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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-28 Daily Xml
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Abortion

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:15): I seek leave to make a belief explanation before addressing a question to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing on the topic of abortion access during the COVID pandemic.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: In every other Australian jurisdiction, bar South Australia, early medication abortion is available to pregnant women and girls up to nine weeks gestation without their being required to attend a (quote from the act) 'prescribed hospital'. In other jurisdictions, women can seek early medication abortion from a GP or via Telehealth, which relieves pressure on health services, in particular during this pandemic.

However, the South Australian law, the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935, sections 81, 82 and 82A, restrict abortion care access for South Australian women and girls, with penalties as high as life imprisonment for those who breach that law. I asked on 25 March in this place of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing what was being done to address the restrictions we have to early medication abortion in this state, and he responded that it presupposed the bill we were debating that day. That bill is now an act and has passed the parliament. It gives the State Coordinator the ability to make directions under the extended declaration power.

I note that correspondence has been sent to both the Minister for Health and Wellbeing by members of this place and to the SA Abortion Action Coalition, raising our concerns that in South Australia women and girls cannot access via Telehealth early medication abortion up to that approved nine weeks period. My question to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing is:

1. When will South Australian women and girls be able to use Telehealth to access early medication abortion?

2. Have any women and girls in this state been pushed over that nine-week period, through our restrictive and archaic laws, to having to require surgical abortions as a result of not being able to access early medication abortion?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:18): The current state of the law in relation to abortion is obviously a matter for this house, and the house has had bills by the honourable member to reform abortion law, but this parliament has not changed the law. In answers to previous questions, I think in the debate on the response bill and in public comment, I indicated that it is my understanding that the State Coordinator could use the powers to temporarily suspend elements of the abortion law to support public health objectives during the pandemic.

The honourable member's question has within it the answer, which I know she knows I am duty bound to give, which is that it is not me who issues directions, it is a matter for the State Coordinator. In relation to public health matters the State Coordinator is expected to seek the advice of the Chief Public Health Officer. As the honourable member says, representations have been made to me and to the department, so it is a matter for the State Coordinator.

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