Working women reject latest attack on women’s health care access

KEY POINTS:

• SA Unions slams latest attack on women’s reproductive healthcare rights. 
• Calls for all parliamentarians to reject this inflamitory, draconian bill.
• Demand politicians focus on cost of living, housing and lifting wages to help working women.

SA Unions slam this latest private member’s bill from conservative MLC Sarah Game as a direct assault on safe, legal abortion access.

The predominant cohort of people accessing abortion care are working women in their forties. These are women struggling against the rising cost of living, the cost of housing, their wages struggling against rising inflation, and the changing world of work. The last thing they need or deserve is this malicious attack on women’s bodily autonomy, which diverts attention from the economic and social crises crushing South Australians.

As the voice for working women in SA, SA Unions stress that access to reproductive health services drives gender equality and ensures women’s social, economic, and political equality. Abortion rights are human rights, they are a healthcare issue that should be between a woman and her medical practitioner.

This private member’s bill proposes more draconian restrictions to arbitrarily limit access to healthcare, when two similar private members bills have been rejected in the last two years. This is undeniable proof of an ultra-conservative political agenda being driven by Game and her former political party One Nation.

An extremist anti-abortion agitator has already been banned from parts of the parliament for her alleged threatening tactics. The Parliament has already rejected two bills to restrict reproductive healthcare in this term. This is a repeat of the same tactics that were rejected previously for the sake of political theatre, and publicity.

Quotes attributable to SA Unions President Jennie-Marie Gorman:

“Once again, we’re seeing women’s healthcare rights being used for political theatre. SA Women are sick of it.”

“We’re in an unprecedented cost of living crisis, we have unacceptable rates of homelessness amongst women, and we face the enduring challenge of ending family, domestic, and sexual violence. South Australian women need politicians to focus on the real issues we’re battling with, not gambling with our most personal healthcare decisions.”

“These restrictions would hit regional and low-income working women the hardest. Politicians should not be able to deny us the healthcare we need. Autonomy over our bodies is non-negotiable.”

“This is just another example of Sarah Game trying to import Trump-style culture wars. We’ve seen what happens overseas when division is allowed to be stoked and inflamed by politicians, and South Australian women won’t stand for it.”