Representing the problem of abortion: Language and the policy making process in the abortion law reform project in Victoria, 2008

In this article I enquire into the way that abortion was represented in the abortion law reform project in Victoria 2008. I have applied Carol Bacchi's model for policy analysis, the 'what's the problem represented to be?' approach, to identify the dominant framing of abortion in the Second Reading of the Abortion Law Reform Bill in the Victorian Legislative Council. Bacchi's model draws upon the larger interpretivist tradition that, in my view, offers the best means for analysing language, the role of power, and how we use it to construct the social world in which we live and win argument in policy and political debates.1 I argue that the enactment of the Abortion Law Reform Bill was made possible by the dominant representation of abortion as a law reform problem, and that this framing was successful because Members of the Legislative Council (MLCs), while being unable to agree on a moral definition, were able to find commonalities in their legal definition of abortion and reach agreement.