An abortion is when a pregnancy is ended so that it does not result in the birth of a child. For many years abortion has been the subject of criminal law in Australia and has been a current legal issue facing Australia today. Recently many people have started to question the clarity of the laws and whether they are appropriate for their current place within the criminal code. Various stakeholders have argued that the laws fail to give certainty to both doctors and patients. These current issues have led to an increased pressure for the states of New South Wales and Queensland to decriminalise abortion. The current Queensland abortion laws are not clear and fail to give certainty to both doctors and patients. Due to this, the Queensland abortion …show more content…
When Australia was first colonised by English settlers, they brought with them the English laws and applied them to the new colony. All states in Australia in the late 19th and early 20th century had laws forbidding abortion. These laws were first adapted in 1861 from the Person Act in the UK, which was reformed in the UK in 1967. However, since then most states and territories have re-examined and reformed their laws on abortion in different ways.2 The current Queensland abortion laws are still almost identical to the Offences against the Persons Act introduced in England in 1861. In the early 1970’s Queensland, women had very limited access to abortion services due to laws that made abortion a crime. The abortion Laws in Queensland are outlined in the Queensland Criminal Code Act 1899. Section 313(1) of the Act creates an offence of killing an unborn child in the circumstances where the child is about to be delivered. If guilty, this offence results in life imprisonment. In Addition, S224 of the Act deals with doctors carrying out abortions. This offence states that any person with the intent to procure a miscarriage of a women or …show more content…
Finally, S225 states that any woman who permits a doctor to use force or unlawfully administer drugs or a noxious thing to procure an abortion is guilty of a lesser offence with a lower penalty of seven years.4 In 2009 after the R v Leach and Brennan case, Queensland introduced the Medical treatment Amendment bill which created a defence in section 282 for doctors and medical practitioners providing medical treatment affecting an unborn child. Section 282 of the Criminal Code aimed to relieve a person from criminal responsibility for the performance of a surgical operation upon any person for the patient’s benefit or upon an unborn child for the preservation of the mother’s life.5 There has been much debate with regard to the clarity of the abortion laws and how they fail to give certainty to both patients and doctors, this is evident in many cases. There have been a number of cases that have led to the current interpretation of the abortion laws in Queensland. For example, in 1969 Dr.Charles Davidson was charged with abortion offences under the Victoria law, which at the time was the same as the current
...s driven by non-maleficence, or the intent to “do no harm”. They know that withholding treatment for religious beliefs will potentially be fatal to both. While Maria is acting out of loyalty to her religious beliefs, the medical staff is acting out of loyalty to the patient’s well being and that of her unborn child. It would be unfair if no party were acting on behalf of that child. In conclusion, providers in this case must pursue every option in delivering life saving treatment for this child. This may involve legal action. If it were just Maria providers may attempt to influence her decision, but ultimately it would be up to her to refuse suggested treatment. Since her decision affects the life of the baby providers are called upon to save that child .
The Queen vs. Davis case concerns the murder trial of Arthur Paul Davis and Alice Davis that occurred in 1875. In it, they were tried and convicted of murder for conducting an abortion; the killing of a fetus and subsequently causing death of the victims, Catherine Laing and Jane Vaughn Gilmour. This essay will examine the historical context of the case, what the trial reveals about the nature of women’s lives in Toronto during the 1870s as subordinate women who are deemed as caretakers and how women managed to end unwanted pregnancies. During the late 19th century ending an unwanted pregnancy was an illegal offence because it was considered unethical to kill a fetus. Women were not able to access safer alternatives such as contraception, as it was an offence to sell or advertise them at that time. Women did not claim they wanted an abortion directly, but rather that they wanted to be fixed of their problem. They did not feel guilty as they thought it was acceptable to induce abortion before the 3rd month of pregnancy or quickening of it, which under the English common law, it was not wrongful to procure an abortion prior to the feeling any movement of the fetus. Doing an Abortion was a private matter but nonetheless a criminal offence. Beginning in the early 19th century, laws were passed to support the prohibition of abortions; these then continued on to the revision and creation of the 1892 criminal code for abortion.
For many years in Canada and many other countries abortion has been a topic of debate. In Canada, there has been no legislation regarding abortions since 1988 as the previous laws were said to violate women’s Charter rights under Section 7 which states that Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. Due to this, the Supreme Court of Canada considered abortion legislation to be a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Since then, no legislations regarding abortion has been changed. Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition
Until the mid 1800s, abortion was unrestricted and unregulated in the United States. The justifications for criminalizing it varied from state to state. One big reason was population control, which addressed fears that the population would be dominated by the children of newly ...
Over the course of the last century, abortion in the Western hemisphere has become a largely controversial topic that affects every human being. In the United States, at current rates, one in three women will have had an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45. The questions surrounding the laws are of moral, social, and medical dilemmas that rely upon the most fundamental principles of ethics and philosophy. At the center of the argument is the not so clear cut lines dictating what life is, or is not, and where a fetus finds itself amongst its meaning. In an effort to answer the question, lawmakers are establishing public policies dictating what a woman may or may not do with regard to her reproductive rights.
