A child facing a bedridden life. A girl with an intellectual disability raped by a family member. Victims of domestic violence or reproductive coercion. There are several disturbing reasons why women end their phase at a later stage.
There is no easy definition of when an abortion is considered “late” or “late.” It is generally considered something after 20 weeks of pregnancy, but the states and territories have a patchwork of legislation with different milestones.
What is clear is that subsequent terminations are the new target of anti-abortion activists, now that abortion has been decriminalized across Australia.
On Wednesday, South Australia’s House of Lords voted on legislation that would force women who want an abortion after 27 weeks and six days to be induced, deliver the child alive and keep or adopt it.
It was narrowly defeated: nine out of the 22-member house were in favor and ten against. The president casts only one deciding vote, while prominent liberal critic of the bill Michelle Lensink is absent for cancer treatment.
Liberal leader Ben Hood, who introduced the bill, says a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy is preserved because the pregnancy ends when the baby is born.
“What is innovative about this bill is that it allows a mother to terminate her pregnancy for nine months, and even up to birth,” he said.
The Greens have a different label for it: ‘forced birth’.
About 1% of all cancellations are carried out after 20 weeks.
According to SA Health data collected in the 18 months following abortion reform in the state, fewer than five abortions were performed after 27 weeks.
Termination at that point can only occur with the consent of two physicians, and only if necessary to save the life of the pregnant person or another fetus, or if there is a significant risk of injury or mental health to the pregnant person , or if there is a significant risk of serious fetal abnormalities.
Hood said in the House of Lords on Wednesday evening that his bill did not entail “forced birth”. He said any termination after 28 weeks already constituted a ‘birth’ because women had no other option to remove the fetus from the body.
“The only difference is the baby gets a chance to live,” he said.
He has previously said that once the baby is “incompatible with life” it would receive palliative care.
He said on Wednesday evening that the babies would be admitted to the neonatal units, “where they would receive the best possible medical care if the mother does not want to keep the baby”.
Adoption would be a compassionate alternative, he said.
Hood indicated on ABC radio that he would not give up his mission.
Attorney General Kyam Maher says the “Trumpian” bill would reduce abortion care and pose a “real and significant danger not only to the physical health and safety of all women, but also to women’s fundamental right to bodily autonomy”.
He also lashed out at the vitriol, nastiness and inflammatory attacks launched during the campaign.
“I would encourage those involved in these kinds of debates to think about whether the hyper-polarized American style of personal politics is really reflecting well on South Africa,” he says.
The bill has similarities to the so-called born-alive laws that have been in the US for years. A federal ‘live birth’ bill in Australia was found to have no legal, ethical or medical basis to support it.
Australian Katter party leader Robbie Katter has proposed similar legislation in Queensland.
Both Katter and Hood thanked anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe for her work on their legislation. Howe wants “an Australia where abortion is unthinkable”.
Hood thanked Howe on Wednesday and said the other people who briefed the bill wished to remain anonymous. Several previous speakers noted that Hood’s bill was drafted by Howe and anonymous experts, while the review that informed the decriminalization involved thousands of experts and many respected institutions who did not remain anonymous, and involved months of research and a report by 560 pages preceded.
Abortion has also become a serious issue in the run-up to the Queensland election, after Labor accused the Liberal National Party of a “secret plan” to restrict abortion rights and the LNP failed to quell speculation.
The various campaigns have been accused of using misinformation in an attempt to limit access to terminations.
Reasons women may need a late-term abortion include fetal abnormalities, life-threatening conditions and psychosocial reasons, such as the baby being the result of rape or incest.
‘We can’t do this to the baby’
Tiffany’s first child had spina bifida.
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Her baby would have been paralyzed from the neck down. She chose termination. Six years later, Tiffany* was pregnant again. At the twenty-week ultrasound she was told that this baby also had spina bifida, but that wasn’t too bad.
“They told us to wait another two weeks, then we’ll do another scan and then we’ll move on,” she says.
‘You are stressed, you panic. Two weeks felt like an eternity.”
After waiting two weeks and having another scan, Tiffany was again told that it didn’t look that bad and that she should have another scan in two weeks.
“After 24 weeks it got worse,” she says.
“He started developing fluid on the brain. It affected his nerves, along his spine. It went from numb toes to ‘he can’t walk anymore’.”
Two more weeks, another scan. “Everything failed,” she says. “We did all these tests because I wanted to make sure I made the right decision. We sat down and said, ‘We can’t do this to the baby.’ He would be bedridden, undergoing one operation after another, a lifetime of hospital visits.”
She had the procedure at 28 weeks.
During a review of abortion laws by the SA Law Reform Institute, we heard about a girl with an intellectual disability who had been sexually abused by a family member and only realized she was pregnant late in her pregnancy.
She made it clear that she did not want the pregnancy to continue. If she had not been able to have an abortion, if she had been forced to have the child, it would have “had serious and negative consequences for her,” the institute said. in his report.
Jacquie* and her husband had a two-year-old son and another baby on the way.
They carried out the usual tests, including a 16-week scan and an amniocentesis. “We got the results back and they said everything was fine,” she says. “But I had a gut feeling and I remember telling my husband that something wasn’t right.”
At 24 weeks they received a phone call. “They said they got the results wrong,” she says. “We thought: ‘shit’. For example, at 24 weeks we were told that our baby indeed had Down syndrome and we had to make a choice within 24 hours.
“We just had to make the decision around our family and what was best for us. To this day, we never say it was the right decision. It was the best choice for us at that time. We had to think about our little one.”
Jacob Mangelsdorf is an advisor at Red Tree Foundationan organization that supports people grieving the loss of a child.
He says the parents who come to him are suffering from “incredibly complex grief.” “We are not talking about an easy choice. We are not talking about something without a high level of complexity,” he says.
“It’s not just about losing that baby, it’s about coming to terms with that loss and deciding (thinking) ‘in some ways I made that choice to end that baby’s life.’
‘There is always a small part of their brain that struggles with that. It is very important to recognize that at that point the mother has had twenty weeks to bond with the baby.”
Tiffany says hospitals and health authorities need to do better to support women going through horrific experiences like hers. And people need to stop judging others, she says.
“Everyone has an opinion and their own beliefs.
“But if you’re not in my shoes, you won’t know.”
* Full names have not been used to ensure the privacy of the interviewees
The Red Nose grief and loss helpline is available 24/7 for anyone affected by the loss of a pregnancy, stillbirth or death of a baby or child on 1300 308 307