Abortion in Australia is legal at all stages of pregnancy. There are no federal abortion laws, and full decriminalisation of the procedure has been enacted in all jurisdictions. Access to abortion varies between the states and territories: surgical abortions are readily available on request within the first 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy in most jurisdictions, and up to 16 weeks in Tasmania. Later term abortions can be obtained with the approval of two doctors, although the Australian Capital Territory only requires a single physician's approval.
An abortion clinic or abortion provider is a medical facility that provides abortions. Such clinics may be public medical centers, private medical practices or nonprofit organizations such as Planned Parenthood.
A crisis pregnancy center (CPC), sometimes called a pregnancy resource center (PRC) or a pro-life pregnancy center, is a type of nonprofit organization established by anti-abortion groups primarily to persuade pregnant women not to have an abortion. In the United States, CPCs that qualify as medical clinics may also provide pregnancy testing, sonograms, and other services, while many others operate without medical licensing under varying degrees of regulation.
Anti-abortion violence is violence committed against individuals and organizations that perform abortions or provide abortion counseling. Incidents of violence have included destruction of property, including vandalism; crimes against people, including kidnapping, stalking, assault, attempted murder, and murder; and crimes affecting both people and property, as well as arson and terrorism, such as bombings.
The United States anti-abortion movement contains elements opposing induced abortion on both moral and religious grounds and supports its legal prohibition or restriction. Advocates generally argue that human life begins at conception and that the human zygote, embryo or fetus is a person and therefore has a right to life. The anti-abortion movement includes a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body. There are diverse arguments and rationales for the anti-abortion stance. Some anti-abortion activists allow for some permissible abortions, including therapeutic abortions, in exceptional circumstances such as incest, rape, severe fetal defects, or when the woman's health is at risk.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act is a United States law that was signed by President Bill Clinton in May 1994, which prohibits the following three things: (1) the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, interfere with or attempt to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person who is obtaining an abortion, (2) the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, interfere with or attempt to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person who is exercising or trying to exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship, (3) the intentional damage or destruction of a reproductive health care facility or a place of worship.
Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, 519 U.S. 357 (1997), was a case heard before the United States Supreme Court related to legal protection of access to abortion. The question before the court was whether the First Amendment was violated by placing an injunction on protesters outside abortion clinics. The court ruled in a 6–3 decision that "floating buffer zones" preventing protesters approaching people entering or leaving the clinics were unconstitutional, though "fixed buffer zones" around the clinics themselves remained constitutional. The Court's upholding the fixed buffer was the most important aspect of the ruling, because it was a common feature of injunctions nationwide.
Priests for Life (PFL) is an anti-abortion organization based in Titusville, Florida. PFL functions as a network to promote and coordinate anti-abortion activism, especially among Roman Catholic priests and laymen, with the primary strategic goal of ending abortion and euthanasia and to spread the message of the Evangelium vitae encyclical, written by Pope John Paul II.
The Access to Abortion Services Act is a law in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Enacted in September 1995, it protects access to abortion services by limiting demonstrations outside of abortion clinics, doctor's offices, and doctor's homes. It creates an "access zone" around the facility in which such activities as protesting, sidewalk counseling, intimidation of or physical interference with abortion providers or their patients are prohibited. This distance varies depending upon the building's type, with protests outside of doctor's offices being restricted to coming within 10 metres, up to 50 metres for hospital or clinic, and 160 metres for a doctor's home.
An abortionclinic escort is an individual who volunteers at an abortion clinic or family planning clinic. Their role is to assist patients and staff to enter and exit these facilities safely, and to prevent any potential harassment or danger to individuals. A clinic escort's role at a family planning clinic encompasses myriad different tasks, which can also vary between clinics.
Governments sometimes take measures designed to afford legal protection of access to abortion. Such legislation often seeks to guard facilities which provide induced abortion against obstruction, vandalism, picketing, and other actions, or to protect patients and employees of such facilities from threats and harassment.
40 Days for Life is an international organization that campaigns against abortion in more than 60 nations worldwide. It was originally started in 2004 by members of the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life in Texas. The name refers to a repeated pattern of events lasting for 40 days in the Bible, such as Noah’s Ark, Moses’s 40 days on Mount Sinai, and Jesus’s 40 days in the desert.
Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753 (1994), is a United States Supreme Court case where Petitioners challenged the constitutionality of an injunction entered by a Florida state court which prohibits antiabortion protesters from demonstrating in certain places, and in various ways outside of a health clinic that performs abortions.
While some protests of the anti-abortion movement use violent methods, most protesters use a range of physically non-violent tactics, which may nonetheless include emotionally violent acts, such as intimidation or harassment.
McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464 (2014), is a United States Supreme Court case involving a First Amendment challenge to the validity of a Massachusetts law establishing 35-foot (11 m) fixed buffer zones around facilities where abortions were performed.
National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, 585 U.S. ___ (2018), was a case before the Supreme Court of the United States addressing the constitutionality of California's FACT Act, which mandated that crisis pregnancy centers provide certain disclosures about state services. The law required that licensed centers post visible notices that other options for pregnancy, including abortion, are available from state-sponsored clinics. It also mandated that unlicensed centers post notice of their unlicensed status. The centers, typically run by Christian non-profit groups, challenged the act on the basis that it violated their free speech. After prior reviews in lower courts, the case was brought to the Supreme Court, asking "Whether the disclosures required by the California Reproductive FACT Act violate the protections set forth in the free speech clause of the First Amendment, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment."
Abortion in Illinois is legal. Laws about abortion dated to the early 1800s in Illinois; the first criminal penalties related to abortion were imposed in 1827, and abortion itself became illegal in 1867. As hospitals set up barriers in the 1950s, the number of therapeutic abortions declined. Following Roe v. Wade in 1973, Illinois passed a number of restrictions on abortion, many of which have subsequently been repealed. Illinois updated its existing abortion laws in June 2019. The state has seen a decline in the number of abortion clinics over the years, going from 58 in 1982 to 47 in 1992 to 24 in 2014.
Clubb v Edwards; Preston v Avery is a decision of the High Court of Australia. It was a combined hearing of two appeals, raised from the Magistrates Court of Victoria and Tasmania respectively. The appellants, Kathleen Clubb and John Preston; had sought to challenge two laws restricting their conduct near abortion providers, on the ground that the relevant laws were unconstitutional for breach of Australia's freedom of political communication doctrine.
The Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Amendment Act 2022 is an Act of Parliament in New Zealand that will provide a regulation-making power to set up safe areas around specific abortion facilities on a case-by-case basis. The Bill passed its third reading on 16 March 2022 and received royal assent on 18 March.
Lauren Handy is an American pro-life activist.
