Rudd 'picking fight with churches' on abortion aid ban

The Federal Government is considering overturning a ban on Australian aid being spent on abortion advice in developing nations.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith has the power to change the guidelines and has asked Labor to debate whether the 12-year ban imposed by the former Coalition government should be lifted.

But Nationals Senator Ron Boswell has warned that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd can expect a voter backlash from Christian groups if the ban is overturned.

"All bets will be off with the churches as far as Mr Rudd is concerned," he said.

"He cuddled up to the churches for the last election. If he does this to them then they'll turn upon him."

"I don't want this to happen and there has been no country that's come to us and specifically said we want aid to fund abortions," he added.

"If we're going to give money, there's plenty of ways to give it - health, clean water, food. But [if] someone wants to fund abortion, let it not be us.

Parliamentary secretary for international development assistance Bob McMullan says the decision cannot be based on scoring political points with Australian voters.

"There's only two countries in the world that have guidelines like this, us and the United States," he said.

"There are people who share Senator Boswell's reasonably extreme view of this but there are people, the large bulk of people, who don't feel so passionately and there are some people who passionately feel the other way.

"Of course it leads to some pretty robust discussion but you wouldn't want people in parliament who didn't have strongly held views."

Cross-party support

Greens leader Bob Brown says the Federal Government should overturn the ban because that is what the majority of Australians want.

Senator Brown says the policy was a mistake which should be corrected.

"I think there'll be a big backlash against Senator Boswell and others by the majority in Australia who would support this very civilised way of behaving," he said.

"That is, treat people overseas the way we treat people here in Australia, give them the same rights where we can."

And federal Liberal backbencher Mal Washer says he supports the Government's decision to consider overturning the ban.

Mr Washer says there is a 13 per cent death rate for women who have unsafe or illegal abortions in developing nations.

"Now I understand that if you're going to ... put morality aside and worry about who's going to vote for you, well that's an issue," he said.

"And a lot of senators, if that's what they're saying they are worried about, then I think they should go find another job quite frankly."