Abortion as an Ethicolegal Issue in Australia: A Critical Analysis

​In this document we will discuss about A Critical Analysis and below are the summary points of this document:- Abortion is a controversial ethicolegal issue in healthcare, with varied opinions on the moral status of human fetus and their right to life. Abortion is legal in Australia, and every state has specific regulations, but there are exceptions, such as informing parents in the case of minors seeking abortion. Abortion is considered a moral act based on the ethical principle of autonomy, but it creates an ethical dilemma for healthcare professionals when laws and ethical principles conflict.

Running head: ABORTION
Abortion
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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Introduction:
Abortion is one of the controversial ethicolegal issues in health care and it is a subject of
great dispute and opinion. Earlier ethical issues about health and illness were left to the judgment
of physicians. However, the introduction of bioethics and the four ethical principles of
autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice have created additional conflict and
challenges for health care professionals. The moral status of human foetus and their right to life
has become a subject with varied opinion (Smyth and Lane 2016). According to the right to life
principle, every human has the inherent right to life. However, whether foetus can be identified
as human or not is not clearly defined. Although as per legal laws in Australia, abortion is legal.
However, there are many opponents of abortion too. The main purpose of this report is to explore
in-depth about abortion as an ethicolegal issue and conduct a critical analysis of the issue in
relevance to Australian laws and current research literature on the topic. The essay also suggests
possible solutions to minimize issues while engaging in clinical decision making for abortion.
In Australia, the abortion is allowed in almost every state with specific regulation.
Therefore, federal government is not at all interfering with the state laws and legislation. The
main goal of abortion in Australia is to protect the woman from severe health threatening
condition due to the unwanted or desired pregnancy. Every places in Australia, woman need not
to take any permissions to perform an abortion. However, there are exceptions. The legal
structure of Australia will not restrict a woman from terminating her pregnancy. Along with this,
there is no waiting period for the woman to have the abortion. The state of Western Australia, is
one of the exceptions in case of abortion laws. In this state, it is mandatory to inform one of the
parents before having an abortion in case of minor people that is people under the age of 16
years. In such scenarios, the minor must have a permission letter from the Children’s court in

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order to do the process of abortion and in such cases the woman need not any consent from her
parents. Previously, no actions were taken for the women who are seeking the help regarding
abortion. However, it can be mentioned that, if a woman is in the 28th week of her pregnancy,
then the abortion or termination of the pregnancy should not be performed as it will be counted
as a crime in that case in a very few specific states of Australia (Gotsis and Ismay 2017).
Based on the ethical principle of autonomy, abortion is considered a moral act as it
respects autonomy of patient and serves to alleviate sufferings for women. For a health care
professional, the most vital duty for them is to protect and advocate for the health and well-being
of the patient. However, ethical dilemma is created for health care professionals when laws
related to abortion and ethical principles conflict with each other. As per medical ethics of
abortion, health care professionals need to follow the duty of care, informed consent and
confidentiality requirement while doing abortion. The duty of care requirement suggests that
health care professionals must follow all necessary professional standards to provide safe
abortion (Patil, Dode and Ahirrao 2014). In addition, in accordance with the ethical obligation of
obtaining informed consent, clinicians have the duty to ensure that the final decision to have an
abortion or not rest with the patient (Committee on Bioethics 2016). Although this professional
standard shows that delivering abortion is not a controversial task. However, issues arise when
different bioethical concepts related to abortion and legal environment related to abortion differs.
Critical analysis of the issue would give a more critical insight in to how different policies and
opinions deviates from each other and make the decision making related to abortion a
controversial issue in clinical setting.

