FEDERAL Health Minister Tony Abbott should be congratulated not vilified for raising the issue of abortion for public debate, says Queensland Bioethics Centre director Ray Campbell.
Mr Abbott, in a speech to Adelaide University’s Democratic Club on March 16, questioned why it was not regarded as a national tragedy that 100,000 women had abortions in Australia each year.
He asked why it was not regarded as a national tragedy ‘approaching the scale (say) of Aboriginal life expectancy being 20 years less than that of the general community’.
Mr Abbott, a Catholic, argued that in the light of the abortion rate more effort should be devoted to discouraging teenage promiscuity.
His speech on ‘The Ethical Responsibilities of a Christian Politician’ covered a range of issues but it was comments on abortion and promiscuity that drew the most media attention.
Mr Abbott’s remarks attracted strong criticism from groups such as the Women’s Electoral Lobby, and Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello stated publicly that these were Mr Abbott’s personal views and not the Government’s.
Mr Abbott said ‘even those who think that abortion is a woman’s right should be troubled by the fact that 100,000 Australian women choose to destroy their unborn babies every year’.
‘What does it say about the state of our relationships and our values that so many women (and their husbands, lovers and families) feel incapable of coping with a pregnancy or a child?’ he said.
‘Our society has rightly terrified primary school children about the horrors of smoking but seems to take it for granted that adolescents will have sex despite the grim consequences of teenage single parenthood.’
Mr Abbott found it odd that no local Christian had ever asked him ‘how, as a Catholic, I can preside over a Medicare system which funds 75,000 abortions a year’.
A Women’s Electoral Lobby representative subsequently questioned Mr Abbott’s ability to serve as Health Minister.
Australian Federation of Right to Life Associations spokeswoman, Mary Joseph, said the prevalence of abortion was a sign that the community was failing to provide realistic alternatives for women.
