Abortion laws in Queensland are lagging behind modern medical practice, seeing many women travel interstate in what is being termed abortion 'tourism', two Queensland experts have revealed in the Medical Journal of Australia.

The editorial, entitled Abortion law in Australia: it's time for national consistency and decriminalisation, notes diagnosis of foetal abnormality is now routinely offered to pregnant women at 10 to 13 weeks, with the implication that a woman, upon discovering a serious abnormality, may choose to terminate the pregnancy.

Abortion laws are failing to keep up with modern medical practices.

However, abortion is against the law in Queensland unless it can be proven a woman's physical and/or mental health is in serious danger if the pregnancy were to proceed.

Abortion is also illegal in New South Wales but legal to 24 weeks in Victoria, legal to 16 weeks in Tasmania, legal to 20 weeks in Western Australia and legal to 14 weeks in the Northern Territory.