The ban puts a fetter on Australia's international health aid policy. The chairwoman of Family Planning Victoria, Sally Cockburn, has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd saying: "I implore you to step in, for the sake of the health and safety of women in developing countries and remove the archaic paragraphs in the AusAID family planning guidelines that were put there by the previous government to appease Senator Brian Harradine ... "I understand that you have a personal view that abortion is wrong and I respect that, but, as a mother and a doctor, I must appeal to you that women will have abortions whether they are legal or not, morally right or not, and my wish is that those women who do decide on such a path do so with informed consent and have access to safe procedures."
Dr Cockburn, who has a radio program on 3AW, is a life Australia Day ambassador for Victoria and handed her letter to a prime-ministerial aide when Mr Rudd spoke at the Melbourne Australia Day lunch last week.
Marie Stopes International Australia yesterday urged the Government to lift the ban. "It is a disgrace that Australia is expecting women in developing countries, who live under circumstances of poverty and hardship, to not have the same rights as women in Australia," the organisations executive officer, Ary Laufer, said. Marie Stopes International Australia is a not-for-profit organisation that provides reproductive health services for low-income communities in Asian-Pacific and Aboriginal communities.
Click here to see the article.
