Talk:Abortion in Australia

Victoria
While it is true to say that the law in Victoria is based on Menhennitt, that is not a true statement of the position in Victoria. Effectively, the law is ignored, and if a woman seeks an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy she will get it on demand. Obfuscations about how a pregnancy might upset her (and therefore harm her mental health) are accepted without question.

Avalon 05:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
 * WP:CITE. Ambi 11:56, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Victoria (Crimes Act 1958) Abortion will be lawful if the medical practitioner held an honest belief on reasonable grounds that the abortion was both ‘necessary’ and ‘proportionate’. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.2.94.29 (talk) 00:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation for Knight
Peter Knight had a redlink of "Peter Knight (murderer)". While abhorrent, I'm not sure if politically-motivated violence comes under the category of murder, even if that was what he was convicted of. "Terrorist" is regarded as a no-no by many, and the actions weren't aimed at putting pressure on the government. Would "Peter Knight (killer)" be better? Andjam 02:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * He was convicted of murder. This makes the title of a murderer a verifiable fact in his case. Ambi 03:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Did you read my comment? Andjam 03:39, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, NSW has that "Politically Motivated Killings" exemption for murder in the 2006 Bill "Crimes Act (Politically Motivated Killings not Murder)" which has just received assent. Other states are bound to follow.  I, for one, eagerly anticipate being able to kill those damn "crack eggs at the little end"ers and avoid gaol under the bill. Fifelfoo 05:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Please try to be more civil. Andjam 12:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Abortion-related litigation
Would it be relevant to mention "wrongful birth" and wrongful life cases in Australia in this article? Andjam 12:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Mightn't be bad as a seperate section at the bottom. Rebecca 11:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Recent additions of data from polls
There was some unsourced data from a February poll added to the page, I've located the source, identified it, and removed some points that, as far as I can tell, do not appear to correlate with the source (but were misreported in the media). I've also found two points of view on the study (commissioned by an anti-abortion group), here and here. There is also a SMH article. There ought to be debate on whether or not this source should be included, or whether it should be included with the critiques. The questions and the complete data are in the report (PDF). The sample size seems small to me, and the questions somewhat loaded, I would think that some more reliable statistics could be found and used in preference to these. --bainer (talk) 14:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The fact that the poll was commissioned by a pro-life group and uses loaded terms (e.g. "unborn child") is problematic. I definitely wouldn't include these data under the "Public opinion" sub-section of Abortion, due to the neutrality concern, for the same reason I rejected a a 2001 U.K. poll conducted by MORI and commissioned BPAS. However, because the country-specific abortion articles aren't held to the same standard of brevity as the top-tier Abortion article, they're the perfect place for more in-depth discussion of national opinion polls and their surrounding bias. I've created a seperate "Public opinion" section, as there is at Abortion in Canada, and moved in the Australian public opinion data from Abortion. Anyone wishing to add further opinion poll or information can do so there now. -Severa (!!!) 02:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Map
there was a discussion about removing australia's state borders from the world map showing abortion and making a separate one for australia. this is as close as i can understand it from what is on this page, if its incorrect it can be changed easily.--Astrokey 44 07:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Greak work, Astrokey! Thanks for taking the initiative in making this map. -Severa (!!!) 03:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The map is incorrect as to Tasmania at least. The law in Tas doesn't refer to rape as a reason for an abortion to be lawful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.217.6.6 (talk) 00:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Could this be updated with the progress/completion of the bill?
In early 2006, a private members bill was introduced in the Senate to strip the health minister of their power of veto over abortifacients. This bill was approved by both houses of parliament, but as of February 16, 2006 it is still awaiting assent. Health Minister Tony Abbott and previous ministers wouldn't allow it to be made available prior to the vote. Abbott responded to the vote by calling for funding of alternative counselling to pregnant women through church-affiliated groups.(203.23.60.6 03:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)).

Australia is not unique in the state-by-state legislation
The article states: "unlike any other country, with the possible exception of the United States."

That is incorrect. Mexico, my home country, is another example where abortion, at least currently, is regulated on a state-by-state basis.

