Vol. 73/No. 35      September 14, 2009

In a much publicized case, Leach and Brennan are due to appear at a hearing September 3 where a magistrate will decide whether there is sufficient evidence for a trial. Leach is charged with “procuring her own miscarriage,” which carries a punishment of up to seven years in jail. Brennan, a mechanic, is charged with “attempting to procure an abortion” and with supplying abortion drugs. He could receive a 14-year term if convicted.

No woman in Australia has been prosecuted under antiabortion laws for the last 50 years.

Abortion used to be penalized under the Crimes Act of each state in Australia. This remains the case in Queensland, South Australia, New South Wales, and Tasmania. Abortion has been decriminalized in the Australian Capital Territory, Western Australia, and Victoria, but in the latter two states new laws restricting abortions were adopted in the process. While there is no federal law guaranteeing women the right to abortion, it is subsidized by Medicare.

Common law decisions in New South Wales in 1971 and in Queensland in 1986 broadly defined “lawful abortions.” Abortion is available in those states if, in the opinion of the doctors, the continued pregnancy would cause mental or physical harm to the woman.

Queensland police charge that Leach and Brennan used the abortion drugs RU486 and misoprostol to terminate pregnancy. Queensland law states that only surgical abortions are legal. Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital, in the wake of the arrest of Leach and Brennan, has stopped carrying out drug-induced abortions until the law is changed, forcing women to travel to clinics in New South Wales.

RU486 was banned in Australia until 2006. Its distribution remains tightly controlled by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). Just a few dozen doctors are licensed to prescribe it, and only when a woman’s life is endangered by continuation of the pregnancy or she has a serious medical condition.

Cairns gynecologist Caroline de Costa, who established the country’s first abortion service using RU486, said a number of her colleagues had sought her advice on treating women who had taken illegally imported abortion pills since 2006.

Former Democrat federal senator Lyn Allison, a leader of the pro-RU486 campaign, said the TGA had placed “onerous and ridiculous conditions” on distributors, including a requirement they attach English translations of every study conducted on the drug with their application.

The pill is available in about 35 countries. In the United States the drug accounts for about 14 percent of abortions. More than 840,000 have used the drug there since it was approved in 2000. In France the drug accounts for roughly one-third of abortions.

The Queensland state Labor government is resisting calls to decriminalize abortion. Queensland premier Anna Bligh said August 21 that the state government would review the ban on use of RU486 by doctors. But she made clear she continues to oppose decriminalization.

In a statement calling for the removal of antiabortion laws from the Queensland Criminal Code, the abortion rights group Children By Choice states: “It is unacceptable that a young couple have been targeted in 2009 for making the same decision that many women and their partners make every day—that is, to abort a pregnancy. What should have remained a private matter has now become the subject of a criminal investigation and potential imprisonment.”
 
 
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