Anti-abortionists call for clinic's closure

Anti-abortionists call for clinic's closure

By Bill Mason

BRISBANE — Anti-abortion group Right to Life chairwoman Margaret Tighe and National Party leader Rob Borbidge have called for police to raid an abortion clinic here and close it down, following controversy over a paper presented by Dr David Grundmann to a recent Melbourne medical conference.

In the speech, tabled in the Queensland parliament on October 26, Dr Grundmann stated that his Brisbane clinic carried out abortions at more than 20 weeks' gestation for medical and social reasons, such as abnormalities in the foetus, where women had unexpectedly found themselves to be pregnant at a late stage, where the father deserted the mother after a planned pregnancy, or where a woman's socioeconomic circumstances had changed.

Release of the paper caused a storm of protest from the anti-abortion lobby, and revived the campaign to shut down abortion clinics in this city.

Premier Wayne Goss replied to demands by the opposition leader for changes to the abortion laws in parliament on October 28 by stating that abortion was a matter for a woman and her doctor.

From GLW issue 165