Safe access zone laws in Victoria and Tasmania preventing anti-abortion protesters from harassing women seeking medical treatment will stay, following a judgment delivered by the high court on Wednesday.

The court threw out the cases brought by anti-abortion campaigners Kathleen Clubb and Graham Preston in a comprehensive, 200-page decision.

The Victorian case was brought by Clubb, who was the first person to be convicted of breaking Victoria’s safe access zone laws. The laws mean anti-abortion protesters cannot protest within 150 metres 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”.

Preston, a Christian campaigner, was the first person convicted under similar laws in Tasmania, and he was fined $3,000 in 2016. Clubb and Preston challenged the laws in their respective states, arguing the legislation stifled free speech.

But the court found “given that the proscription leaves protesters free to conduct protests in relation to terminations outside the access zone, and that there is no evidence or other reason to accept that political protest against terminations outside the access zone is any less effective as a tool of political persuasion than protest within”, any impediment the safe access zones had on political freedom was “negligible”.

Clubb wrote on her Instagram page that she prayed at the safe access zone “with mixed feelings” ahead of the judgment being delivered.

“Whatever happens, no one can ever stop any of us from praying to end abortion,” she wrote. In her submission to the court, she wrote “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.”

The Melbourne Fertility Control Clinic and the Human Rights Law Centre both made submissions in the case and defended the safe access laws. They argued free speech was not a license to harm others with impunity. For decades, anti-abortionists caused serious distress, fear and anxiety to patients and staff, and even caused some women to delay medical treatment. Even women seeking treatments such as pap smears and check-ups had to face the protesters.

There have also been instances of violence. In 2002, anti-abortion activist Peter James Knight was sentenced to life in prison after he entered the East Melbourne Fertility Clinic with a gun and shot and killed a security guard working there.

Adrianne Walters, senior lawyer with the Human Rights Law Centre, said the high court’s decision acknowledged the importance of privacy, safety and equality in access to healthcare.



“With today’s decision, women in Victoria and Tasmania never again need to worry about being forced to run a gauntlet of abuse to access abortion care,” she said. “Safe access zones are here to stay.



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

“Right now, women seeking reproductive healthcare in WA and SA are being harassed by anti-abortionists because their governments have failed to protect them. There can be no excuse for delaying safe access zone laws.”

However, Tasmanian women still have to struggle for safe and easy access to abortion, with those needing surgical abortions forced to travel to Victoria to get the procedure, leaving their families and taking time off education or work. Tasmania’s last private abortion clinic closed in January, and the public hospital system has not filled the gap.

Victoria introduced safe access zone laws in 2016, while Tasmania introduced them as part decriminalising abortion in 2013. New South Wales, the ACT, the Northern Territory and Queensland also have safe access zone laws.

Dr Susie Allanson, who worked as a clinical psychologist at the Melbourne Fertility Control Clinic for 26 years, said the judgment reinforcing the Tasmanian and Victorian laws was a win for women.

“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 attacked for seeking medical care,” she said. “This is a great result that enshrines respect for women’s choices.”