JENI O’DOWD: Abortion policy shows One Nation protest voters may get more than they bargained for

Be careful what you wish for.

For years, voting for a minor party or an independent was a way of sending a message to Labor or the Coalition without really thinking that the party or person would ever hold any significant power.

But as we are now seeing with the rise of One Nation, what happens when they do?

When I read about One Nation’s abortion policy over the weekend I nearly choked on my Weet-Bix — what in the 1950s is going on here?

Isn’t the abortion debate well and truly over in Australia? Access to an abortion was a major battle fought for women years ago. Labor and the Coalition don’t even have a policy, and if the issue comes up, it’s always a conscience vote.

And One Nation isn’t stopping at tighter abortion restrictions. The party wants abortion laws reopened and rewritten, including reducing the time limits for abortions and introducing a range of new requirements around the procedure.

It also says it wants to ban the use of organs from aborted babies, but Dr Erica Millar, a senior lecturer specialising in reproduction at La Trobe University, told the Daily Mail website that this simply does not happen in Australia.

As well, One Nation says it wants to restore doctors’ rights to object to abortions, despite doctors already being able to do so if they refer patients to another provider.

The party’s proposal for mandatory counselling for women wanting an abortion is also an eye-opener. As Dr Millar said, that assumes women do not understand their own decisions or their own body.

In February, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson told the ABC: “When you can have an abortion up until the day before the birth of the child, it is of great concern to a lot of Australians.”

That would be correct if it were true. It’s not. To abort a child late in pregnancy, a woman needs legal and medical approval. And this only happens in exceptional circumstances, such as a serious threat to the woman’s life or severe foetal abnormalities. You simply cannot walk into an abortion clinic at 39 weeks pregnant and get an abortion.

Most women know someone who has had an abortion, which is no doubt one of the most personal choices a woman can make about her body and her future. And if you know someone who has, you know it is a decision which should not be dictated by politicians.

When the Roe v Wade verdict was overturned in America a few years ago, some US States moved to ban or heavily restrict abortions, leading to a nasty political debate still ongoing today.

Thankfully, we are not America and there is no suggestion that abortion rights are about to disappear (for now). But One Nation’s strong stance did make me wonder how many of the people driving One Nation’s rise actually know and agree with this policy.

Obviously One Nation’s surge has not been driven by abortion, but rather anger over migration, housing affordability and a belief that neither major party is listening.

But what happens if One Nation MPs, voted in because of anger over these issues, suddenly get the power to reopen the abortion debate?

The same phenomenon exists elsewhere. Some people vote Greens because they think they are all about protecting cuddly koalas and trees. But do they also know the Greens support decriminalising the personal use of illegal drugs, including cocaine, ecstasy, heroin and methamphetamine?

But as parties grow, scrutiny follows.

If you look back nearly 30 years to when Pauline Hanson said the now-famous words “Please explain?” after being asked on 60 Minutes whether she was xenophobic, there was little doubt she was being set up for television ratings. It’s not like xenophobic is a word most of us use in everyday conversation.

If you think that treatment was unfair, wait until you see the scrutiny the party will now get as it cannot be simply treated as a protest movement anymore.

One Nation is now a potential participant in government, and its policies deserve the same examination applied to Labor and the Coalition.

Which brings me to another moment from the weekend.

When former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce did not know the basic details of his party’s policy on foreign ownership of housing, it showed how far this party is from being ready to hold significant power.

If a seasoned political survivor like Joyce can find himself making these kinds of mistakes, what happens when less experienced One Nation candidates face the same scrutiny in the lead-up to an election? It’s going to be headline after headline, stuff-up after stuff-up.

That will be the real test for One Nation.

Many of us are angry about the state of our once great nation. But when voters step into the ballot box, they need to realise that endorsing a party because of one issue also means accepting everything else that comes with it.