NFAW Submission to the Health, Communities, Disability Services and Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Committee of the Parliament of Queensland on the Abortion Law Reform (Woman’s Right to Choose) Amendment Bill 2016.

The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) is a non-politically aligned feminist organisation committed to examining the potentially differential impact of policies and their outcomes for men and women and whether the consequences of policies, intended or unintended, adversely affect women.

We congratulate the Parliament of Queensland on its consideration of this important matter.

Our position is that every child should be a wanted child, and that parents should have access to good quality information and services which enable them to make decisions as to the numbers and spacing of their children.

We strongly endorse the proposal that abortion should be removed from the criminal law and be governed by the generality of laws and regulations over-sighting the rest of medical practice. It is of course vital that medical procedures are carried out by appropriately qualified professionals. That said, we also consider that legal regulation of abortion should not be couched in terms which restrict it to surgical procedures, given the developments of newer uses of medications prescribed by qualified medical professionals.

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