Doctors Reform Society of Australia
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The legal situation until 1998:

Until this year, abortion in Western Australia had an uncertain legal status. The relevant laws in the Criminal Code, dating from the 1800s, and previously untested in WA courts, are summarised below:

Section 199
Any person who attempts to induce an abortion for a woman is liable to imprisonment with hard labour for fourteen years.

Section 200
Any person who has an abortion is liable to imprisonment with hard labour for seven years.

Section 201
Any person who supplies or procures a method of abortion for a woman is liable to imprisonment with hard labour for three years.

Section 259
Any person is not criminally responsible for performing, in good faith and with reasonable care and skill, a surgical operation upon an unborn child for preservation of the mother’s life

It was thought that the case law from Victoria and New South Wales would probably apply, (In those States, abortions could be done if a doctor honestly believed that the operation was necessary to preserve the woman from serious danger to her life, or her physical or mental health). Many organisations lobbied, over many years, for the law to be clarified, and to reflect current practice. Some of those who lobbied were the Abortion Information Service, the Association for Legal Right to Abortion (ALRA), the DRS, the Family Planning Association, the Pro-Choice Alliance, the Public Health Association, individual parliamentarians and private individuals....

The full text of this article is not currently available online. Contact Carol at the DRS national office for more information.

About the author:

Alison Creagh is a Perth based General Practitioner

.		.	The Doctors Reform Society of Australia, Box 14, 4 Goulburn Street, Sydney 2000. Phone 02 9264-9084 Fax 02 9267-4393.	.
			This page was last updated on 10th February, 2003.
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