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Critical analysis:
In Australia, various states and territories have introduced different laws related to
abortion and in most of the places, the laws related to abortion differs. For example, in recent
time, the Northern territory cancelled the section 11 of Medical Act 1982 by a vote in the
parliament and that resulted in decriminalization of abortion up to 23rd week of gestation. The
legislations enacted in Western Australia makes abortion lawful only when upto 20 weeks of
pregnancy and under four grounds. The first ground includes medical ground and the other three
grounds include risk of personal, social risk to women if abortion is not performed, danger to
mental or physical health of pregnant woman. In territories like Victoria, Tasmania, Northern
territory, the abortion is lawful up to a certain stage of gestation (Gotsis and Ismay 2017).
However, the territories like Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales still believe that
abortion is a crime. The abortion law in South Australia mandated that abortion cannot be
performed pate in pregnancy after 22-23 weeks of pregnancy. In contrast, earlier in pregnancy,
abortion can be only performed when there is risk till maternal health or when the foetal has any
disability In Tasmania, the law related to abortion is very unclear. There is lack of judicial ruling
that clarified the meaning of statutory provisions that decriminalize abortion in that state
(Parliament of Australia 2018).
Overall, the critical analysis of legal rulings and legislations related to abortion in
Australia suggest that the health condition of the pregnant woman is the priority of all legislation
in Australia. However, one of the major weaknesses of Australian legal system related to
abortion is that laws are outdated and confusing thus further increasing ethico-legal challenges
for health care professionals. Lack of standardization of laws related to abortion between states
and territories is one major limitation that leaves behind many grey areas for clinicians (Health

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and Mulligan 2016). Hence, due to inconsistency legal rulings of abortion, doctors in Australia
are also vulnerable to accusation, negative publicity and risk of career damage. Such legal
inconsistencies can contribute to disadvantage for many women too as they suffer because of
lack of access to abortion. de Costa and Douglas (2015) states that foetal abnormality as a
ground for abortion has been considered in the legislations of Western Australia, South
Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. However, practically such freedom is not
enjoyed as late abortion lead is restricted by health regulation in South Australia, Western
Australia and the Northern Territory. Political barrier to access is also an issue for women as
they fail to access services because of verbal and physical harassment. However, recently actions
have been taken to safeguard such women too. For example, Tasmania introduces exclusion
zones near clinics in 2013 prohibiting disruptive behaviour within 150 metres of an abortion
clinic. However, such actions have not been imposed in entire Australia and there is a need for
changes in law and policy on abortion.
The primary feature of Australian abortion law is to secure the privacy issues of woman
who are seeking abortion and along with this the government also try to provide a safeguard
from any type of social harassment to those woman. However, due to inconsistent laws, the
abortion service deliver is associated with various ethical issues. , there are various contradiction
regarding the abortion in Australia. Almost 14.8% people believe that abortion is completely
wrong after considering the defective condition of the fetus also. However, some of the people
thinks that abortion can be an acceptable issue in case of defective or problematic condition of
the fetus. Most of the people think that, life begins at that point where contraception occurs and
it after the contraception it is a life anyways. Therefore, it can be said that, the terminating a life
after the contraception, is killing a complete life and it is very unethical to kill a life through

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terminating pregnancy. They consider that, every life has the right to live and they must not be
terminated in any conditions (Christian Research Association 2019). However, due to lack of
clarity regarding the status of fetus and the question that whether fetus should be considered as
human is one major debate. There is great controversy and grey areas surrounding the time
period within which a developing embryo can be considered as a person (Ali, Hasan and
Siddiqui 2016). Hence, the condition under which abortion is regarded as a criminal act is not yet
clear. This area needs more attention in the future to minimize ethicolegal consequences for
health care professionals.
Literature review:
The critical analysis of Australian laws related to abortion depicts many inconsistencies
in the legal ruling against abortion. This has direct implications on the experiences of women
seeking to access abortion services. Recent research evidences also gives idea about the negative
experience of women in Australia in relation to access to abortion services. Doran and
Hornibrook (2016) reported about Australian rural women’s experience of accessing an abortion
service and the barriers they encounter during the process. Women reported about experience of
stigma and their external stigma was exacerbated by protestors. Women also commented on
social barriers experiences due to violation of women’s rights. The experience of these women
shows that lack of integration health system and adequate support from legal laws and policy
related to abortion is the main reason for such challenges. There is time to have clear standing so
that GPs as well as policy makers are in the same line to support decriminilzation of abortion.
The research literature by Keogh et al. (2019) investigated about the view of abortion
expert on the introduction of Section 8 of the Abortion Law Reform Act in Victoria. The clause