Suman Sood or Suman Mood?
The Australian calls her Sood and shouldn't her title be Dr and should she be referred to as doctor Suman Sood not abortionist Suman Sood? Also might be worth mentioning that she was acquitted of manslaughter and that the case involved administering prostoglandin to a woman outside a hospital setting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucy1958 (talk • contribs) 04:30, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

History of abortion in the ACT
The comment about ACT following NSW law may be technically correct. However, my understanding as a person living there was that for a long time after abortion had been made pretty freely available in NSW and Vic. as a result of judicial decisions, the ACT was a Federal Territory and Federal Ministers responsible for the ACT made abortion difficult to obtain in practice. There was no dedicated clinic and I am not sure if it was not possible at all in hospitals or just that they had procedures which were more onerous than abortion clinics. In any case many women travelled to Sydney for abortions at clinics there.Lucy1958 (talk) 04:39, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Recent prosecution (2009)
The case of a young woman and her boyfriend who obtained an abortificant by ordering it over the web and have been prosecuted may be worth mentioning Sydney Morning Herald editorial Lucy1958 (talk) 04:48, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

WP Aus B-class assessment
Still B class, some concerns over referencing the lack of inline citations in particular could raise WP:BLP issues. Gnangarra 04:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Updates on legality?
At here, the UN claims that the entire country allows abortion for any of the listed reasons, in disagreement with the article. Has there been a liberalization in recent years in all Australian states, or did the UN get it wrong? —&#91;  Alan M 1  (talk) &#93;— 13:57, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Anti-abortion and Abortion-rights vs Pro-life and Pro-choice
The AP recommends using the terms 'anti-abortion' and 'abortion rights' to describe sides of the Abortion debate without using political framing techniques. There is some contention with these terms, with anti-abortion side of the debate not wanting to be labelled as 'anti'. See United States pro-life movement

Currently there are 4 articles:
 * Anti-abortion movements
 * United States pro-life movement
 * Abortion-rights movements
 * United States pro-choice movement

It seems that for articles referring to the United States, the 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' terms are preferred, while international discussion more commonly uses the terms 'anti-abortion' and 'abortion rights'.

I've changed a link from pro-life to Anti-abortion movements as I think this reflects the AP terminology, which I think is correct for an article about Australia. If this is opposed, please discuss this on the talk page, don't just get into an edit war. -- Aronzak (talk) 08:02, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Both "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are weaselly bunny-hugging terms designed to be difficult to disagree with. "Abortion rights" is a little weaselly, because I figure if it's good enough to describe one side as anti-, then it should be good enough to describe the other simply as pro-. Naming one side as a "-rights" movement immediately positions your opponents as oppressors. But it is an improvement, and if that's the current state of play on Wiki then I guess it will stay that way. Abortion as a topic is generally a hornets nest I don't have the stomach for rocking. --Yeti Hunter (talk) 08:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Change in Tasmanian laws
Last week a bill passed the Tasmanian parliament to fully decriminalise abortion. I'm not sure on the legal specifics, especially in reference to the map shown. . As I understand it, the laws are similar to Vic/ACT except they also have a distance around abortion clinics where protesters are not allowed - which would make them the most liberal/progressive laws in Australia. Does anyone know further details? -- Chuq (talk) 10:17, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

CES super clinics NSW
This article states that Kirby J expanded the grounds for abortion, except that the other two judges uphold the existing wald test should kirby J statements be seen as obiter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.211.77.28 (talk) 11:00, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Reverted to earlier version
I have reverted this article to its January 2015 version for the following reasons: first, an editor vandalised the article months ago and some of that still hasn't been removed. Second, another editor revised the entire article and in the process removed some arguably important information (such as the details of recent decriminalisation votes) and included some incorrect or contradictory statements (such as that Queensland allows abortion "on request" which is strongly contradicted by the map). Can it first be discussed here what is wrong with the current version, which seems more accurate and informative than the article has been for the past few monts, before making revisions to the whole article?Colonial Overlord (talk) 07:17, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Overlord. I reverted your revert, as none of the material appeared to qualify as WP:VANDALISM. Additionally, several references and quite a lot of material were removed with it, which was a useful addition to the article. True, some of the statements were unreferenced, some could be read as pushing a POV, but I do not think an eleven-month revert was justified. You raise some valid concerns, but surely they can be dealt with on a more targeted basis? Can you explain which particular edits you think are problematic? --Yeti Hunter (talk) 09:55, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

