Human Rights for the Unborn – Tasmania has reiterated its uncompromising opposition to the revised Reproductive Health Bill.
“Abortion on demand to 16 weeks is scarcely better than abortion on demand to 24 weeks,” said the group’s northern coordinator, Mishka Gora.
“An unborn child at 16 weeks isn’t a ‘potential life’,” Mrs Gora noted. “It’s a life with potential. It hasn’t been an embryo for eight weeks. Abortion stops that child’s beating heart.
There’s no getting around that.”
The Reproductive Health Bill furthermore still imposes a 300-metre-wide exclusion zone prohibiting a range of activities around abortion clinics, affecting peaceful protests, church rallies, and even street photography. The zones would exist anywhere an abortion clinic was open, thus putting abortionists in control of where Tasmanians may or may not exercise free speech.
“All Tasmanians, whether they support abortion or not, should be appalled by the proposed zones,” said Clare Williams, the group’s southern coordinator. “There are already laws against harassment and laws that regulate protests. Why should abortionists have the power to stop Tasmanians from engaging in what is presently lawful behaviour and punish it with 12 months’ gaol and an exorbitant fine?
“It’s a grave violation of civil rights,” Mrs Gora added. “Abortion clinics aren’t even marked as such. How will anyone even know that they’re entering an ‘abortion zone’?”
Human Rights for the Unborn – Tasmania April 11, 2013
