Australia scraps abortion drug ban

CANBERRA: Australia's parliament scrapped an effective ban on an abortion drug yesterday after a passionate debate that saw lawmakers draw on personal experiences before a vote.

Treasurer Peter Costello voted to remove the power of the health minister to veto applications to import and prescribe RU-486 after recounting how he had to decide whether to abort an unborn child as his wife lay unconscious in hospital.

"The choice I made was to continue both the treatment and the pregnancy. By the grace of God, both survived. I have no doubt that the law should not have prevented such a choice," Costello told parliament during the debate.

The lower House of Representatives voted almost two to one to scrap the veto power currently held by conservative, Catholic, anti-abortionist Health Minister Tony Abbott after the bill was passed 45 to 28 by the Senate last week.

The responsibility for RU-486 applications will now rest solely with the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which regulates medicines, medical devices, blood, tissues and chemicals.

RU-486 advocates argued that approval should rest with health experts, while critics said the drug developed in France in the 1980s to terminate a pregnancy of up to 49 days was unsafe and elected, and accountable officials should be in charge.

The debate over the drug pitted Prime Minister John Howard against his heir-apparent Costello, with Howard saying he believed it was the duty of the parliament to take responsibility for making difficult decisions for the country.

Howard said earlier he would vote against scrapping the ban.

"To suggest that this drug RU-486 is just another drug is patently absurd. I believe to treat it as any other drug is unsustainable," Howard told parliament before the vote.

"There is a whiff in this whole debate of this being a little too difficult and controversial so let's give it to somebody else. I am a little disappointed in that attitude because in the end we are elected to make decisions on difficult issues."

RU-486, also known as Mifeprex or mifepristone, grabbed the spotlight in Australia last year after a government lawmaker asked for a review of the effective ban because women in remote and rural areas had difficulty accessing surgical abortions.

About 80,000 legal surgical abortions take place annually in Australia, which has a population of 20 million.

Sexual Health and Family Planning Australia says RU-486 is already available in 35 countries, including Britain, France, the United States, Sweden, Greece, Spain and New Zealand, and has been used by more than 21 million women worldwide.

During the debate in the Senate last week, minority Democrats leader Lyn Allison, a co-sponsor of the bill to scrap the RU-486 ban, revealed she had had an abortion and Finance Minister Nick Minchin confessed that a former girlfriend had a termination.

Source: China Daily