Domestic Slavery

Australia

This important case also involved an unsuccessful prosecution of five people under the New South Wales provisions that make unlawful abortion a crime. The accused were a doctor and an anaesthetist who performed abortions at the Heatherbrae abortion clinic in Bondi, an orderly at the clinic, the owner of the clinic premises, and a doctor who referred patients to the clinic. The defendants in this case were prosecuted for unlawfully using an instrument with intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman contrary to the sections of the law, with conspiring to commit such an offence, and with aiding and abetting the commission of such an offence.

Australia

also known (particularly among medical practitioners) as the Menhennitt ruling, was a significant ruling delivered in the Supreme Court of Victoria on 26 May 1969. It concerned the legality of abortion in the Australian state of Victoria. The ruling was not the end of the case, but rather answered certain questions of law about the admissibility of evidence, so as to allow the trial to proceed. In the ruling, Justice Menhennitt ruled that abortion might be lawful if necessary to protect the physical or mental health of the woman, provided that the danger involved in the abortion did not outweigh the danger which the abortion was designed to prevent. It was the first ruling on the legality of abortion in any part of Australia. The principles put forward by Justice Menhennitt have since been drawn upon in other parts of the country.