By Anthony Barich
National Reporter
INDEPENDENT think tank Women’s Forum Australia (WFA) and a leading women’s author have welcomed Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s revelation in a controversial personal interview with Australian Women’s Weekly that he wants fewer abortions and that he tells his daughters that virginity is a gift.
“I would like to see fewer abortions,” Mr Abbott said in the interview published on 27 January.
Author of Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls, writer, speaker and women’s advocate Melinda Tankard Reist also backed Mr Abbott’s comments, saying it would have been more controversial had he said he doesn’t care about his daughters’ relationships.
Mrs Tankard Reist, who co-founded WFA, added that “there doesn’t seem to be the same emphasis on boys’ virginity, only girls. There should be the same expectation on boys. There are different standards for the sexes”.
Noting that an estimated one in four pregnancies in Australia end in abortion, WFA chairperson Katrina George said Mr Abbott’s view about abortion is in line with most of the community, as research shows that between 64 and 73 per cent of Australians believe that the rate of abortion is too high.
“Tony Abbott is simply stating publicly what most Australians believe privately,” Ms George said, while also welcoming renewed public debate about abortion.
“Research shows that for many women abortion is not about choice.
“Financial pressures, uncaring or violent relationships, unsupportive work places, schools and universities drive many women to the abortion clinic.
Australian women need better information and support to freely make decisions about their pregnancies, she said.
She also expressed disappointment that the Federal Government recently abolished the National Pregnancy Support Helpline introduced under the previous Coalition Government by Mr Abbott when he was Health Minister.
While WFA threw its support behind the new family-centred helpline due to be launched in July, Ms George said there is “an urgent need for access to independent and professionally trained pregnancy support counsellors who can give women real choices”.
Mr Abbott’s interview also drew fire from Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard as the former Health Minister also said he encourages his three teenage daughters that their virginity is a gift.
Senator Gillard said that women are “not interested in Tony Abbott imposing his views” on them. “These comments will confirm the worst fears of Australian women about Tony Abbott,” she said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also told Fairfax Radio in Perth last week that personal matters like sex before marriage should be left to young people to sort out with their families and friends.
However, Liberal MP George Brandis defended on ABC Radio Mr Abbott’s right to discuss the advice he gives to his own daughters, and also attacked Senator Gillard’s ability to understand the way parents think about virginity because she doesn’t have children.
“I think that most parents, in fact, all – any parent I can think of would agree with what Tony Abbott said and I think Julia Gillard who is – has chosen not to be a parent – and, you know, every body respects her right, in the vehemence of her reaction in fact shows that she just doesn’t understand the way parents think about their children when they reach a particular age,” Senator Brandis told ABC Radio.
“I do think her over-reaction to the, in my view, quite unexceptionable remarks Tony Abbott made as the father of daughters, is not something she would have said if she were herself the mother of teenage daughters.”