Abstract
In Australia, members of a political party are expected to vote as a block on the instructions of their party. Occasionally a ‘conscience vote’ (or ‘free vote’) is allowed, which releases parliamentarians from the obligation to maintain party discipline and permits them to vote according to their ‘conscience.’ In recent years Australia has had a number of conscience votes in federal Parliament, many of which have focused on bioethical issues (e.g., euthanasia, abortion, RU486, and embryonic/stem cell research and cloning). This paper examines the use of conscience votes in six key case studies in these contested areas of policy-making, with particular attention to their implications for promoting democratic values and the significance of women’s Parliamentary participation.
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Notes
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The following is a list of conscience votes in the Australian Federal Parliament since 1973 (this list cannot be verified as being complete since conscience votes are not recorded as such on the Parliamentary record): New and Permanent Parliament House Motion (as to site) 1973; Medical Practice Clarification Bill 1973; Sexual Relationships – Social educational and legal aspects – Proposed Royal Commission Motion 1973; Death Penalty Abolition Bill 1973; Homosexual Acts and the Criminal Law Motion 1973; Parliament Bill 1974; Family Law Bill 1974; New and Permanent Parliament House Motion 1974; Termination of Pregnancy – Medical Benefits Motion 1979; Family Law Amendment Bill 1983; Sex Discrimination Bill 1984; Procedure Committee Motion 1987; Euthanasia Laws Bill 1996; Constitution Alteration (Establishment of Republic) Bill 1999; Research Involving Embryos and Prohibition of Human Cloning Bill 2002 (this Bill was split to become the Research Involving Human Embryos Bill 2002 and Prohibition of Human Cloning Bill 2002 due to the distinct nature of these two issues; the former Bill was then subject to a conscience vote by all parties whereas the latter was decided through the usual practice of voting according to party policy); Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial Responsibility for Approval of RU486) Bill 2005 (2006); Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006 (list up to 2002 from McKeown and Lundie 2002 and Harris 2005: 280–1, with additions taken from Commonwealth Parliament 2006, Bills list).
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McNair Anderson Poll (1973): Question: ‘Which (of these responses) comes closest to your opinion? Abortion should be legal:…In all circumstances, that is, “abortion on demand” [response rate: 23 %]; In cases of exceptional hardship, either physical, mental or social [20 %]; If the mother’s health, either physical or mental, is in danger [21 %]; Only if the mother’s life is in serious danger [19 %]; Abortion should not be legal in any circumstances [13 %]; No opinion/no response [4 %].’ (Betts 2004).
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The decline in 1996 may reflect the wording of the question that mentions ‘lethal injection.’ NewsPoll (1995 and 1996) Question: ‘Thinking now about euthanasia where a doctor complies with the wishes of a dying patient to have his or her life ended. Are you personally in favour or against changing the law to allow doctors to comply with the wishes of a dying patient to end his or her life?’ Strongly in favour 61 %; Partly in favour 18 %; Partly against 3 %; Strongly against 12 %; Don’t know 6 %. NewsPoll (1996) Question: ‘And are you personally in favour or against changing the law to allow doctors to perform active euthanasia, for example, by giving a patient a lethal injection?’ Strongly in favour 39 %; Partly in favour 24 %; Partly against 11 %; Strongly against 17 %; Uncommitted 9 %.
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Poll questions: ‘Should couples with excess embryos after infertility treatment or IVF be able to choose to donate these embryos for research rather than discard them?’ Yes 70 %; No 19 %; Undecided 11 %. ‘A very important new avenue for research using human embryos involves taking cells called stem cells from the inside of a five day old embryo. The embryo is no longer capable of further development. Scientists are working on techniques to turn stem cells extracted from an embryo into any type of cells in the body such as nerve cells and muscle cells to treat diseases such as heart disease, Alzheimers, cancer, spinal injuries and many more. Put simply, stem cells can be extracted from human embryos to be used in the treatment of many diseases and injuries. Do you approve or disapprove?’ Approve 70 %; Disapprove 19 %; Undecided 11 %.
