The following is a collection of questions asked by Senator Joyce and sudsequent responses during the Senate Inquiry.

Senator JOYCE—Professor Greene is a research person of good repute. There is no reason to doubt the paper he wrote for the New England Journal of Medicine. There is obviously a greater incidence of clostridium sordellii after the use of mifepristone. Would that be a fair enough statement?

Dr Piercy—It appears to be more common. It is hard to gain statistical information on that. The article which is in that paper describes four deaths.

Senator JOYCE—So there is a fair case that the incidence of complication from RU486 in the first eight weeks of a period of usage is far higher than the incidence of complication from surgical abortions. Is that a fair statement? The previous deputation wandered around this and said that there was not. They said that they are comparable, or similar, or the same. But they are not, are they? They are completely different.

Dr Piercy—Not according to Professor Greene.

Ms Woolf—He is a professor of obstetrics at Harvard and is also the practising obstetrician at their medical school.

Senator JOYCE—It is very important that we get on the record that the previous evidence we got was flawed.

Senator WEBBER—That is totally inappropriate.

Senator BARNETT—It is an interpretation.

Senator WEBBER—These are all opinions.

Senator JOYCE—So it would be a fair statement that women who otherwise would have had a surgical abortion but who take RU486 will—if these things play out in Australia—die.

Dr Piercy—Yes.

Senator JOYCE—Good. The next question I pose is to you, Mr Francis. If someone was to present to you as a client and say, ‘My mother was given two alternatives, and they recommended the alternative which killed her,’ do you think you would have an ability to raise a case against whoever made that recommendation?

Mr Francis—Yes, you would.

Senator JOYCE—Good.

Mr Francis—Although I do not approve of it either, if I were asked, I would say have a surgical abortion every time. It is much safer.

Senator JOYCE—That would be a legal premise, if you recommended something to someone that was explicitly more dangerous than an alternative that was available?

Mr Francis—Yes, you are negligent.

Senator JOYCE—And basically as a committee we would also be negligent in some form too by allowing that process to start?

Mr Francis—Yes. That, of course, is one of the main allegations against Danco, that they were negligent in recommending the drug at all.

Senator JOYCE—We have been glossing over the fact that we are killing a human life, but in the process we are also going to be killing a couple of mothers as well who would otherwise be alive?

Mr Francis—Yes.

Senator JOYCE—Our mercenary attitude means that we do not worry about that.

Mr Francis—I make this comment also: the average GP would not be in a position to know all the problems of RU486, and if he prescribed it he would do it negligently because he is not—

Senator JOYCE—Is that a defence that he could use? That he did not know that—

Mr Francis—No. He has a duty to inquire.

Senator JOYCE—So he would still be legally liable?

Mr Francis—Yes.

Ms Woolf—The FDA patient information sheet has a long list of women whose conditions are a contraindication for the prescription. There are a whole lot of conditions that a woman can have that this drug should not be prescribed for.

Senator MOORE—Aren’t those black box warnings common process?

Ms Woolf—I was about to add that the black box warnings do not appear on the labels in Australia, as they do in the United States, so the woman would not know that these were contraindicated unless she were told.

Senator MOORE—You are actually stating a common practice.

Ms Woolf—We are relying a great deal on practice.

Senator JOYCE—It has also been put out by a doctor that it has been good for people in regional Australia. Do you think there is any reason RU486 would be any better for certain regions? Is there some access factor? We seem to have problems at the moment getting doctors out into regional areas of Australia because of the debacle in the health system. Nonetheless, do you think RU486 has a special application to regional Australia that is going to be of great advantage to those people?

Dr Piercy—I think it would be far more dangerous in regional areas.

Senator JOYCE—I think it would be too. What would happen if someone took the mifepristone, the antagonist, and then did not take the prostaglandin?

Ms Woolf—It is described in that article I circulated, that there is a high risk of abnormalities. The pregnancy can be carried to term. There is about a 20 per cent risk of severe abnormalities. The baby could be significantly compromised by a partial abortion and so forth.

Ms Tighe—I remember working in some country pharmacies. It was frequently the case that medicines were delivered out to the country to people who lived on farms a fair way out. They had been prescribed by the doctor but, in those instances, the woman would be taking it at home, and she would be given instructions to take the second dose so many days later. I could see it happening with this also.

Senator JOYCE—How long does septic shock take to kill you?

CHAIR—Senator Joyce, we really are running very low on time. We are going to have to move on to another witness. Senator McLucas has a question.


Senator JOYCE—I would like to put this on the record; I would like to help you out. I will retract that statement about shooting a mother. I think that was unreasonable; I should not have said it. My position is, though, that a baby in anybody’s body is no more that person’s property than a baby in a pram is the property of the pram. What I would like to ask is: at what stage do you think a person in their human development actually attains rights? At what juncture? We have been talking about the rights of the unborn. What time do you think they actually attain rights? I will put that one on notice because I have to go.

You mentioned that we do not know what the effects of the drug are. You also quoted the college of gynaecologists, who have said this process is fair and reasonable. Can you just explain, therefore, why none of the companies we can find out who develop prostaglandin actually recommend it for this abortifacient use? Could you just clear that up, because not one of the prostaglandin manufacturers want it used as an abor