Anne Newsletter 1 Summers Reports Sane Factual Relevant

Dear ASR Subscriber

I am writing to you today for a couple of inspired by and is run by Australians. We are not reasons. I want to report on how ASR is just about iron ore. faring, and I want to let you know why We are steadily building our subscriber base; the next issue of the magazine is going currently more than 3000 people have signed on. to be published a little later than we had We have also ventured into social media and now anticipated, and hoped. have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Our third issue of the magazine will be published Please ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at the end of June—later than we had planned, but @AnneSummersReps. The greater our numbers we do have a good reason. We have a very special (subscribers and social media), the easier it will be cover story, but the subject was not available for for us to attract funding in the form of advertising, interview until June. We hope that when you read sponsorship or large individual donations. the report you will understand why we decided We are thrilled at the numbers of people who have it was worth the wait, even though it meant an sent us donations and we thank you most sincerely overlong gap between the second and third issues. for doing so. Sadly, though, we are not yet even To fill that gap, and to keep faith with you, we close to becoming financially viable. This means have decided to produce this newsletter. As with we cannot pay writers, artists, photographers and the magazine, it contains good reporting on subjects our production team anything like the money they not adequately covered elsewhere, although in this deserve for the work they are doing. It is a huge format we are not able to produce the gorgeous tribute to their faith in the future of online ventures visuals you have become accustomed to. such as ours that they continue to donate so much We report on the alarming, and unreported, of their talent (strictly for the time being, I can assure change to the formerly pro-choice majority of you) and I cannot thank them enough. Federal Parliament. This has potentially grave We hope this short newsletter will tide you over implications for women’s right to choose if the until June. Thank you for your patience while we anti-abortion Tony Abbott becomes Prime Minister grow. Yours sincerely in September. On a lighter note, we bring you a story of anne summers Australian innovation in Asia: the world-renowned Shanghai Literary Festival which, as writer and Festival guest Charlotte Wood reports, was both @AnneSummersReps

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Donate now! 1 Senate considers whether to outlaw Medicare funding for gender-selection abortions By Anne Summers

