In October 2008, the Victorian Parliament passed legislation to remove abortion from the Crimes Act after roughly 40 years of campaigning from militant radical feminists. Reflecting on that legislation, DLP MP Peter Kavanagh remarked: “It’s hard to imagine a worse bill and a worse model, and indeed that’s partly why it was passed here; to be a model for other jurisdictions.” That model has been replicated almost exactly in Queensland 10 years later, where not only the content of the Termination of Pregnancy 2018 Bill, but even its surrounding circumstances echo those of the Victorian abortion reform battle with eerie similarity. In 2007, Victorian Premier John Brumby convinced fellow Labor MP Candy Broad to withdraw her Private Members Bill to decriminalise abortion, and instead to refer the current legislation to the Victorian Law Reform Commission less than 48 hours before it was due to be debated. Brumby’s reasoning was supposedly to come up with a bill that better reflected community sentiment. Others said it was withdrawn because Labor didn’t want to be branded as “The Abortion Party” at the upcoming federal election. Pro-lifers viewed it as a partial victory; history now tells them it wasn’t. In 2017, former Labor-turned-independent […]
