Abortion as an Ethicolegal Issue in Australia: A Critical Analysis

Running head: ABORTION
Abortion
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Author’s note

1ABORTION
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.

3ABORTION
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