Last year Independent Senator Brian Harridine attempted to remove the Medicare rebate for abortion. While he hasn't, as yet, been successful, the rebate for reversing sterilisations was removed. As well, the Therapeutic Goods Amendment was enacted which further restricts the availability of abortion-producing medications such as RU 486.

The new legislation requires the importation, testing, registration and listing of abortion drugs to be authorised by the health minister and tabled in parliament. This is in addition to the mandatory screening process which decides whether drugs are given a safety clearance.

Because most parliamentarians don't have the necessary knowledge to evaluate drug safety and because (if the discussion on RU 486 in the House of Representatives is anything to go by) many are misinformed, it looks likely that one type of drug - abortifacients - will be assessed politically rather than on its pharmacological merits.

None of this comes as much of a surprise. The ideological "justification" accompanying massive cuts to social spending rests on persuading women that their main and "natural" role is still in the home. Funding cuts to child care and other public services mean that the social tasks associated with raising the next generation have to be privatised within the home - further restricting women's choices.

In this climate the government's attempt to turn the clock back on women's reproductive rights is even more of an attack. Limiting women's choices about their fertility derives from the idea that women can't or shouldn't be making such decisions for themselves. Denying women reproductive options means eliminating, or at least restricting, our ability to determine if and when to bear children. These are decisions that have implications for our relationships, sexuality, education, work and recreation - virtually every part of our lives.

Women know that having control of our fertility is a precondition for control over our lives. Since reliable contraception became widely available in the 1960s and legal safe abortion in the 1970s, generations of women have been able to lead very different lives from those of their mothers and grandmothers.

Because the availability of contraception and abortion services are vitally important for women to be able to determine the course of their lives, we should oppose all attempts to restrict them. This includes funding cuts to the Family Planning Clinics and the threat to remove the already low Medicare rebate for abortion. We must also campaign to get rid of the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Act and to repeal those sections of the state's criminal codes which still make abortion a punishable crime.