Tanya Plibersek promised Labor will make abortion services available through public hospitals, which will address two significant problems. One is that Tasmanian women are currently forced to pay for high cost private services or fly to Victoria. The other is that SA and NSW still have outdated criminal laws in place, significantly restricting women’s access to abortion. A 2017 attempt to decriminalise abortion in NSW failed, but there seems to be broad support for a new conscience vote on the issue this year, and SA’s parliament is waiting for a report from the Law Reform Institute before considering a Greens bill.
7 March 2019