Decriminalisation is great, but now it’s time for gender equity

New South Wales has just become the first jurisdiction in Australia to legislate the prevention of reproductive coercion. 1 in 3 counselling clients at Marie Stopes Australia experience some form of coercion from other people in their lives. Reproductive coercion should be a national priority, however legislation against it in the Abortion Reform Bill 2019 is not necessarily the best place for it.

Decriminalisation has been a long time in the making and this Bill has come out of a particularly charged debate in New South Wales. It follows two years of considered legislative development and more than a century of activism for women’s sexual and reproductive health rights.

During the debate a number of politicians spoke at length about reproductive coercion and the need for protections to be put in place so that women can exercise their own reproductive autonomy. Their arguments drew on findings of Marie Stopes Australia’s White Paper on reproductive coercion released late last year. The paper was the result of nearly 2 years consultation with some of the nation’s leading minds on reproductive health, rights, family and domestic violence and the law.

While the reproductive coercion amendment was positioned out of concern for women’s rights, what it could ultimately do is create another barrier to reproductive healthcare.

The Bill implies that reproductive coercion either involves a woman being coerced to have an abortion, or coerces a woman to continue with her pregnancy. Simplifying reproductive coercion to a binary within abortion provision overlooks the complexities of reproductive health.

Reproductive coercion is any behaviour that interferes with the autonomy of a person to make decisions about their reproductive health. It includes actions such as sabotaging another person’s contraception, forced sterilisation, pressuring someone into pregnancy or controlling the outcome of another person’s pregnancy.

What the white paper found was that reproductive coercion is driven in 2 ways;

• Interpersonally (such as within intimate partnerships or within families)
• Structurally (such as via laws and regulations that restrict access to reproductive healthcare service provision like contraception and abortion)

During the drafting of the White Paper, a number of brave women came forward to tell their stories about coercion at the hands of intimate partners, their religious communities and, in some cases, at the hands of the State. When they talked about their experiences, they talked about the pain of not being able to make their decisions about their bodies.

Taking away, or interfering with, a woman’s ability to make decisions about her reproductive health is the core of reproductive coercion and it is there that we must focus efforts to prevent it.

Reproductive coercion is not driven by the legalisation of abortion. It is driven by gender inequity. Reproductive coercion is driven by the fact that women are not viewed as being equal or deserving of dignity when it comes to making decisions about their bodies and their lives. To truly address reproductive coercion we need to address gender inequity in its many forms; the gender pay gap, lack of representation of women in positions of power, and yes, even the criminality of a reproductive healthcare service such as abortion.

The decriminalisation of abortion in New South Wales is a welcome move. However now the hard work starts, particularly if we are to build on the attention and focus paid to reproductive coercion in the Bill’s debate.

Genuine efforts to address reproductive coercion involve:

• Enabling voluntary access to all-options decision based pregnancy counselling.
• Supporting timely and affordable access to contraception and abortion services.
• Safeguarding access to domestic, family and sexual violence support services.
• Resourcing training of health care professionals including GPs.
• Embedding culturally responsive health care to incorporate the healthcare needs of diverse communities.
• Enabling greater healthcare access and health education in regional and remote areas.
• Investing in primary prevention measures that address divers of gender inequity and violence.

Organisations like Marie Stopes stand ready with a wide range of healthcare, education, social services and employment providers to work with the government to address reproductive coercion and implement this historic (or herstoric) Bill.

Jacquie O’Brien is the Director of Policy and Bonney Corbin is the Senior Policy Officer at Marie Stopes Australia.
Marie Stopes Australia is a national not-for-profit provider of sexual and reproductive health.