The petition of residents of the State of Queensland draws to the attention of the House their strong opposition to the Government's proposed abortion bill which effectively allows abortion to birth, has no recognition of the personhood of the unborn and contains no safeguards for women considering abortion. The bill ignores community standards, disregards global trends, does nothing to assist woman to access the best health support, provides no protection for women who are coerced to have an abortion, allows late-term termination of babies viable outside the womb, forces doctors and health workers to act against their own conscience and refer women for abortion, and even facilitates sex discrimination by allowing sex-selective abortions. We note that that there are already around 14,000 abortions each year in Queensland, and that under our current laws, no woman has ever been convicted for having an abortion.

Your petitioners therefore request the House to:

• respect the health and rights of women to informed consent, medical support and independent counselling practices to ensure a decision to abort is not made under pressure or duress;
• respect the right of medical staff to freedom of conscience;
• reject this ill-conceived anti-woman abortion bill that ends the life of babies who can feel pain.