Woman’s Minister Defends Sidewalk Counseling in Australia, Gets Pummeled by Press

LifeSite News ^ | 6/11/18 | Calvin Freiburger

[marshmallow]

SYDNEY, June 11, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Minister for Women Tanya Davies was one of just eighteen members of the New South Wales Parliament to vote against a measure restricting pro-life witness in the vicinity of abortion facilities in a contentious overnight vote last week.

The bill passed with 61 votes in favor around 1:20 AM Friday morning, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports, after several hours of debate. It makes it a crime punishable by jail time to film people entering or exiting abortion facilities, or engage in conduct the law deems “harassment” or “intimidation,” within 150 meters of an abortion facility

Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Deputy Premier John Barilaro were among the law’s supporters.

However, while the bill passed overwhelmingly, pro-abortion voices have singled out Davies and Minister for Family and Community Services (and former sex discrimination minister) Pru Goward for opposing it.

Davies said that the bill would take away real “choice” from women.

“These volunteers care deeply about the women. They offer support and information that they know will not always necessarily be provided within the abortion clinic,” Davies argued, challenging the premise that harassment will be the only form of interaction targeted. “They are providing the other pieces of information that some women choose to accept. They don’t force their views onto these women. They are offering simply another choice to those women.

“Yet this bill will criminalize that offer of choice and the sharing of information,” she added.

[Bob434]

[[It makes it a crime punishable by jail time to film people entering or exiting abortion facilities, or engage in conduct the law deems “harassment” or “intimidation,]]

But apparently authorities are allowed to harass and intimidate religious folks