VICTORIAN Labor Minister Jacinta Allan broke down in State Parliament last night as she blasted anti-abortionists for a campaign of harassment.
The Regional and Rural Development Minister, a strong supporter of decriminalising abortion, said police were investigating material delivered to her electoral office.
The Bendigo-based minister told of the harassment during a passionate 10-minute speech, which she struggled to finish.
"I've become disturbed in recent weeks at the extreme tones of some abusive correspondence and phone calls that my electorate staff and I have received - one of which is so grave it is currently the subject of a police investigation," she said.
Ms Allan did not detail what was in the material, but MPs have been bombarded with graphic images of abortions.
Her speech came just moments after Premier John Brumby pleaded with all MPs and the public to respect the rights of others.
The Brumby Government's Abortion Law Reform Bill, which would allow a woman to terminate a pregnancy at up to 24 weeks, and after that with the consent of two doctors, has split both sides of politics.
The Bill, subject to a conscience vote, is expected to pass the Lower House but it is uncertain whether it will pass the Upper House.
The most contentious proposal is to allow a woman to terminate a pregnancy at 24 weeks rather than 20 weeks.
Clinical practice requires the loss of any pregnancy after 20 weeks - through a termination, miscarriage or stillbirth - to be registered as a birth as well as a death, and a burial must be carried out.
Mr Brumby insisted yesterday the Bill should be passed.
"In my view this is a reform which is long overdue," he said. "What this Bill does is clarify what was unclear and brings our laws into line with current clinical practice."
He denied it would lead to more abortions.
"There are a very, very small number of terminations which occur in that 20-24 week period. They occur for a range of very difficult, very sensitive and very complex reasons," he said.
"It is for that reason we've required, post that 24-week period, two doctors' opinions," Mr Brumby said.
The Member for Forest Hill, Kirstie Marshall, last night became the latest Labor MP to reject the Bill. The former world champion skier said she supported decriminalisation but could not support the 24-week provision.
She joined Labor MPs including Sport Minister James Merlino, the Member for Pascoe Vale, Christine Campbell, Major Projects Minister Theo Theophanous, and newly elected Member for Kororoit Marlene Kairouz.
Attorney-General Rob Hulls was undecided.
"Personally, I haven't formed a final view," he said.
The debate also split the Coalition: Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu was in favour, but Nationals leader Peter Ryan was vehemently opposed, describing the Bill as "a quantum shift" from the current law.
He said abortion was a matter of life and death and should not be focused on a woman's right to choose, and he held grave concerns if the changes allowed abortions at 24 weeks.
"It seems intrinsically wrong somehow that a pregnant woman can go to a hospital and, depending on what room she goes into, her child could well be born, looked after carefully and lovingly in a neo-natal ward, and survive and grow on the one hand; or if she were to go into another room, the child could be killed," he said.
"It's an awful dichotomy, and fundamentally wrong."
Mr Baillieu argued it was time to decriminalise abortion.
Deputy Liberal leader Louise Asher also backed the reform.
"I am old enough, unfortunately, to remember backyard abortions. I remember women dying because of lack of access to abortions," she said.
Mr Brumby said he believed the legislation would be passed by both Houses, despite the proposal of many amendments that were being considered.
Shadow women's affairs spokeswoman Mary Wooldridge, the mother of a three-year-old boy, made an impassioned plea backing the Bill.
"Every day there are women in the desperate situations who are agonising about what to do," she said. "And I believe they should have the right to do so without it being a crime."
