The validity of the safe-access-zone laws in Victoria and Tasmania that prevent anti-abortion protesters from harassing women seeking medical treatment will be challenged before the high court on Tuesday.

The Victorian case has been brought by anti-abortioncampaigner Kathleen Clubb, who was the first person to be convicted of breaking Victoria’s safe-access-zone laws in 2016. The laws mean anti-abortion protesters cannot protest within 150m of health and fertility clinics. Clubb was fined $5,000 for communicating about abortion to a woman attending an East Melbourne medical clinic. Clubb’s conduct was found to be “reasonably likely to cause distress or anxiety”.

Albury's only abortion clinic: protests 'push women to point of self-harm' Read more

Christian anti-abortion campaigner Graham Preston was the first person convicted under similar laws in Tasmania, and he was fined $3,000 in 2016. Clubb and Preston are challenging the laws in their respective states, arguing the legislation stifles free speech. Both challenges are being heard before the high court in Canberra.

In her submission to the court, Clubb said the safe-access zones applied to locations where “notoriously, communications on that topic [abortion] are likely to occur and be most politically resonant”.

“The prohibition applies whether or not discomfort is caused and irrespective of the political significance of the communication in the circumstances,” she said. “The issue raised by this appeal is whether a prohibition of that kind is compatible with a constitution which protects a freedom of political communication. This court should answer that question no.”

Ahead of the hearing, Dr Susie Allanson, who worked as a clinical psychologist at the East Melbourne clinic for 26 years, said the laws had ended decades of intimidation directed at women and staff attending the clinic. Allanson was working at the clinic in 2001 when a security guard was murdered by an anti-abortion protester.

'Safe zones' around abortion clinics don't threaten free speech, Victoria says Read more

“Before safe-access zones, our patients and staff would have to run a gauntlet of anti-abortionists to enter the clinic,” she said.

“Women would turn up scared and noticeably shaken. In some cases, they were too intimidated to attend their follow-up appointments, which had dangerous implications for their health. But since the safe zones came into effect, women and staff are no longer a target when they walk up to the clinic, and women no longer carry the heavy burden of being publicly harassed for seeking medical care.”

Similar zones operate in the ACT, the Northern Territory and NSW.

A senior lawyer with the Human Rights Law Centre, Adrianne Walters, said the case raised important questions about balancing the rights of women seeking access to medical care and the freedom of political communication in the constitution. But she said free speech was not a “licence to harm others with impunity”.

“We believe that Victoria’s safe-access-zone laws strike the right balance between freedom of expression and a woman’s right to privately and safely see her doctor,” Walters said.

“Anti-abortionists outside clinics have caused serious distress, fear and anxiety to patients and staff.”