Zoe's law is an assault on women's reproductive rights | Van Badham | Comment is free | theguardian.com
24/11/2013 21:40
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