WAGGA Women’s Health Centre has supported an Albury obstetrician’s push for a privacy zone around clinics which perform abortions.
Retired specialist obstetrician Pieter Mourik has called for a zone of up to 100 metres from clinics; he is also calling for abortion to be repealed from the state’s Crimes Act.
Mr Mourik said it was about preventing people seeking to have an abortion from being harassed, as well as preventing a repeat of violence when a patient’s partner struck a protester.
“This doesn’t happen with any other medical procedure,” he said.
Mr Mourik said women from Wagga would travel to Albury to access services and they deserved “medical privacy”.
“This is about people’s privacy, no matter the medical procedure there should be privacy,” Wagga Women’s Health Centre manager Gail Meyer said.
Ms Meyer said she’d like to think for any medical procedure there would not be protesters outside a clinic or hospital.
“Everyone has a right to have their own moral belief system, but there’s no need for them to impose it on someone having a medical procedure,” she said.
“(But) they have a right to access safe services with specialist staff.”
Ms Meyer said patients having privacy was part of a safe service.
At 6pm on Wednesday, state Greens MLC Dr Mehreen Faruqi and humanist Leslie Cannold will be guest speakers at a forum in the Albury SS&A Club discussing potential legislation which would create a privacy zone around clinics.
