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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)
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)
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)
Would it be relevant to mention "wrongful birth" and wrongful life cases in Australia in this article? Andjam 12:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
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)
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.--Astrokey44 07:37, 29 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)
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)).
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.
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)
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)
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)
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)
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? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 13:57, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
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#Controversies over terminology
Currently there are 4 articles:
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)
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)
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)
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)
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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)
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)
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)
Abortion was just legalized in Queensland [1] so the map is no longer accurate. I updated the Queensland section, though. Enwebb (talk) 14:36, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
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.
Hi @Damien Linnane:, 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)
@HiLo48, Damien Linnane, Gorillainacoupe, Human, VictimOfEntropy, ITBF, and Global-Cityzen: 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)
@HiLo48, Damien Linnane, Gorillainacoupe, Human, VictimOfEntropy, ITBF, and Global-Cityzen: Pinging again w a new signature. — kwami (talk) 18:15, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)