The facts of this case show that Roe, who at the time was a single woman, decided to challenge the State of Texas’s abortions laws. The law in that state stated that it was a felony to obtain or attempt an abortion except on medical advice to save the life of the mother (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 1973). At the time many illegal abortions were being performed in back alleys and in very unsanitary conditions. Therefore, some states began to loosen up on abortion restrictions, in which some women found it easy to travel to another state where the abortion laws were less restrictive and they could find a doctor was willing to endorse the medical requirement for an abortion. Unfortunately, less fortunate or poor women could seldom travel outside their own state to get the treatment, which started to raise questions of fairness. Also, many of the laws were vague; therefore many doctors really didn’t know whether they were committing ...
Abortion, or premature termination of pregnancy, can be accidental or intentional, and both types can be legal or illegal. If the ongoing pregnancy becomes a medical threat, abortion is not illegal. Legal developments and healthcare services are intertwined. The American Medical Association stated that abortions were wrong and unsafe, which led the National Abortion Federation to make abortion a "physicians-only" practice that could be performed legally to save a woman's life (National Abortion Federation NAF). It wasn't until 1973 that abortions were made legal in the United States due to the "Supreme Court's decision in Roe vs. Wade, ruling that Americans' right to privacy included the right of a woman to decide whether to have children, and the right of a woman and her doctor to make that decision without state interference" (NAF).
In the later half of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, many states adopted laws against abortion because abortions were performed in unsanitary conditions, which made the operation dangerous for women. Plus, society believed killing a possible life was immoral. However, as time progressed and morals changed, people begin to question weather or not the government had the right to interfere with peoples’ carnal matters.
As one knows, some unwanted pregnancies could often be harmful and distressing for a woman. Women should have the right over their body to choose to sustain the fetus or not. In the past decades, women did not have their freedom of abortion in many countries of the world. There have always been controversies going on about abortion. Each individual has dissimilar views on the legality of abortion. Some people are against abortion for personal religious purposes and beliefs. For those who don’t believe in abortion, it is because they see it as killing a fetus, which is a human being. Others support abortion because they believe in women’s rights. Laws of abortion vary in each country, and abortion is not legal all over the world. It is illegal under any conditions but only permitted to save woman’s life if in countries such as Brazil, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates, and Ireland. However, abortion is legal without any restrictions in countries like Canada, Albania, and Italy. It the past decades Abortion was considered as criminal act in Canada. “If an abortion was carried out without such approval, the woman was liable for imprisonment for 2 years, an...
Abortion is arguably the most controversial topic in all the issues revolving around reproduction. Women of all different races, classes, and religions have been practicing abortion since before the colonial era in America. The laws pertaining to abortion have changed many times, adding and removing discrepancies and stipulations throughout many years, and still to this day. The views of abortion in society during different time periods have also changed and adapted. At the time of Sarah Grosvenor’s decision to abort, the laws pertaining to abortion did not make the act fully illegal. However in years after Grosvenor’s case abortion was outlawed. The law played a minor part in women’s decisions to have an abortion, however society, and gender played the most prominent role in the decision of abortion.
Caplan, A., & Arp, R. (2014). The deliberately induced abortion of a human pregnancy is not justifiable. Contemporary debates in bioethics (pp. 122). Oxford, West Sussex: Wiley.
One of the most famous court cases is Roe v. Wade. Which was filed in 1971 by Norma McCorvey otherwise known as Jane Roe sued Henry Wade, because he “enforced that prohibits abortion, except when the women’s life is a stake” (Cornell). Roe was pregnant and wanted an abortion in Texas, but “Texas state laws consider abortion as a criminal offense, except when the mother’s life is in danger” (Cornell). Since her life was not in any dange...
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by destruction of a fertilized egg, embryo or fetus before birth, prior to the time when the fetus attains viability, or capacity for life outside the uterus (Encyclopedia, 1995, p.43). Currently almost twenty-five percent of pregnancies in the United States are aborted. About one forth of people who abort are teenagers, fifty-seven percent are younger than 25, and almost eighty percent are unmarried. During the first trimester is when most of the abortions take place. Only about ten percent are performed later in the pregnancy (Slife, 1998, p.329). Abortions go back as far as Ancient Greece where it was used as a type of population control. Then in the Roman Times men had total control over the procedure. “Man could give law-enforced command that his wife have an abortion, or he could punish or divorce his wife for having one without his consent” (Encyclopedia, 1995, p.43).
The ethical issue I will be going over is Abortion in New Zealand. An Abortion is a medical procedure to end a pregnancy. Abortion is an ethical issue because it’s controversial, it is literally a life or death situation. There are some strong views on the topic of abortion in today's society, whether it is right or wrong. Abortion statistics show that in 2003 18,511 abortions were performed on women. Todays abortion statistics show that 12,823 abortions were performed in New Zealand, 332 (3%) fewer than in 2015 (13,155).(4) So the abortion rates are currently going down. The law around Abortion in New Zealand is legal with the agreement of two certifying doctors. There
Abortions have always been a very controversial topic. Over the years we continue to fight for or against it. One can say that is one of the most talked and argued topic in the United States. An abortion is when a woman terminates her pregnancy before the fetus is viable using various of methods. Some argue that abortions should be illegal and considered murder, while others, from a religious point of view, say that no one has the right to take away the life of a person, in this case the fetus. However, others insist, that abortions are a basic women’s right.