One year later, advocates are concerned the law is yet to be implemented by the government, saying women must still abide by provisions under the old legislation if they want to terminate their pregnancy.
South Australian obstetrician and Australian Medical Association (AMA) councillor Dr Brian Peat told a government-convened committee tasked with planning for the implantation of the legislation had recently cancelled meetings and there was no indication that the law would come into effect until after the March 19 state election.
“We never thought it would go on this long – we thought it would just be a brief thing,” he said.
“That group, which doesn’t include the AMA but includes quite a few stakeholders, keeps being cancelled and not meeting and not actually making any progress.
“Here we are a year later with no sign of action.”
It comes after the government late last year released draft regulations outlining how it proposed to implement the legislation.
The proposed rules require hospital CEOs or doctors to report a host of private information to the health minister after performing medical abortions.
Data requested under the draft regulations include the patient’s name, date of birth and address, the gender of the foetus, the date of the patient’s last menstrual period or estimated date of conception, and whether patient counselling was provided.
reported in January concerns frxjmtzywom legal groups that the data collection could compromise patient privacy and deter some women from seeking abortions.
But Peat said collecting data was common practice for medical procedures.
“There was a bit of a dispute – some people were really against collecting information,” he said.
“We’ve always had pregnancy outcome data – so all babies that are born have an extensive body of data collected about them.
“To me, this is just pregnancy outcome data so I don’t have any problem with it, but I know some of my colleagues who are sitting on the committee do.
“I definitely know that polarised the group.”
contacted SA Health for comment, but was told to contact a minister’s office.
