If the author is going to refer to “rights” when it comes to abortion, surely she needs to address the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (to which Australia is a signatory) which states in Article 3, “Everyone has the right to life . . . “

The Preamble of this document makes it clear who this “everyone” is : “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world” .

Then there is The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990), to which Australia is also a signatory, and which reaffirms in the Preamble the following statement from the earlier Declaration of the Rights of the Child(1959): “Whereas the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, both before as well as after birth.”

The first and sixth articles of the Convention read:
“Article 1: For the purposes of the Convention, a child means every human being below the age of 18 years . . .
Article 6: (1) States Parties recognise that every child has the inherent right to life.
(2) States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.”(emphasis added)

As a lecturer in law I would have thought she would be aware of these documents, so simply to ignore them is inexcusable.

Like the unjust Victorian and ACT legislation, the Tasmanian legislation grants the 'right to kill' unborn babies up until full term, but grants no rights whatsoever to the innocent party, the unborn. The fact that human life starts at the moment of conception, is completely ignored.

Thus, women are given unfettered access to abortion on demand so as to 'remedy' consequences of their irresponsible sexual behaviour, and then take advantage of the 'privilege' of receiving compensation for abortion expenses from the taxpayer through Medicare.

Furthermore, the Tasmanian legislation contains provisions compelling doctors to give patients information about abortions. As a consequence, the exercising of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion is now denied. Like the Victorian legislation, it compels doctors to perform or comply with an objectively morally wrong act.

The Tasmanian legislation is even more unjust, as it makes the right to protest against abortion a criminal offence, if that protest takes place within 150 metres of the unborn-baby slaughter house. The protest ban appears likely to face a High Court challenge, as some regard it as an infringement of the Constitution's implied right to political communication.

I applaud Tasmania joining the other 2 states in dragging themselves into the modern age of secularism in our country.
All the other states and territories will soon follow.

JP, I think it's time to move on from a preamble written in 1959.
Why not concentrate on the rights of the many babies already born, and living in poverty and neglect, than ranting and raving about legal abortions that are none of your concern?

Raycom would do well to remember that it takes two to make a baby, and that it can often be the daddy who insists on an abortion.
As usual, the women are blamed.

You guys need to drag yourselves into the current century!

Ronli should be thankful he/she got a chance at life unlike the thousands butchered before birth. How heartless can a nation become in the name of feminism. Thankfully most woman would not dream of such crimes.

Dear Suse,

If you truly seek women's freedom to abort, then the militant style of your writing achieves the opposite: it gives the impression that your motives are different.

Go ahead and abort a baby every week if that's what you want.
It's none of anybody else's business (and you should not even need doctors for that, it's not a health issue).

But the impression you create is that your ultimate goal has nothing to do with your (or other women's) intimate life, that instead you are on a crusade and your ultimate goal is to uproot all religion and force other people into your 21st-century lifestyle.

You tell JP that it is none of his concerns, but the agenda to uproot religion and drag everyone into your 21st century, including the forcing of doctors to act contrary to their conscientious convictions, should certainly be his concern.

This attitude could bring Australia into a civil war, we could have our own Belfast. Is this what you want?

What rubbish Yuyutsu.
Who forces Doctors to abort babies? No-one.

I have said many times before that I hate the thought of abortion and have never assisted with them in any way in my medical career.

However, I do not believe in forcing women to do something they don't want to do either...carrying on with a pregnancy they don't want.

How is it worse 'forcing' a Doctor to refer a woman to someone else who can help her if he can't , than forcing a woman to go through 9 months of pregnancy and labour against her will? How would YOU force her?

Obviously, I am amongst the majority in these thoughts, with three states decriminalising abortion so far.