hether or not a pro-choice majority 4. Support for campaigns by United Nations still prevails in the Federal Parliament agencies to end the discriminatory practice of Wcould be tested later this year if there is gender-selection through implementing disincen- a vote on legislation to wind back Australian wom- tives for gender-selection abortions; en’s entitlements to public subsidies for abortion. 5. Concern from medical associations in first- A Senate inquiry is due to report back on 25 June world countries about the practice of gender-se- on a bill that reflects the latest American export in lection abortion, viz. Canada, USA, UK. the anti-abortion battle being waged by so-called Once the Committee reports, we can expect a “pro-life” groups in this country. rugged debate on this issue and the bill will most The Senate referred the private Senator’s likely have to be voted on. The government has Health Insurance Amendment (Medicare Funding not yet adopted a position on the bill but there for Certain Types of Abortion) Bill 2013, intro- is increasing concern among some members of duced in March by DLP Senator John Madigan, to Parliament that the pro-choice majority that was the Standing Committee on Finance and Public evident when support for choice was last tested, Administration for further investigation. The in 2005, may no longer prevail. purpose of the bill is to outlaw Medicare funding These changed sentiments are due not to indi- for so-called gender-selection abortions, that is, vidual MPs changing their mind on the issue, but abortions used to terminate pregnancies because to carefully targeted campaigns to oust pro-choice the parent(s) object to the sex of the foetus. members. Senator Claire Moore, one of four fe- As is usual with parliamentary considerations male parliamentarians who in 2005 successfully of abortion, the Committee has received a very sponsored the bill that removed Health Minister large number of submissions. More than 500 had Tony Abbott’s right to veto the import of abor- been posted on the Committee’s website at the tion drug RU486, says there has been a noticeable time of writing but, the Committee’s secretary change in “the beliefs and backgrounds of the told me, many more were waiting to be processed people who have been elected” to both sides of before they could be posted. The overwhelming politics in recent years. majority of the submissions support the pro- posed legislation, with many of them being in the “If RU486 or the stem cells research bill form of short, often just one paragraph, letters. were put before the Parliament today, we’d lose While it is not possible to anticipate the find- both of them,” one MP told ASR. ings of the Committee, the terms of reference To date, the response of women’s and pro- do seem to have been framed in such a way as to choice groups to Senator Madigan’s bill to restrict steer the Committee towards endorsing the senti- the Medicare levy payable on gender-selection ments of the bill. abortions has been to argue that it is irrelevant The terms of reference are: because there is no evidence of these abortions 1. The unacceptability to Australians of the use taking place in the Australia. of Medicare funding for the purpose of gender- The submission of the Women’s Centre for selection abortions; Health Matters, for instance, argues: 2. The prevalence of gender selection—with Were sex-selective abortions taking place in preference for a male child—among some ethnic Australia on a systematic basis, this would be groups present in Australia and the recourse to revealed through skewed gender ratios. Australia has Medicare-funded abortions to terminate female a normal ratio of male-to-female births. Looking at children; data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics from 3. The use of Medicare funded gender-selection 2011, just over half (51%) of all births registered abortions for the purpose of “family-balancing”; were male babies, resulting in a sex ratio at birth of 2 Gender-selection abortions who put feminist theory into practice by provid- 105.7 male births per 100 female births. This is a ing services that were safe and affordable and biologically normal sex ratio at birth and does not which equipped women with counselling and indicate a skewed sex ratio in Australia. Taking a contraceptive advice to help give them control of view of the population overall, we see that at June their reproductive health in future. She has since 2011 there were 124,700 more females than males extended her services to the former Soviet Union residing in Australia, with 11.2 million females and where women have been denied basic contracep- 11.1 million males. tives, forcing them to resort to multiple (and But we can be certain that the groups pushing often unsafe) abortions. this legislation will triumphantly find examples Described by Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor of such abortions being performed here in order Roosevelt’s biographer, as someone who “never to bolster their case. In any event, it would seem turned away from the harshest battles or denied prudent for those who wish to preserve the status the most painful truths”, Hoffman has played a quo of Medicare funding for abortion to be ready key role in defining and defending women’s human with their arguments to counter what is likely to and for over four decades. be a highly emotive debate. It is in order to as- She started the feminist magazine, On the Is- sist the discussion that ASR publishes the article sues, which was where this article was first pub- below by the American feminist and abortion lished. Merle makes the powerful case that while provider Merle Hoffman. we find the idea of aborting girls abhorrent, if I met Merle when I was Editor-in-Chief of we truly believe in a woman’s right to choose, we Ms. magazine in New York in the late 1980s. I have to respect each individual woman’s choice, was impressed by her on a number of counts. In even when we disagree with her reasons. 1971, two years before the US Supreme Court Merle’s article is provocative in that it forces us decision Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, she to confront the foundations of our fundamental established Choices, an overtly feminist clinic principles. It is a powerful piece of reasoning that to provide abortion services for largely young deserves to be widely read. We present it exclu- and underprivileged women. She was someone sively to ASR subscribers.

