Vol. 73/No. 41      October 26, 2009

A Cairns court magistrate ruled September 11 that there was sufficient evidence to place the couple on trial for illegally terminating a pregnancy. If convicted, Leach faces a maximum seven years in jail and Brennan up to three years. The date of the trial has not yet been set.

Earlier this year Leach, 19, and Brennan, 21, decided to use the abortion drugs Misoprostol and RU486 at home. Police charged them under sections of the Queensland Criminal Code 1899, which cover “illegal” abortions. This is the first time in 50 years that criminal abortion charges have been brought against a woman in Queensland.

The week before the decision came down the Queensland Labor government passed minor amendments to the criminal code to extend legal protection for doctors to perform drug-induced pregnancy terminations. But the government has refused to consider decriminalizing abortion.

“Some people have confused this particular case” with “clarifying the law in relation to abortion for doctors,” Queensland deputy premier Paul Lucas told a news conference September 11. This is about someone who “may have taken an abortion pill… . illegally without the permission of a doctor,” he said.

Placards, banners, and chants on the picket line made it clear that the protest was to defend a woman’s right to choose abortion. “This is an attempt to roll back abortion rights,” said Kathy Newnam from the Pro-Choice Action Collective, which organized the picket. “The timing of the charges is not a coincidence. Antiabortion forces are taking back ground, and the police have always been in the front line of attacks on abortion rights.”

In an open letter to Queensland premier Anna Bligh on behalf of Women’s Abortion Action Campaign in Sydney, Margaret Kirkby called for repeal of sections of the criminal code related to abortion and for the charges to be dropped.

“The right of women to abortion in Queensland was established by precedent by the ruling of Justice McGuire in 1986,” the letter stated. “Charging this young couple is an attack on women’s rights and on women’s access to the simple medical procedure called abortion.” McGuire’s ruling established that abortion is legal, if in the opinion of a doctor the continued pregnancy would cause mental or physical harm to the woman.

Rather than threatening Leach and Brennan with imprisonment, “your government should be making both medical and surgical terminations of pregnancy safe, accessible, and affordable to all Queensland women,” the letter concluded.

A protest rally and march in support of abortion rights and to demand the charges against Leach and Brennan be dropped has been called for November 21 here in Brisbane.  
 
 
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