A pair of Merewether High School students who organised a pro-choice rally in Civic Park in July to support the removal of abortion from NSW's criminal code said it felt "tremendous" to know the reform had been achieved.
"It's absolutely amazing, just the fact that all the work of women for decades, mine and Ruby's [Hackett] work in the past couple of months, and that of men and women all over Australia has all helped this bill come to fruition," Aleeyah Clifford, 17, said. "People have fought throughout their lives for this change who aren't even here now. It's been that long.
"It's great to see the laws reflect the community's values, wants and their needs. People have listened."
The bill decriminalising abortion passed the upper house, 26 votes to 14, on Wednesday night after more than 30 hours of debate. There was a final vote in the lower house on Thursday.
Bishop of Newcastle's Anglican diocese Dr Peter Stuart, who advocated for the change, said he was "grateful" to the parliamentarians who had debated the matter at length.
"As we move forward as a community there are going to be more occasions where we will seek to find consensus amidst competing approaches," he said. "I'm thankful that for all of its failings our democratic processes enable that to happen."
Newcastle-Maitland Catholic Diocese Bishop Bill Wright opposed the bill, writing this month in Aurora News that he could not accept abortion was "solely a matter of women's rights".
"There is so clearly another life involved, another set of rights," he wrote. "How can we...avert our eyes from the loss of tens of thousands of our children every year?"
A 25-year-old Novocastrian, who asked not to be named, said she was "stoked" to hear abortion had been removed from the criminal code, saying that when she fell pregnant four years ago she believed, partly due to the laws, that she had to go through with the pregnancy. She fell pregnant after her former boyfriend, who she described as abusive, removed his condom without telling her during intercourse. She took the morning after pill, but found out she was pregnant four weeks later.
"It was terrifying. I very nearly fell into going through with the pregnancy," she said. "I was so scared I would have to have this connection with this person [her boyfriend] I was trying to get out of my life. I'd grown up hearing negative comments about abortions. I thought that option did not exist."
The student hoped the reform would reduce stigma around abortions.
"I've never felt guilty about it and I don't think I'm ashamed, but you do feel like you have to justify it," she said.
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