Where and choice collide: gender-selection abortions By Merle Hoffman

here is one place where the definition the sex of her foetus. If female, of gender remains binary—in the womb. she declared, she intended TWhen it comes to sonograms, amniocen- to abort. The doctors were tesis and standard pre-natal testing, there are no concerned enough to bring the Merle Hoffman The act of nuances. Here, the pronouncement “It’s a girl” issue to the National Board of continuing a can translate into fierce and instant parental Health and Welfare, inquiring pregnancy is more rejection. The fact is that when the issue is “sex- how to handle requests where of a “choice” than it ever was selection abortion” the same sex is always being they felt “pressured to examine historically. selected—female. the foetus’s gender” without Abortion has been regularly used as a method a clinical diagnosis. The Board of sex selection in certain regions of the world, came back and said that requests for abortions particularly China and India where sons are based on a child’s gender cannot be refused. more highly prized than daughters. But it was Here in the US a recent New York Times article something of a surprise to doctors in Sweden reported slight statistical variations among Ameri- when the mother of two daughters arrived at cans of Chinese, Korean or Indian descent, suggest- Mälaren Hospital, seeking tests to determine ing that the cultural preference for boys in these 3 Merle Hoffman Good question. And one that I asked myself in societies is continuing even among the diaspora. 1991 when I counselled a Hindu woman who was The story reported on research conducted by eighteen weeks pregnant, married with two sons Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund and published and wanted the abortion because the sonogram in the Proceedings of the National Academy of showed the foetus she was carrying was female. Sciences. The researchers say their analysis of the This is where my feminism and pro-choice phi- 2000 Census shows that the odds increase be- losophies collided violently. I sat across from her yond what is standard for a third child to be a boy and thought of her foetus and the “primal birth in Asian-American families from China, Korea defect” it carried and felt rage and despair, as if it and India if the family did not already have a son. were me she would be negating. The data “suggest that in a sub-population with I so much wanted to say, “No. STOP! You should a traditional son preference, the technologies are not.” Not “You cannot” but “You should not”. being used to generate male births when preced- Yes, this feminist makes judgements—value ing births are female”. judgements—and, sometimes, I disagree pro- Even though sex selection is illegal in India, foundly with some women’s choices. and China has been struggling with this issue for years, Edlund, a professor in the Depart- I would not personally make a decision ment of Economics at Columbia University, told to abort on that basis—or for some of the other the Times, “That this is going on in the United reasons that women present themselves for abor- States—people were blown away by this.” tions. But I have spent the better part of my life Blown away, indeed. Most people find the idea defending the principle of reproductive freedom of sex-selection abortion unacceptable, and a and have provided the service to thousands of Zogby Interactive poll taken in March 2006 found women for over 38 years because, ultimately, that 86 per cent of Americans supported a pro- women do and should have the right to make hibition on the practice. Sex-selection abortion what may be to others the wrong choice. has been banned in Illinois, Pennsylvania and It’s about separating the chooser from most recently in Oklahoma. Representative Trent the choice. Franks—a pro-life member of Congress from The Random House Webster College Dictionary Arizona—introduced the Susan B. Anthony and defines choice as the right, power or opportunity Frederick Douglass Prenatal Non-discrimination to choose. When an individual makes a choice, it Act of 2009, a bill that would ban sex-selection or is the act of “the making”, the active will and pow- race-based abortions. er of choosing itself that has unconditional value, not the result of the choosing. The only absolute In an op-ed in The Washington Times, Trent in this equation is the one who chooses, that is, it wrote, “Regardless of one’s position on abortion, is the individual woman who is the active moral this form of discrimination should horrify every agent in the decision-making process and not the American. The idea of killing a baby simply be- state, the court or any political body. cause she is a girl is reprehensible.” The choice can be morally good, or not. This, of While sex selection abortion allows women to course, brings into view the nature of morality. If make what is, in a sense, the ultimate in suppos- an individual has an absolutist value that all abor- edly informed consumerism, it also can work to tions, for whatever reason, are evil, then there is create a world where being female is viewed as the no further discussion. The raped nine-year-old, primary and most terminal of birth defects. the incested ten-year-old, whomever-under-what- News reports describe a new test being market- ever circumstances: all are committing an evil ed that can determine the sex of a foetus after only act. There can be no possibility of choice because ten weeks, rather than the twenty weeks of the tra- a woman choosing an abortion is a generic evil ditional sonogram. In light of these development which should preclude the choice itself. