A 19-year-old Cairns woman faces up to 14 years in jail after being charged under Queensland's abortion laws. It is the first time in more than 50 years such charges have been laid.
On April 16, Tegan Simone Leach faced Cairns Magistrates Court, charged with procuring her own miscarriage. Her partner has also been charged, for supplying drugs to procure an abortion.
Police raided the couple's home on March 30, seizing empty packs of the drug Misprostol, which is used to induce contractions thus causing an abortion.
Leach allegedly chose to terminate the pregnancy because the couple felt too young to have a child.
The case creates a new front for campaigners for women's rights in Queensland, who have long fought to have abortion removed from the state's 100-year-old criminal code.
Thirty-five pro-choice campaigners rallied outside state parliament on April 21 to demand the re-elected Labor government of Anna Bligh repeal the anti-abortion laws.
Pro-choice group Children by Choice says the cost of an abortion in Queensland ranges from $300 in Brisbane to $550 in northern Queensland. It is more expensive for people without Medicare cards, and the cost increases sharply for each fortnight after 12 weeks gestation.
Court decisions in the 1970s and 80s liberalised the interpretation of laws, making it easier for women to access abortions. However, abortion remains the subject of criminal law in all states and territories except for ACT.
Section 224 of the Criminal Code Act 1899 (Qld) criminalises anyone who "with intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman … unlawfully administers to her or causes her to take any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means whatever".
Section 225 imposes liability on the woman herself for procuring an abortion.
Naomi Rodgers-Falk, from Brisbane's Pro-Choice Action Collective and Resistance, told Green Left Weekly: "Successive Labor governments in this state have consistently backed away from wiping these draconian laws off the criminal code.
"Now, with a young woman facing 14 years prison, and with Queensland's first woman premier at the helm, people who support women's health and women's rights won't find a better time to come out and do something about it."
[To get involved in the Pro-Choice Action Collective, call Naomie on 0423 960 702.]