High Court backs abortion exclusion zones

Protesters don't have the right to a 'captive audience' of pregnant women, say judges
Clubb and Preston
Kathleen Clubb and John Preston outside Brisbane High Court. Photo: AAP

The High Court of Australia has ruled safe-access zones around abortion clinics are constitutional, dismissing legal challenges by two anti-abortionists.

John Graham Preston, who was found guilty of illegally protesting within 150m of a Hobart clinic in 2016, and Kathleen Clubb, the first person to be convicted in Victoria for protesting outside the Fertility Control Clinic in Melbourne in 2017, both argued the safe-access zone legislation violated the implied freedom of political communication under the Australian Constitution.