Abortion ‘safe zones’ in spotlight

THE lawyer representing two anti-abortion activists convicted of protesting outside clinics in Hobart and Melbourne says “safe access zone” laws discriminate against political speech.

Guy Reynolds SC told the High Court in Canberra yesterday that these weren’t places where pro-abortion protesters flocked.

“Its practical effect is to deprive anti-abortion protesters of one of their primary fora for such protests and probably their most effective forum,” Mr Reynolds said.

“That discrimination causes a distortion of the free flow of information, it discriminates against a particular point of view and privileges the position of the other side.”

Mr Reynolds is appearing for Kathleen Clubb, a mother of 13 convicted of protesting outside the Fertility Control erected a nice cross to his grave, and I made a border of white stones round it, and also a little cross of white stones on the top of the grave.

You will find enclosed the

Harry Havelock Morey

Clinic in East Melbourne, and Queenslander John Preston, convicted of three charges of protesting outside a clinic in Hobart.

Both fell foul of state laws which establish “safe access zones” designed to keep protesters outside a 150-metre perimeter.

Laws make it an offence to communicate about abortion to people entering or leaving a service “in a way that is reasonably likely to cause distress or anxiety”.

Both are now appealing to the High Court, arguing that the laws infringed their implied freedom of political communication.

Justice Virginia Bell noted that Mr Preston wanted to make his views known and deter women from going into the clinic to terminate their pregnancy. “One understands that people of strong, generally speaking religious convictions seem to be near facilities where women are going to go to terminate pregnancy, because of a conscientiously held belief that it is their mission to dissuade them from proceeding with that action,” she said.

“That is very distinct from the value of an on-site protest as a means of getting public attention.”

Mr Reynolds said Tasmanian legislation could equally restrict protest outside private homes, hospitals, GPs and gynaecological surgeries or anywhere abortion services were provided, legally or otherwise.

He said this had the effect of banning protest about abortion in circumstances where that protest wasn’t otherwise illegal.

“There are an enormous number of laws that would impact on what I might call various forms of protest,” he said.

The hearing before the full bench of the High Court is continuing.