Vol. 74/No. 8      March 1, 2010

Kathy Newnam, from the Queensland ProChoice Action Collective, told the meeting that these charges are an attempt to roll back women’s rights. “We must act nationally—if we don’t fight this attack we will be set back,” she said.

In December 2008 Tegan Leach used the abortion drugs RU486 and misoprostol at home. Leach obtained the drugs from her partner Sergie Brennan’s relatives in Ukraine.

In April 2009 police charged the couple under sections of the Queensland criminal code dating from 1899.

A Cairns, Queensland, court magistrate ruled Sept. 11, 2009, 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. A trial date has not yet been set.

The ProChoice Action Collective has organized rallies, petition campaigns, campus information stalls, and pickets outside venues where Queensland premier Anna Bligh has spoken. Newnam called for a rally outside the court if and when the trial opens in Cairns.

Abortion used to be illegal in every state. It remains in the criminal code 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.”

Also speaking at the public meeting were Kate Gleeson, a lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney and Honora Ryan from Women’s Abortion Action Campaign. The meeting was part of a two-day interstate conference, which decided to place the Cairns case at the center of a stepped-up campaign to defend abortion rights.  
 
 
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