The abortion pill mifepristone (known as RU486) is to become available for the first time in Australia after a contentious parliamentary debate that saw the federal health minister stripped of his power to veto the use of the drug.
In a rare conscience vote after three days of heated argument, MPs in the House of Representatives voted in favour of a bill giving the drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the power of approval.
The prime minister, John Howard, opposed the move, saying: “To suggest that this drug RU486 is just another drug is patently absurd, and I believe to treat it as any other drug is unsustainable.”
The issue provoked weeks of campaigning and controversy in the biggest row about a drug since the contraceptive pill was introduced in the 1960s.
The bill was sponsored by a cross party group of female senators, one of whom admitted she had had an abortion, but was opposed by many church and pro-life groups. One Green MP, who supported the bill, caused a row by wearing a T shirt saying “Get your rosaries off my ovaries.”
The health minister, Tony Abbott, a devout Catholic, fought the changes, saying that abortion had become for some campaigners almost “a badge of liberation from old oppressions.”
The Australian Medical Association had called on the government to remove the restrictions to reflect current medical and clinical opinion on the drug and to give women a safe and effective alternative to surgical abortion.
Australia was largely alone among industrialised countries in effectively blocking women's access to mifepristone, a synthetic steroid. An estimated 85 000 surgical abortions are carried out in Australia each year.
Figure 1.
Green senator Kerry Nettle caused a furore with the slogan on her T shirt
Credit: ANDREW TAYLOR/SYDNEY MORNING HERALD/FAIRFAX
After a change in the law in 1996 anyone wanting to use mifepristone had to have written permission from the federal health minister. Now the minister's powers have been passed on to the Therapeutic Goods Administration's medical experts. Doctors will have to apply to the Therapeutic Goods Administration for permission to prescribe the drug.
Caroline de Costa, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Queens-land's James Cook University, helped provoke the whole debate after an article she wrote and after her application—the first in the country—to use the drug.
She said it would help remove many of the financial, geographical, and other factors that had inhibited women's right to choose, but she said that complications associated with the drug remained.
“There have been deaths associated with this drug when it has been used in early pregnancy,” Professor de Costa said. “But the number of deaths compared with the number of women who have used it... is very small: one or less than one per 100 000 women.”
Family Planning Australia says the wider availability of mifepristone would be unlikely to lead to more abortions.