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Poll question: ‘As with any transplant some patients may have problems with their bodies rejecting stem cells. To overcome this, a patient’s own genetic material can be inserted into an egg to create an embryo that will be used to extract stem cells. The process is called nuclear transfer or therapeutic cloning. Do you approve or disapprove?’ Approve 55 %; Disapprove 32 %; Undecided 13 %.
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ARHA (2006) and NewsPoll (2006). This particular NewsPoll was commissioned by pro-choice group, the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance (ARHA). Question: ‘Now thinking about the topic of abortion. Abortion is already available in Australia using surgical methods. However there is a drug called RU486 which can be used by doctors to terminate a pregnancy, without surgery, within the early stages. Would you personally be in favour, or against RU486 being made available in Australia for use by qualified medical practitioners?’ In favour 68 %, Against 21 %, Neither/don’t’ know 9 %, Refused 2 %.
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Poll question ‘Now thinking about the “Abortion Pill”. There is currently a proposal to introduce the drug RU486, also known as the “Abortion Pill”, into Australia. Do you think the “Abortion Pill” should be made available to Australian women, or not?’ Yes, make available 62 %; No, not make available 31 %; Can’t say 7 %.
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Poll question: ‘A very important new avenue for research using human embryos involves taking cells called stem cells from the inside of a five day old embryo. The embryo is no longer capable of further development. Scientists are working on techniques to turn stem cells extracted from an embryo into any type of cells in the body such as nerve cells and muscle cells to treat diseases such as heart disease, Alzheimers, cancer, spinal injuries and many more. Put simply, stem cells can be extracted from human embryos to be used in the treatment of many diseases and injuries. Do you approve or disapprove?’ Approve 82 %; Disapprove 13 %; Undecided 5 %. Question: ‘Scientists can now make embryonic stem cells for medical research by merging an unfertilised egg with a skin cell. In this case, no fertilisation takes place and there is no merger of the egg and sperm. Knowing this, do you favour or oppose embryonic stem cell research?’ Approve 80 %; Disapprove 11 %; Undecided 9 %.
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Poll question: ‘While normal embryonic stem cells are important for producing normal cells to potentially repair or replace diseased and damaged tissues, they have a limited use for researchers in understanding how diseases are established and develop. It is proposed that the laws governing stem cell research be extended to allow Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT), also known as therapeutic cloning, which involves creating a stem cell from a patient’s cell but does not involve the union of an egg and sperm. Theoretically, SCNT is the same technology that has been used to reproductively clone animals (such as Dolly the sheep), but the Australian scientific community does not support reproductive cloning and the use of SCNT to clone a human will continue to be explicitly prohibited and be a criminal offence under Australian laws. Do you strongly support, somewhat support, neither support nor oppose, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose the extension of the current Australian laws to allow therapeutic cloning of nuclear transfer embryos for health and medical research?’ Strongly support 30 %; somewhat support 28 %; neither support nor oppose 19 %; strongly oppose 10 %; somewhat oppose 8 % can’t say 6 %.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant “Big Picture Bioethics: Policy-making and Liberal Democracy” (DP0556068). The authors are grateful to audiences at the International Association of Bioethics World Congress (Beijing, 2006) and at a seminar at the NovelTechEthics Centre at the Dalhousie University, as well as the AJSI anonymous referees who provided helpful feedback and suggestions.
This chapter appeared as: Kerry Ross, Susan Dodds, and Rachel A. Ankeny. 2009. A matter of conscience? The democratic significance of “conscience votes” in legislating bioethics in Australia. Australian Journal of Social Issues 44: 121–142. Reprinted with the permission of the Australian Social Policy Association.
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Ross, K., Dodds, S., Ankeny, R.A. (2016). Conscience Votes in Australia: Deliberation and Representation. In: Dodds, S., Ankeny, R. (eds) Big Picture Bioethics: Developing Democratic Policy in Contested Domains. The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32240-7_4
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