Last week the Queensland courts acquitted two young people of procuring an abortion.
The case and verdict deserve reflection. Those who, like me, believe that respect for life in its beginnings and its end is important for the health of society, will ask how helpful it will be to focus on legislation in order to commend these values.
Tegan Leach and Sergie Brennan were charged under a Queensland law that forbids abortion except when the health or psychological welfare of the mother is at stake. Believing it was not the right time to bring a child into the world, the couple had imported an abortifacient pill from the Ukraine. They claimed they did not know its use was illegal. The police, visiting the house on other matters, discovered evidence of the drug, established why it had been imported, and pressed charges.
It is not known, of course, on what grounds the jurors found the couple not guilty. Most comment on the case came from those who are in favour of abortion on demand, and so are opposed to the Queensland legislation. They applauded the verdict but, like more dispassionate observers, recognised that the decision left uncertain the legal status of doctors and others who participated in abortions.
The case and its outcome suggest that in Australia the cause of respect for human life, including that of the foetus, may not be advanced by pressing for stronger legislation or stronger enforcement of existing law.
To rely on legislation in areas where community opinion is sharply divided comes up against a dilemma. Relatively strong laws, like those regulating abortion in Queensland, will either not be enforced, or their enforcement will appear arbitrary, and as a result undermine support for the values they try to enshrine.
In the Queensland case few people would have hoped for the conviction and jailing of the couple. Whatever we might think of their project and motivation in large ethical terms, they were young, attractive, naïve, and came accidentally to the notice of the police.
The use of the law in this case only highlighted the fact that many other Queenslanders procure abortions in other ways without anyone being prosecuted. The prosecution of this case with its consequent humiliation of the