ABORTION IS A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE
PROTEST
Sat March 13, 12 noon
Outside Parliament House, George St

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A Cairns woman is facing the prospect of 7 years prison on charges brought under Queensland’s anti-abortion laws. The Bligh government refuses to repeal the anti-abortion laws – allowing the agenda to be set by the anti-abortion minority who are fighting to turn the clock back to days of backyard abortion. The anti-abortion movement feign concern for women’s welfare, but nothing could be further from the truth. Their real goal is to deny women one of the single most fundamental human rights: the right to control their own bodies.

On March 13, the anti-abortion group “Cherish Life” will hold a rally and the pro-choice campaign will be there to meet them. Stand with the pro-choice majority! Take a stand against sexism and bigotry! Stand against those who would force us back to the backyard! Join the protest!

Each year around the world at least 70 000 women die because they cannot access safe, legal abortion.
“Right to life”: your name’s a lie – you don’t care if women die!

Pro-Choice Action Collective
Phone: 0400 720 757 (Kathy), 0422 763 225 (Emma)
Email: prochoiceaction@gmail.com

Singlets available from the Pro-Choice Action Collective for $20 (including postage).

To place your order: mail a cheque or money order to Pro-Choice Action Collective, PO Box 8254, Woolloongabba 4102 with the following information:
# Name
# Contact phone number or email address
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Some photos of the Pro-Choice Action Collective held a stall at the Big Day Out at the Gold Coast. We collected over 900 signatures on the petition calling for the Bligh government to drop the abortion charges and repeal all anti-abortion laws – including mosh-pit petitioning!!

T-shirts available from the Pro-Choice Action Collective for $20 (including postage).

To place your order mail a cheque or money order to Pro-Choice Action Collective, PO Box 8254, Woolloongabba 4102 with the following information:
# Name
# Contact phone number or email address
# Postal address
# Size (S, M, L, XL)

From Murdoch University Wom*n’s Collective (W.A.):

The Murdoch University Wom*n’s Collective wholeheartedly and whole-mindedly supports the Queensland Pro-Choice Collective’s campaign to have abortion removed from the Queensland Criminal Code and to have the charges against the Cairn’s Couple dropped immediately.

We offer our deepest heartfelt solidarity to the couple who is currently facing imprisonment over the procuring of an abortion.

We ask Premier Anna Bligh and all women who, either through their actions or inactions, support the prosecution of such cases, what is it you hope to gain by supporting such anti-abortion measures but the procurement of your own imprisonment within a second-class status?

We recognise that, despite the rhetoric surrounding this particular case, this case is not about the illegal smuggling of drugs. It is a politically motivated attempt to set a precedent to once again deny women access to safe abortions on demand.

In light of this and in light of the generalised and continued backlash against the many gains made by strong, clear-sighted women a generation ago, we call on all women of Australia who value self-determination, to see this move for what it is. Those of us who have traced the lines back recognise that criminalising abortion was never about upholding the sanctity of life: on the contrary; it was always about state control of women’s bodies and hence, lives. This is unacceptable and we will not abide it.

We need to work together to ensure all Australian states repeal anti-abortion legislation once and for all.

So, let’s do it.

In Solidarity, Melissa Brave, on behalf of Murdoch Uni Wom*n’s Collective.

From Radical Women, Melbourne:

Greetings from Radical Women in Melbourne to all you sisters and brothers rallying today in Brisbane. Congratulations on your determination and tenacity – which is what it will take – to end the despicable show trial in Cairns and win abortion rights in Queensland.

While you fight to legalise abortion, the right wing is planning an assault on Victoria’s reform. Using the argument of “conscientious objection,” the Catholic Church – aided by its anti-abortion parliamentary friends – is leading a challenge against the new law which requires anti-choice doctors to refer any woman wanting an abortion to another health provider. This is just one tactic to roll back a hard-won victory. It’s a reminder that every win by ordinary working people has to be defended. We can never stop organising as long as the sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-worker interests of profit exist.

The fight for full abortion rights in Queensland, Victoria, across Australia and the world are the same. The victory you will make will be a boost for pro-choice defenders in Victoria.

Radical Women is with you in solidarity, and we’ll support you every way we can. For free, safe, accessible abortion on demand in Queensland and Victoria! These battles can’t stop at our borders: For free, full abortion rights for all women throughout Australia!

Yours in the fight
Debbie Brennan
for Radical Women, Melbourne

From Campaign for Women’s Reproductive Rights, Melbourne:

Campaign for Women’s Reproductive Rights in Victoria sends greetings and solidarity to you in support of your campaign against the government of Queensland in the issues of anti-abortion laws and the prosecution of the Cairns couple. We admire your courage to mount this campaign.