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allowed doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion to refer women to other service
providers. The analysis of response of participants revealed that section 8 protect women’s right
to abortion and it does provide any mechanism to protect doctors right. Instead of reforming
abortion services, this law provides doctors the opportunity to opt out of abortion services based
on concerns related to reputational penalty and community acceptance. Hence, example of this
law in Australia shows that instead to supporting women, these laws create additional issues for
men. Hence, to reduce the controversy surrounding abortion and encourage doctors to take the
right decision about abortion any fear of penalty, there is a need to engage in community
education to modify the attitude towards abortion. Determining community attitude towards right
currently at play is also critical to determine any policy change in Australia.
Instead of directly viewing abortion as a criminal act, visualizing the need for abortion in
the context of individual women is also important. This is understood from the account of
women with breast cancer. The research study by Kirkman et al. (2014) revealed that different
women have different meanings of abortion in their life. For some, abortion was the reason
behind diagnosis of cancer and for some, abortion was a reason to save her life. The account of
these women suggest that abortion needs to be view from different angles instead of regarding it
as a criminal. Though to restrict unnecessary abortion, it should not allowed within a stipulated
time period. However, some exceptions should also be kept by policy makers to protect women
with complex circumstances leading to abortion decision.
Argumentation:
There are two sides of argument related to the clinical decision making for abortion.
Abortion is favoured mostly on ground of health and risk to life for mother. However, there are

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also opponents who go against abortion and actively protest against the act. The counterargument
for going against abortion is that it encourages killing an innocent human being which morally
an offensive act. This group of people demand the right view foetus as a human being and
condemn the practice of abortion. Based on right to life principles and human rights policy, it is
indeed wrong to take life of a human being. However, the duration or time from which a foetus
needs to be considered as human is a great area of ambiguity. Termination of pregnancy leads to
conflict of right between two persons, the right of mother and the right of foetus. Due to such
controversy, abortion is one of the most ethical dilemmas in practice for health care
professionals. It is essential that health care professionals are provided the right guidance. Apart
from policy reform, it is also essential to educate doctors regarding the way to apply existing
legislation (Smyth and Lane 2016).
The discussion regarding the legal environment related to abortion in Australia suggest
that presence of inconsistent laws in different states and territories creates many challenges for
women as well as doctors in Australia. For Australian women, there are barrier to access issues
and health care professionals are at risk of career damage because of confusing laws on abortion.
It is suggested that policy makers engage in law reform by tracking the impact of current laws on
abortion statistics. This would help plan appropriate support services and areas in which law
reform is needed too. However, the evidence by de Costa and Douglas (2015) shows that there is
lack of national data collection on abortion statistics for all the states and territories. Hence, this
would create additional challenges. Law reform need to pay attention to this area so that
appropriate national data is collected on abortion. Taking urgent step towards legislative
uniformity across Australia would also help to balance legal rulings with modern medical
practice and provide women equal access to abortion services.

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Conclusion:
It can be concluded that, the abortion related laws are different from one state to another.
In some states the laws are strict and in some places laws are not too strict and they are quite
liberal in nature. The critical analysis of ethical issues surrounding abortion and inconsistencies
in legal ruling related to abortion suggest that women in Australia still face many challenges to
access and doctors still fear engaging in abortion service because of financial penalty. There is a
need for policy reform so that individual rights and the context under which women take the
decision to go for abortion is critically understood.

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References:
Ali, T.F., Hasan, T. and Siddiqui, A.R., 2016. Ethical Issues in Magic Cell
Therapy. International Journal of Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences, 3(1), pp.1-4.
Christian Research Association 2019. Attitudes to Abortion and Approaches to Ethical Issues «
Christian Research Association. Cra.org.au. Available at: https://cra.org.au/attitudes-to-abortion-
and-approaches-to-ethical-issues/ [Accessed 5 Feb. 2019].
Committee on Bioethics, 2016. Informed consent in decision-making in pediatric
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perspectives of abortion service providers. BMC medical ethics, 20(1), p.11.

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Kirkman, M., Apicella, C., Graham, J., Hickey, M., Hopper, J.L., Keogh, L., Winship, I. and
Fisher, J., 2017. Meanings of abortion in context: accounts of abortion in the lives of women
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