Gina Rushton

Australia's solicitor-general and four state solicitor-generals have formally intervened in a High Court case brought by a Victorian anti-abortion picketer who was convicted of breaching the state's safe-access zones.

Share On more Share On more Religious picketer Kathy Clubb, a mother to 13 children, was found guilty of one charge of prohibited behaviour within a safe access zone, after she allegedly approached a couple outside East Melbourne Fertility Control Clinic and tried to hand them pamphlets in August 2016. Clubb became the first person in Victoria to be charged under laws which were formally passed in November 2015 and make it illegal to protest within 150 metres of an abortion clinic. Her case i

Abortion is fairly accessible in Victoria, when compared with other jurisdictions in Australia where it is criminalised, geographically hard to attain, or prohibitively expensive. The procedure isn't a crime – as it is in New South Wales or Queensland – in Victoria. Since 2008 abortion by a qualified medical practitioner has been legal if a woman is less than 24 weeks into a pregnancy, but a second practitioner must agree the termination is in the patient's best interest.

Abetz said he was planning the taxpayer funded trip before he was asked to speak at March for Babies, which is held each October to commemorate the 2008 anniversary of the decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria. "I had a number of unrelated commitments in Melbourne and the travel was planned well before I was asked to speak at the community rally," he said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. "Just because BuzzFeed doesn’t agree with something doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t be allowed to express that view."