The SA Greens today condemned the decision of Liberal Ben Hood MLC to introduce a bill that seeks to ‘ban’ abortions after 27 weeks.

Quotes Attributable to Tammy Franks MLC:

Abortion care is health care and decisions should be left to the pregnant person and their medical team. These are very complex, often heart-breaking, cases. The current laws provide strict guidelines for the circumstances under which abortion may occur after 22 weeks and 6 days. They were based on extensive consultation by the SA Law Reform Institute (SALRI) and informed by medical expertise.

Mr Ben Hood MLC appears to be more focused on securing his own pre-selection than genuinely representing the needs and rights of people in our community. This may be a popular move in some sections of an increasingly right-wing political party - but playing politics with health care is dangerous folly. His proposal would force birth upon children; victims of rape, incest and sexual slavery; or on much wanted pregnancies where the mother or the foetus will not survive his forced-birth plans for them.

The SA Greens stand firmly against attempts to roll back hard-won reproductive rights. We will continue to fight for policies that ensure access to comprehensive healthcare, including reproductive services, without fear or stigma. Hood’s move could undermine the rights of individuals to access proper healthcare. It also reflects the Liberal Party’s obsession with toxic culture wars to further their own internal political ambitions.

The Current Termination of Pregnancy Act 2021 provides at S.9—
Mandatory considerations for medical practitioners performing terminations after 22 weeks and 6 days
In assessing matters for the purposes of section 6(1), a medical practitioner must, when determining whether to perform a termination, have regard to the following:
a) whether it is essential to perform a termination of an affected foetus in a multiple pregnancy at a gestation that does not risk severe prematurity and its attendant consequences for the surviving foetus;
b) whether there are serious foetal abnormalities that were not identifiable, diagnosed or fully evaluated before the pregnancy reached 22 weeks and 6 days, including but not limited to abnormalities involving the brain, heart, renal and skeletal systems, or whether the foetus has been exposed to infective agents which may damage or limit
the gestation and development of the foetus;
c) whether the patient has had difficulty accessing timely and necessary specialist services before the pregnancy reached 22 weeks and 6 days, including but not limited to patients experiencing significant socio-economic disadvantage, cultural or language barriers and those who reside in remote locations;
d) whether a patient has been denied agency over the decision to continue a pregnancy or not, including (but not limited to) the abuse of minors and vulnerable adults to sexual and physical violence including rape, incest and sexual slavery;
e) whether the abuse outlined in paragraph (d) includes circumstances in which such abuse is not apparent, or the pregnancy is not diagnosed until an advanced gestational age;
f) whether medical or psychiatric conditions may become apparent or deteriorate during the pregnancy to the point where they are a threat to the patient's life;
g)whether the patient has a deteriorating maternal medical condition, or late diagnosis of a disease requiring treatment incompatible with an ongoing pregnancy (such as malignancies).