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RU-486 banned when?
Currently the introduction states "RU-486, an abortifacient widely used overseas, has been available in Australia only since February 2006" whereas the section describing this states "RU-486, a drug widely used overseas as an abortifacient, was effectively banned in Australia in 1996" and then goes on to describe how it was "effectively banned" (but not when) and then states that this ban was removed in 2006. I have changed the wording of the first sentence in the relevant paragraph to say "was effectively banned in Australia until 1996", but this still needs more clarification.Rscragun (talk) 20:38, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Northern Territory
Noticed this week that the Northern Territory legalised abortions, with similar laws to Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT (the only difference being that abortion will need 1 doctor's sign off up to 15 weeks, and 2 doctors' sign off up to 24 weeks). The head graphic of Australia will need to be updated. Magpieram (talk) 21:14, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Change to table
I've made changes to the table, mainly undoing some wording changes. It is not reasonable to say that the legal status in NSW, SA, Qld is "Accessible". It is a criminal offence in those states, and there are exceptions mentioned in the Exceptions column. In an rural or remote community, the accessibility of abortion will depend on the presence of a doctor willing to make an appropriate finding.Ordinary Person (talk) 06:14, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Can someone make a new map?
Abortion was just legalized in Queensland so the map is no longer accurate. I updated the Queensland section, though. Enwebb (talk) 14:36, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * The map from the article Abortion law must be fixed too, Queensland must be colored blue on that map, too.2A02:2F01:52FF:FFFF:0:0:6465:4720 (talk) 15:13, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Abortion laws seem to be defined by what they *don't provide* ??
The second paragraph seems to focus on what is not in law? This seems like a very strange approach that is potentially never ending. The sentence "Nowhere in Australia is there a requirement that..." could be completed by any statement that is not a legal requirement. I can't see the value in this unless it is unique in its exception, ie so strange is it that this is not a requirement that it is worth mentioning.

Surely the goal is to explain what something is, not what it isn't ?

Assume there are proper/better wikipedia style words to express this. I would vote to remove the entire second paragraph, the only section that seems to be valid, in that it talks about something that "is required", relates to minors in WA and would surely be better placed in the WA section of the article.

Medical abortion information should go in the lead
Hi, pinging you as per your apparent request. I added the information about medical abortions to the lead because I think medical abortion should be presented as an option in the lead, as it has been legal and subsidised by Medicare in Australia for a few years now and is less-invasive than surgical abortion, although it is practically difficult to access, particularly in rural and remote areas. It probably wasn't a perfect addition, but I don't think it's worthy of just being removed wholesale. Why do you think it doesn't belong in the lead? --159.196.100.171 (talk) 12:51, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi there. As per WP:LEAD, the purpose of the lead is to summarise the most important parts of the body of the article. So firstly, if the information isn't in the body at all, it should not be in the lead. But even if we added the information to the body, I would argue that it still doesn't form one of the most important parts of the article, and shouldn't be in the lead anyway. I considered placing the information in the body, but the source gives very little details about what you've chosen to use it to cite, and it's also outdated. It gives no time-frame of reference, no locations for where it is more difficult to access medication, and no reasoning for why not all GPs can prescribe the medication. In short, I think it's too vague to be helpful, and in its current state I don't know really see where we can put information that non-specific in the article. It doesn't belong in the history section, since it gives no time frame, and it doesn't belong in any of the location sections, since no locations are given. I'm all for expanding the article to contain more information on this important topic, I just don't see how we can use anything from this particular source. Damien Linnane (talk) 14:40, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

What do "gestation" times mean?
Is the week count from menstruation, fertilization, or implantation? All three have been called the "gestational" age, but could mean a difference of 3 weeks. The NSW bill speaks of 22 weeks "pregnant", but that again could mean any of those three things (in Canada you are legally pregnant a week before you get pregnant, and in most of the US, you're legally pregnant for a couple weeks before you even have sex). (Please ping) — kwami (talk) 08:09, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I've always presumed it was from fertilisation, but I'm not 100% sure. Why do you want to know?
 * Also your ping didn't work (I saw your comment because this page is on my watch-list). For future reference, pings only work when you put the ping AND your whole signature in the same post. Damien Linnane (talk) 10:09, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I did. I was very careful to include both ping and signature together. I don't know why it doesn't work half the time.
 * I wanted to make an Australia or Australasia access map, color-coded so it can be directly compared w Europe and N.America. For that I need to know how many weeks Oz, EU, US, Canada etc. are offset. The Mexican Supreme Court ruling said that the WHO definition is from implantation, and that's how Mexico times it, as well as the US state of Massachusetts, but Canada is from fertilization and the rest of the US from LMP. Not sure of Europe yet, or if they're even consistent. — kwami (talk) 18:10, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Pinging again w a new signature. — kwami (talk) 18:15, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Decriminalisation
For the part about it being decriminalised, should we explain that there are no criminal penalties? We could also add that the required approval for later abortions is not subject to any government legislation, and is left up to physicians to determine for themselves. Although I'm not sure if this is the case for every state or just my own. 75.27.37.89 (talk) 01:35, 30 July 2023 (UTC)


