Domestic Slavery

Australia

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Poland’s failure to ensure the applicant’s timely access to prenatal diagnostic examinations and information, which would have enabled her to decide whether to seek a legal abortion or not, violated her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment and to respect for her private life. In this case, it concerned Poland’s failure to guarantee R.R.’s access to prenatal diagnostic examinations and information, which would have enabled her to decide whether to seek a legal abortion. In 2004, R.R. filed an application to the European Court of Human Rights alleging violations of several rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.

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.