Three years ago, New South Wales parliament came very close to legislating Zoe’s Law, a bill which would have given legal recognition to foetuses as living persons, completely independent from their mothers.

While it only ended up passing the lower house of parliament, Zoe’s Law was a rallying cry for the conservative and anti-abortion forces who still walk (or stalk) the halls of Macquarie Street. When I became an MP, Zoe’s Law was the first big challenge I took up. The bill was a sharp reminder for many women’s rights and social justice activists of the continuing legal criminality of abortion in New South Wales. Pregnancy terminations are permissible in the state only through the interpretation of case law. Abortion offences remain in sections 82-84 of the Crimes Act, where they have sat for more than a century.

In recent years, Tasmania, the ACT and Victoria have all moved to successfully decriminalise abortion. On each occasion, the moment was met with jubilation and relief. Sadly, the precarious legal nature of abortion in states where the procedure has not been decriminalised – such as New South Wales and Queensland – continues to have debilitating impacts on women and all those who seek abortions.

Just last week, it was widely reported that a 12-year-old girl was forced to go to the Queensland Supreme Court for permission to have an abortion. If it were any other procedure, all she would have needed, on top of her doctor’s approval, was parental consent. But under the regressive abortion laws of numerous Australian jurisdictions, we do not treat those who seek what can be a very difficult procedure with sensitivity and warmth; rather, we view them as worthy of only stigma and shame, silence and isolation. No one attempting to procure an abortion can escape this.

In September last year I launched a campaign for abortion law reform in New South Wales, after giving notice of the first ever New South Wales decriminalisation bill in 2014. I have been consulting with expert health and legal stakeholders and conducting community forums with a view to bring a bill to parliament that would decriminalise abortion in Australia’s most populous state, as well as enact safe access zones around abortion clinics so those people who need to use the services are free from harassment and intimidation.

This week, I have written to government, opposition and crossbench MPs, seeking their support for a bill that I believe meets public expectations in the 21st century. Under the Abortion Law Reform (Miscellaneous Acts Amendment) Bill 2016, abortion would be completely removed from the Crimes Act, and patients and health practitioners would finally have the power to make their own medical decisions, as they do with all other procedures. Currently, the bill is set down for debate mid-year.

There are those who claim that now is not the time for comprehensive abortion law reform in NSW; that in a conservative parliament that is still influenced by the agenda of the NSW Christian Democratic party MP Fred Nile, such a move may in fact send us down a regressive, anti-choice path from which it may be difficult to return.

This is a short-sighted and very limited way of looking at politics. Under 16 years of the previous Labor government, we saw zero action on this issue, and continual hand-wringing from both major parties. There will never be a “perfect time” to decriminalise abortion, and someone has to get the conversation started.

While the Greens bill is comprehensive in encompassing both decriminalisation and safe access zones, some have argued that we can have the latter without the former. I refuse to accept that we should only tackle the consequences, without getting to the root cause of the problem: the criminality and stigmatisation of abortion. The experience of Tasmania, which achieved decriminalisation and brought in the country’s first safe access zones in 2013, shows that we can get the whole lot, and we deserve the whole lot; we just have to have the spine to make it happen. The open invitation I issued last year to any and all of my parliamentary colleagues to join me in pushing for real abortion law reform is still valid.

Moreover, I refuse to accept that political change is only possible when the government says it is. Abortion law reform has widespread and strong support in the community – some 87% of polled New South Wales residents support the right to have an abortion. Even conservative voters agree with this overwhelmingly. Polling shows that people living in regional and rural areas want abortion law reform and safe access zones even more than Sydney-siders.

NSW parliament has been avoiding the issue of abortion law reform for over one hundred years. The time for heel-dragging is over.