RU-486 is available in more than 30 countries. In 1980 the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved its use in Australia. It has been used by more than a million women worldwide and is cheaper than a surgical abortion. But in 1996 the federal parliament amended the Therapeutic Goods Act that required approval by the federal health minister as well as TGA clearance for its use. Until late last year, not a single drug company had applied to the TGA to import or manufacture RU-486. The first application this year coincided with the introduction of a bill to strip the Health Minister of his veto powers.

The bill to remove the ministerial veto was sponsored in the Senate by women members from four different parties: Lyn Allison, Australian Democrats, Fiona Nash, National Party, Claire Moore, Australian Labor Party, and Judith Troeth, Liberal Party. Parliamentary leaders on all sides released members from party discipline for this vote.

The heated debate in parliament received wide media coverage and was preceded by public hearings that received 4,000 submissions in the debate. Opponents of a woman’s right to choose abortion picketed outside parliament each day the bill was discussed, waving coffins and pictures of fetuses.

Federal Health Minister Anthony Abbott, known for his opposition to abortion, told parliament, “We have a bizarre double standard in this country where someone who kills a pregnant woman’s baby is guilty of murder but a woman who aborts an unborn baby is simply exercising choice.” Abbott continued, “Somehow, up to 100,000 abortions a year are accepted as a fact of life—almost by some as a badge of liberation from old oppressions.”

Prime Minister John Howard backed Abbott in the debate. He argued that “RU-486 is not an ordinary drug,” and that elected officials should not “hand over decisions to people who are not accountable.”

Sarah Wickham of the National Union of Students told one hearing on the bill that “The introduction of RU-486… would be a huge benefit to all university students, particularly rural and regional women for whom access to abortion is rare. It is simply wrong for one man to decide the freedom of choice and reproductive rights of all Australian women.”
 
 
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