A PARLIAMENTARY committee has heard evidence from medical practitioners supporting broad access to terminations but strong legal challenges to Bass MHA Michelle O'Byrne's Private Members Bill to decriminalise abortion.
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University of Tasmania constitutional expert Michael Stokes said the bill contained a number of legal difficulties, not least a provision to ban protests outside abortion clinics that is likely to be held as unconstitutional.
``There is an implied guarantee in the constitution of freedom of political communication . . . and [the measure] is unnecessary as the Police Offences Act regulates these sorts of behaviours already,'' Mr Stokes said.
He also raised concerns that the bill could increase the possibility of doctors being convicted of murder or manslaughter when conducting terminations as an abortion involving a live birth would fall outside the bill's legal definition.
``At that point it would fall under the criminal code . . . killing of any such child would be homicide,'' Mr Stokes said.
Oxford University Professor Julian Savulescu said any legal ambiguities needed to be removed or doctors could hesitate to involve themselves in challenging cases.
Professor Lachlan De Crespigny, an experienced obstetrician and gynaecologist in favour of law reform, said increased barriers to terminations that applied to women after 16 weeks' gestation should be lifted to no less than 24 weeks and that the current requirement to visit an obstetrics specialist should be removed as it would be severely impractical.
The House of Assembly supported Ms O'Byrne's bill after revising the limit ``no barrier'' abortions are available from 24 weeks' gestation to 16.
Under the proposed laws, after 16 weeks for a woman to have an abortion, two doctors must find continuing the pregnancy poses a greater risk to the woman's physical or psychological health than termination would.
Tasmanian Mental Health Council chief executive Darren Carr said the best research showed abortions ``did not increase the risk of mental illness'' although stigma and discrimination associated with obtaining an abortion could be harmful.
Obstetrics professor at James Cook University Caroline De Costa said with half of the pregnancies in Australia being unplanned, the issue must be treated as a health issue.
Ms De Costa said Tasmania's criminal code contained ``exactly the same wording'' as language used in 1861 by British law-makers.
``I don't think it belongs in the 21st century,'' Ms De Costa said.
Hearings continue in Hobart today.
