Urban Mythology: The Question of Abortion in Parliament*#

The re-election of the Howard Liberal government in 2004 saw a return of the question of abortion to the Commonwealth parliamentary agenda. In regard to questions of the legality of abortion, the legislative role of the Commonwealth parliament is limited, given the responsibility of the states for criminal law. Abortion has been debated in federal parliament mostly in the context of the funding of terminations by Medicare (formerly Medibank). Although there has been some reform at the state and territory level, only the ACT has removed abortion altogether from the criminal code. The slowness of abortion reform is somewhat puzzling. In particular, the reluctance of Australian parliaments to engage in reform of abortion law is difficult to explain given the high levels of public support in Australia for liberal access to abortion. In this article, I examine this apparent paradox of a high level of public approval of access to abortion alongside considerable parliamentary reluctance to act upon it. I refer to a ‘mythology ’ that has grown up around the issue of abortion, a central claim of which is that the public will take electoral revenge for pro-abortion views of or votes by politicians. My argument is rather that it is the beliefs of politicians that stand in the way of any reform, in part their view on the morality of abortion, but of even more weight, their views about how their constituents form and exercise their votes. I conclude by briefly looking at the 2006 RU486 debate in federal parliament, to suggest that it has decisively undermined any basis for the mythology of abortion. *I would like to thank Kate Gleeson, Elaine Thompson, Murray Goot and the referees for their invaluable suggestions, criticisms and corrections. This article has been fully double blind refereed in line with academic requirements