Queensland abortion decriminalisation bills will go to Law Reform Commission
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Version 0 of 1. The Queensland government will refer draft laws to decriminalise abortion to the state’s Law Reform Commission in a move that independent MP Rob Pyne hopes will see the reforms passed this year. Pyne agreed to withdraw his bills to spare them a likely defeat in a parliamentary vote this week because of unified opposition from the Liberal National party. The Palaszczuk government said in a statement the commission’s recommendations would be the basis for legislation it would bring forward “in the next term of government … to modernise Queensland’s abortion laws”. But Pyne said he agreed to withdraw the bills because the government had assured him of a speedy turnaround by the commission so that “we’ll have it back within months”. “So if this parliament does run till later in the year, this parliament will get it through,” he told Guardian Australia. “It’s about the cause. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think it was going to get the result.” LNP opposition leader, Tim Nicholls, said on Monday he had offered his MPs a conscience vote but that “every single member of the LNP party room indicated that, in good conscience, they cannot support these bills”. LNP reservations about Pyne’s proposed changes included that they “make it legal for a woman to secure her own abortion without medical supervision – including by the use of illicitly obtained drugs”, Nicholls said. Pyne, who believes such fears have been overblown, said he expected the Law Reform Commission recommendations to “remove the impediment” to an LNP conscience vote. Anti-abortion campaigners who have scrutinised MPs’ positions on abortion have predicted the changes would narrowly pass with an LNP conscience vote. Pyne said the government, which asked him to withdraw the bills to allow the commission referral, had pointed to the speed with which reforms to expunge historical gay convictions were assessed. “To just say, ‘Go to hell’ would be indulgent on my behalf,” he said. Abortion is allowed under Queensland’s criminal code only if a doctor rules it is necessary for a woman’s physical and mental health. Recent prosecutions are almost unheard of, but offences can bring a woman up to seven years’ jail and a doctor up to 14 years’ jail. In a legal precedent last year, a supreme court judge ruled it was “appropriate” for a public hospital to refer a 12-year-old girl to seek the court’s permission to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. An obstetrician in that case who challenged a hospital executive on whether a court order was necessary has sought work overseas after becoming the subject of a nine-month investigation by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority, Guardian Australia reported on Monday. Queensland and New South Wales are the only two Australian states where abortion can be dealt with under criminal law. |