 * No need to explain what Decriminalization means. Moxy -Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg 01:47, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I appreciate the thought, but that really isn't necessary. In the unlikely event people don't know what decriminalised means, they can click on the wikilink in the first sentence. Damien Linnane (talk) 01:53, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Should we also include that abortion isn't criminalised at any stage of pregnancy? Because it's fully decriminalised in all jurisdictions, which means there's no way for it to be a criminal offence. 75.27.37.89 (talk) 02:34, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
 * But again, isn't that already clarified by the word 'decriminalised'? If there was a way for it to still be a criminal offence, we'd say it was partially decriminalised or only decriminalised in certain circumstances. Damien Linnane (talk) 02:49, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
 * In that case, why does the article mention gestational limits? And why does it act like Australian Capital Territory is unique for having no restrictions? And why does it claim that Western Australia has restrictions? From what I've found, it appears that there aren't any abortion laws in Australia at all. 2604:2D80:6306:8000:1814:C9AA:BA1C:228B (talk) 00:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * ...it mentions regulations because regulations exist, as they do with all medical procedures. You can't have looked very hard if you didn't find any laws; see here for the abortion laws in NSW: The law clarifies there is no criminal responsibility for performing an abortion on oneself, though there are very defined rules on when a doctor can provide one. It's my understanding performing the procedure outside the regulations would result in a criminal charge relating to unlicensed/unauthorised surgery, not a specific charge of performing an abortion. It is normal for there to be rules on when surgery can be provided, under what circumstances, and by whom.
 * Are you just wanting to update the article to say it isn't a crime to perform the procedure on oneself? Damien Linnane (talk) 02:01, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * It seems like there were criminal restrictions in Western Australia until today. Although the article also claims that they were the first to deciminalise. 192.203.137.242 (talk) 23:00, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Decriminalisation is not black and white. It appears abortion was largely decriminalised in 1998, and now restrictions have just been relaxed even further. Damien Linnane (talk) 08:00, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I believe it has now been fully decriminalized, placing them in line with France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, New Zealand, and the rest of Australia. 65.112.197.130 (talk) 07:07, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that all medical procedures have some degree of legal regulation in Australia? And that abortion is not treated any differently than any other medical procedure? While I would prefer to follow Canada's and New Zealand's approach where abortion isn't legislated at all, I can at least understand this kind of legislation as long as it's not unique to abortion. As long as such regulations are commonplace, and abortion isn't subject to any special treatment that no other medical procedure receives. 65.112.197.130 (talk) 07:11, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Sure, I'd "prefer to follow Canada's and New Zealand's approach where abortion isn't legislated at all" as well, if that's what those countries do. But that's irrelevant. Please read Talk page guidelines. "Talk pages are for improving the encyclopedia, not for expressing personal opinions on a subject". Expressing your opinions on what you'd prefer is not helping improve this article. Please don't do that again. If you want to understand Australian legislation better, you're welcome to look it up. It's all available for free online. Damien Linnane (talk) 10:54, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Decriminalization
Why does the article state that Western Australia was the first state to decriminalize abortion back in 1998, yet also claim that it is the last state where abortion remains a criminal offence? Apparently they were somehow both the first and the last jurisdiction to remove abortion from their criminal codes, with abortion remaining a crime until 2023. 65.112.197.130 (talk) 07:05, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This has already been explained in the section above. It's quite common for things to be partly decriminalised, and then have the restrictions further relaxed at a later date. Western Australia was the first state to enact any kind of decriminalisation surrounding abortion in 1998. Not surprisingly, since they were the first state to legalise abortion, the laws regarding when it was legal were still relatively conservative. In 2023, their laws were relaxed further to bring them more into line with other states that had enacted more liberal decriminalisation in the meantime. It's really that simple. Damien Linnane (talk) 10:20, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Activist organisations in the 1970s
I added a short para on some of the many activists agencies and individuals involved in 1970s pr- abortion reform. This section is very partial but other folk can add as required. The public ferment was immense, but poorly documented. Rosiemay28 (talk) 05:16, 10 February 2024 (UTC)