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby asked, “What Interestingly enough, with Roe v. Wade in the kind of feminist would it be who could contem- background giving women the opportunity not to plate the use of abortion to eliminate ever-greater be pregnant, the act of continuing a pregnancy numbers of girls, and not cry out in horror?”“ is more of a “choice” than it ever was historically. 4 Merle Hoffman eral ethical principles. The issue of sex-selection Each time a woman actively continues with her abortion is difficult because it is a place where the pregnancy, the ”wantedness” of every child in- rights and values of the chooser clash violently creases. Some believe that the choice of abortion is with the nature of the choice. wrong in all places for all time. But attitudes about Long-time colleague Frances Kissling, writing abortion are situational, historic and geographic. in Salon, describes a hypothetical scenario that My work to open Choices East in the former she was presented with at a Planned Parenthood Soviet Union, a satellite of my clinic Choices conference 15 years ago. Asked whether or not, Women’s Medical Centre in New York, was in- if she were a doctor, she would provide a sex-se- spired by a 35-year-old woman who came to our lection abortion, she said. “I wouldn’t do it”, but medical centre for her thirty-sixth abortion. Like thought a policy should be implemented that was so many other Russian émigré women living in “open to referring women to providers who do”. New York, she was violently opposed to using She goes on to say, “Just because something is birth control because her Russian doctor taught legal—and should be legal—does not mean it is her that the Pill was far more dangerous than always ethical … If pro-choice advocates follow repeat abortions. This misinformation benefited the example of those opposed to abortion and Russian physicians because they could earn extra present only one value—a women’s right to make money doing abortions on women in their homes this decision—as the only ethical consideration to supplement their $3 a month salary. Other worth discussing in difficult cases, do we not be- forms of contraception were unavailable for all come as extremist as we say they are?” practical purposes. For these women, the “issue” Kissling compresses all myriad pro-choice of abortion posed no questions of morality, eth- thinking into one collective body with the same ics or women’s rights versus foetal life. There was interests that arbitrate morality. By implying only the harsh reality that sex rarely came with- that defending a woman’s fundamental right to choose is a potentially extremist position, and calling choice “single-value ethics”, as she does in To accept the language of the article, Kissling both diminishes and disre- gards individual women’s ethical decisions and the opposition is to cede presents values in the collective absolute. There is our moral compass. no conceptual or philosophical equality here. To accept the language of the opposition is to cede our moral compass. out anxiety and that the price one often paid for it was high and dangerous. Unlike Kissling who believes that “there is a Are these women who have no other choice point where our respect for potential life, for that continually making the wrong one? individual foetus, should outweigh a woman’s Are the women of China and India who are so desire, even need, not to be pregnant”, Marianne much a product of their paternalistic and misogy- Mollmann of Human Rights Watch offers a differ- nistic cultures making the wrong choice when ent perspective: “The solution to the prevalence they want a child who will not join their hus- of sex-selective abortion is to remove the moti- band’s families after marriage or when they want vation (emotional or real) behind the procedure sons to take care of parents as they age, as are the by advancing women’s human rights and their practices in their societies? economic and social equality.” Are they making a wrong choice if the results of Yes, the solution to the dilemma of the chooser their choice determine their ability and their fam- and the choice is to create a world where women ily’s ability to survive? When and where is a choice truly have both equal and human rights. The right or wrong? And, according to whose dictates? solution is to focus on changing the need for the If we, in fact, say “trust women”, then we are choice of abortion, not to criminalize the chooser. assuming that we should also trust them when Every day at Choices, women go into the coun- we feel that the choice they are making is wrong selling sessions and answer the question, “Why for us personally, or wrong in our view of gen- are you having this abortion?” Not infrequently, 5 Merle Hoffman a graduate student who wants to finish her PhD. they answer with a statement like “Oh I’m not at They all have good reasons, because all the rea- all like all the others in the waiting room, I really sons are theirs. wanted to keep this pregnancy, but …” And in the end, that is the answer. It’s in the but that the reality of abortion lies. If you were the chooser—what would be your Practitioners who counsel women seeking choice? abortions do an exercise called “the last abor- tion”. The participants choose one woman among Merle Hoffman is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief six who will be allowed to receive the last abor- of On The Issues Magazine. She is the Founder, tion on earth. It is an exercise in individual ethics President and CEO of CHOICES Women’s Medical and forces one to confront her own prejudices. Centre in . This article was the Winner There is an orphaned teenager, a victim of rape, of the Newswomen’s Club of New York’s 2010 Front a woman carrying a medically deformed foetus, a Page Award for Political Commentary. ASR thanks 46-year-old woman with HIV, a 12-year-old, and Merle Hoffman for permission to reprint this article.

