Abortion in Australia

Abortion is effectively available on demand in every State up to 20 weeks gestation, later in the ACT and Victoria.

In New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania, it is a criminal offence to unlawfully supply or administer with the intent to procure a miscarriage. 

In NSW and Queensland, the definition of an unlawful abortion is determined by case law, based largely on the 1969 Menhennitt Ruling in the Victorian Supreme Court. This ruling held that an abortion will be lawful if necessary because there is the risk of serious danger to the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant woman from continuing the pregnancy, not ‘merely the normal dangers of pregnancy and childbirth’. Modern interpretations of this ruling include any kind of mental stress from continuing the pregnancy to be ‘serious danger’.

The South Australian, Western Australian, Northern Territory and Tasmanian legislation sets out provisions for a lawful or ‘legally justified’ abortion. These provisions provide limitations on the gestational age at which the abortion is lawful, and the nature of the necessary danger to the mother.

Abortion has been decriminalised in both the ACT and Victoria. The Victorian legislation allows for abortion on demand up until 24 weeks. It also provides for abortion until full term where two doctors testify that the abortion is appropriate, having regard for the woman’s current and future physical, psychological and social circumstances.

For more information: http://www.saltshakers.org.au/issues/abortion/124-the-law-in-australia