Displaying items by tag: exclusion zones

After three and a half years, my legal challenge to defeat Victoria's abortion 'bubble-zones' is over. We may have failed to change the law, but we did our best; something those who failed to protect the babies & legislated for abortion will never be able to say.

Yes, free speech is dead in this country, killed by its very guardians, the High Court of Australia, and “liberal” civil libertarians.

In an important decision on free speech issues, the High Court of Australia, in its decision in Clubb v Edwards; Preston v Avery [2019] HCA 11 (10 April 2019), has upheld the validity of laws in Victoria and Tasmania prohibiting communication about abortion within 150m of an abortion clinic. The decision may have serious implications for free speech about other issues on which religious believers have deep-seated convictions contrary to the general orthodoxy of modern Australian society.

Matt Britton serves as the chairman of the board  and general counsel for 40 Days for Life. He has had an expansive legal career including four terms as an elected prosecutor; a county attorney; counsel to many not-for-profits and U.S. companies operating around the world; a major law firm litigator; and general counsel. Matt has written and spoken countless times on a wide range of legal and pro-life issues in locations across the United States as well as England, Japan, Colombia, Mexico, Korea, Singapore, Brazil, China, and locations across the European Union.

Anne Rampa and her husband, Jim Dowling, are veteran pro-life activists of almost 4 decades. Last December, they were arrested for breaching an abortion mill exclusion-zone in Brisbane; and honoured the truth by stating that 'the law itself is a crime.' In this exclusive article, Anne writes of her experience - and how exclusion-zones have hampered their 35-year-old vigil for the voiceless.

Queensland

Exclusion-zones went into force yesterday in Queensland, along with the state's new act that moved abortion into the health code. Queensland is the fourth Australian state to enact the zones - this includes New South Wales, where abortion is still technically illegal; both territories also have the so-called 'Safe-Access' zones. Pro-lifers who wish to pray outside abortion mills and offer help to the women entering them will now have to stand 150m away from the entrance or risk huge fines and potential incarceration.

My constitutional challenge to Victoria's abortuary exclusion-zones was heard in the Australian High Court from October 9-11, 2018. Graham Preston's challenge to Tasmanian exclusion-zones was heard alongside mine. Please click here to learn more about exclusion-zones. Please click here to follow the progress of this case of the High Court of Australia website.  

Queensland has moved a step closer to decriminalising abortion with Labor's outrageous bill set to be put forward in August. The bill will draw heavily on Law reform Commission recommendations, and take extreme abortion laws existing in other states even further. While mainstream media emphasises that abortion would be made legal up to 22 weeks, there is less emphasis on proposals for babies over 22 weeks' gestation. That may be due to the public's distaste for late-term abortion: Premier Palaszczuk wants to allow abortions to full term, with merely a sign-off by a second doctor required.

John Young has summarised the submission made by my legal team to the High Court of Australia, which we propose will show that abortion-facility exclusion zones are unconstitutional. The entire document is 24 pages long and can be read here on the High Court website, along with submissions from the Attorneys-General of the states and territories, and the Commonwealth Attorney-General - all of whom oppose us. American readers may be interested to note that SCOTUS and the Massachusetts bubble-zone case are mentioned in our submission on page 12. Careful readers will see that, on the day of my arrest, twenty police officers were briefed regarding my life advocacy within the exclusion zone. Twenty.

 In the wake of the passing of another  'Safe-Access' zones bill,  a NSW MP has sanctioned the idea that violence against life advocates is acceptable. Emma Husar, Labor's member for Lindsay, made the comment in a thread on her public Facebook page.