Laws allowing nurses to provide pregnancy termination medication have passed parliament despite strong opposition from Queensland’s Liberal National party.
Nurses and midwives will be allowed to dispense the drug, MS-2 Step, in a bid to bridge barriers to abortion access as the state grapples with a “postcode lottery”.
The legislation – passed during women’s week – was championed by Labor, the Greens, advocates and healthcare professionals. Queensland is the second jurisdiction, after Western Australia, to pass such laws.
But on the other side of the chamber, the LNP opposition spoke out against the legislation.
The shadow minister for women, Ros Bates, rose in parliament on Wednesday, flanked by women from the opposition, to oppose the laws.
Five of the party’s six female MPs were in the camera frame as Bates referenced her nursing career and claimed the new law could be unsafe due to lack of resources in rural areas.
Two male frontbenchers left their seats to make way for Ann Leahy and Deb Frecklington, who sat to Bates’ left and right.
Behind them sat Laura Gerber and Fiona Simpson.
The leader of the opposition, David Crisafulli, was pressured to speak on the issue last year after he announced the preselection of the former federal senator Amanda Stoker, who has expressed strong anti-abortion views.
Crisafulli categorically ruled out repealing abortion laws if he wins government in 2024, five years after he voted against its decriminalisation.
Only three LNP members broke ranks to support the laws at the time, including Steve Minnikin, Jann Stuckey and Tim Nicholls.
In parliament on Wednesday, Bates acknowledged she had also voted against decriminalising abortion in 2018. But she referenced her former profession once more to justify opposing the laws, saying they allowed “on-demand terminations up to 22 weeks”.
The minute she sat down, the female phalanx broke up and Dale Last was back in his ordinary spot.
Later, the shadow integrity minister, Fiona Simpson, accused Labor of attacking people with different beliefs about the “sanctity of life and conscience” with “dogmatic intolerance”.
“That intolerance means that doctors and nurses who may want to exercise their right to conscientious objection … about the sanctity of life will be afraid that they will be demonised in the workforce,” she said.
The health minister, Shannon Fentiman, said the Miles government would “always defend a woman’s right to make choices about her sexual and reproductive health.
At a press conference outside parliament on Thursday, Fentiman said she was “disappointed” the LNP had voted against the bill.
“It’s 2024, I would have thought women in regional Queensland accessing termination services would be a no brainer,” she said.
Belinda Maier, from the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union, also spoke out against the LNP’s opposition of the laws.
“This is this is a women’s rights issue ... to control her own body,” she said.
“It’s not going to be a free for all. Midwives and nurses are professional people … they are accredited and educated in what they’re doing.”
The Labor MP Brittany Lauga said she was “proudly pro-choice” and had supported the decriminalisation of abortion in 2018.
“There have been trucks with my face on them driven around town accusing me of being a murderer … I stood up for women in my community,” she said.
“Access to safe termination of pregnancy care is a human right and essential for reproductive freedom. This bill safeguards that.”