The very glamourous Shanghai International Literary Festival By Charlotte Wood

he book world has Frank Moorhouse and Pulitzer winners Edward and his love of martinis to thank for one P Jones and Junot Diaz, among Tof the most vibrant events on the inter- hundreds of other writers. national literary calendar. It was Moorhouse’s March 2013 saw the eleventh Charlotte Wood The festival work-in-progress on the martini and literature Shanghai festival, now running takes pride in (which later became the 2005 book Martini) that simultaneously with the Capital defining ‘literary’ prompted the adventurous Shanghai restaurateur Literary Festival in Beijing, host- with the broadest possible brush and salonnière, Australian-born Michelle Gar- ed at another spectacular Gar- naut, to first invite writers into the orbit of her naut restaurant, Capital M, which famous M on the Bund restaurant. overlooks Tiananmen Square. The events ran The aptly named Glamour Bar had just opened from 1 to 17 March, with many writers appear- beneath the M restaurant in the 1920s building ing in both cities in a vast program of talks, panel that formerly housed the Nissin Shipping Build- discussions, children’s events, literary lunches ing company, one of dozens of elegant historic and writing workshops. buildings lining the Huangpu River on the Shang- The Shanghai Festival is one of the few truly hai waterfront known as the Bund. Moorhouse’s international events of the book world. This book was a perfect fit for a series of cultural year saw 71 writers from 21 countries speaking events the Glamour Bar had just launched. Moor- in Shanghai, and 50 writers from 12 countries house spoke and martinis were celebrated, in lit- in Beijing. Shanghai’s cosmopolitan heritage is erature and practice, there and at the Hong Kong reflected in the mix of countries of origin and restaurant Garnaut owned then, M on the Fringe, topics, and the festival takes pride in defining as part of the Hong Kong Literary Festival. ‘literary’ with the broadest possible brush. Novel- The exploration of martinis grew from that ists, historians, commentators, children’s authors moment into an exploration of literature for the and biographers rub shoulders with food writers, cosmopolitan, English-speaking crowd in China: songwriters, journalists, photographers, film- the Shanghai International Literary Festival was makers and humourists. born. Since then guests have included Gore Vidal, Michelle Garnaut says the scale of the festival, Shirley Hazzard, Booker winners John Banville, which now draws audiences of 6000, was unim- Alan Hollinghurst, Anne Enright and Kiran Desai, aginable back in 2003. 6 Shanghai Literary Festival “We had two or three people—literally—in some of those early sessions in Shanghai, and we’d be over the moon if we had 20 or 30! But even then, we thought it was worthwhile doing for whoever wanted to come.” But, she said, growth had not just been in audi- ence size. “We’ve grown first from one weekend to two, and now three; and in the numbers of authors. We’ve also ‘professionalised’—it used to be just three or four of us doing everything, from tak- ing tickets at the door to reservations and airport pickup, and now we have our wonderful ‘festival elves’ (volunteers); we’ve outsourced quite a few things. But despite all that, I think it has still re- tained the intimacy of the earlier years.” On the program this year, the first female winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize, South Korea’s Shin Kyung-sook, spoke about the shift Michelle Garnaut From martinis to a two-city event. from traditional to modern society in her novels while crime writer Håkan Nesser discussed Swed- on a novel set in China), cultural historian ish noir, and the ‘godfather of Chinese rock’ Cui David Walker on Australia’s perceptions of Jian’s tales of the writing, directing and artistic Asia, memoirist Tanveer Ahmed on merging life contrasted with an autobiographical romp his Bangladeshi and Australian identities, and through pastry-making—and a bread-making humourist, cartoonist and broadcaster Kaz Cooke demonstration—from renowned American pastry on feminism and teenage girlhood. chef Nick Malgieri. Past years have seen appearances from Contemporary China in all its guises is a staple Christos Tsiolkas, Markus Zusak, Nicholas Jose, theme of the Shanghai Festival. This year’s pro- Christopher Kremmer, Geraldine Brooks, Michelle gram saw discussions of Chinese documentary de Kretser, Raimond Gaita and others. photography, architecture, online storytelling, The Financial Times Debate has emerged as a fa- the rise of Chinese technological innovation, vourite session on both the Shanghai and Beijing translation, the city in crime fiction, Chinese programs. This year’s sell-out debate, ‘Is Capital- graphic novels and the future of China as a world ism Broken?’, saw lively discussion between FT power. Chinese artists on the program included journalists John Authers, Henny Sender, and Hong Kong-Chinese novelist and essayist Xi Xu, Gideon Rachman and JP Morgan’s Jesper Koll, on Shanghai-born author of the Inspector Chen the state of capitalism and its future. detective novels, Qiu Xiaolong, photographer As for the future of the festival, there are no Liu Zheng and photojournalist Qiao Qi. There’s plans for expansion; Garnaut wants to retain its a strong presence, too, of bicultural writers with intimate atmosphere. Chinese links, including South Korean, Hong “I think it will stay as it is in terms of size and Kong-dwelling master of wine Jeannie Cho Lee, locations for the moment. It is a big but reward- Chinese American memoirist Da Chen, and New ing effort to do this every year, but it can’t really Zealand Chinese graphic novelist Ant Sang. grow any bigger—all of us who are involved in it Australians joining the program this year do it on a volunteer basis, and this is about what were the Mandarin-speaking Australian novelist we can all handle and still do it well. You know and translator Linda Jaivin (currently at work what they say—leave ’em wanting more!”

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