Tasmanian women would not have to travel interstate or pay huge out-of-pocket fees to access surgical abortions under a Shorten Labor government, the party has promised.
“We want Australian women to have the maximum amount of choice at an incredibly difficult time,” the party’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek said while announcing that Labor would spend $1million on a Reproductive Health Hub in Tasmania if elected federally.
The procedure was decriminalised in Tasmania in 2013 but its accessibility is now being debated by state and federal politicians on both sides of the political spectrum, drawing in the federal health minister, as well as the prime minister, because the remaining private providers are charging thousands of dollars for the procedure.