While we cannot be physically present at your rally, we are totally with you in spirit and wish you every success.

We hope that the campaign against the prosecution will lead not only to the dropping of the charges but the repeal of Queensland’s draconian abortion laws.

May it give you some moral support that in Victoria, grassroots pro-choice activists continue the fight on our homefront, defending the Fertility Control Clinic against religious bigots and resisting rightwing efforts to erode Victoria’s reformed abortion law.

We eagerly await the news of a sweeping victory in Queensland.

In solidarity
Brendan Collum
for Campaign for Women’s Reproductive Rights, Victoria

Photos by Owain Lewis-Jones

A pro-choice rally will be held in Brisbane on November 21 as part of the ongoing campaign against the prosecution of a Cairns couple under Queensland’s anti-abortion laws.

The rally will demand the dropping of the abortion charges and the repeal of the anti-abortion laws.

Pro-Choice Action Collective activist, Kathy Newnam said “The laws under which the Cairns couple have been charged should not exist. Abortion should not be on the criminal code. Abortion has been decriminalised in the ACT (2002) and Victoria (2008) and it’s high time that Queensland did the same.

“It is outrageous that a Cairns woman faces up to seven years in jail for having an abortion when one in three women in this country will have an abortion at some point in their lives. Abortion is common practice in private clinics and should be made free, safe and accessible for all women.

“Abortion is a woman’s right to choose. The decades-long struggle for abortion rights has won widespread recognition of this right. The anti-abortion forces want to turn back the clock and we have a so-called feminist premier who is unwilling to stand up to them.

“Our rally is part of a campaign that is determined to make it politically untenable for the Bligh Government to maintain their position of inaction.

“The changes to the criminal code that the Parliament made in early September were nothing but a distraction – they did not remove the anti-abortion sections under which the Cairns couple have been charged.

“Our rally will protest against the lies and misinformation that the government has perpetuated about the Cairns case. Bligh and various government ministers continue to claim that the case is related to alleged “smuggling” of the abortion drug. This is a lie. The charges have been brought under the anti-abortion laws, not drug related laws.

“The Bligh Government is doing what it can to distract attention from the reality of the Cairns case. The fact is that the prosecution of the Cairns couple is one of the most serious attacks on abortion rights for decades.

“The rally on November 21 is an important opportunity for all supporters of a woman’s right to choose to stand up and speak out to defend abortion rights”.

Pro-choice supporters will protest outside the Roma St police station at noon this Friday (October 2).

The protest is part of the ongoing campaign against the prosecution of a Cairns couple under the state’s anti-abortion laws.

Pro-Choice Action Collective activist, Kathy Newnam stated “the police have targeted a young couple in Cairns to create a test case designed to set back access to abortion in Queensland.

“Despite the anti-abortion laws, abortion has effectively been available on demand through private clinics. Most people are not even aware that abortion is still subject to criminal law.

“Some say that this accessibility has been based on the “good will” of police “turning a blind eye”. The more realistic explanation is that the laws have not been enforced because police are only too aware of the widespread support for abortion access and the sort of opposition that would be faced if there were any attempts to enforce the law.

“While it may have faded from popular memory, there are still many who remember the widespread social and political response to the abortion clinic raids of the 1980s. Indeed it was the opposition that was mobilised in that era that led to the liberalised access that exists today.

“In prosecuting the Cairns case, the Queensland Police have made a calculated political judgment. They think they can create a new precedent through this case. They have targeted an isolated working class couple in regional Cairns in a case that does not involve a local doctor.

“In the Cairns Committal hearing the police prosecution argued that it didn’t even matter that there was no proof that the woman was pregnant – because they argued that under the law a woman is “guilty of a crime” if she does anything “with intent to procure her own miscarriage” even if she is not actually pregnant at the time.

“This is the interpretation of the law that the police prosecution is seeking. This is the precedent that they are seeking.

“There are thousands of terminations in Queensland every year. The Queensland Police initiated and pursued this particular case because they think they can get away with targeting this young couple.

“The growing campaign against these charges is determined to prove the police wrong. They won’t get away with this attack on abortion rights. We will fight to have the charges against the Cairns couple dropped and we will build a campaign that will force the government to repeal the anti-abortion laws. No-one should ever again have to face the trauma that the young couple in Cairns are going through”.

For more information, contact the Pro-Choice Action Collective on 0400 720 757 (Kathy).