General News Extreme US anti-abortion activist to be deported from Australia immediately

Aussie792 · Oct 2, 2015

Anti-abortion activist Troy Newman to be deported after losing court bid to stay in Australia - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

ABC said:

Anti-abortion activist Troy Newman has lost his High Court bid to stay in Australia and could be deported as early as this weekend.

Mr Newman flew into Melbourne from the United States on Thursday, despite having his visa revoked by the Immigration Department. His lawyers tried unsuccessfully to appeal that decision in the High Court in Melbourne this afternoon.

Justice Geoffrey Nettle ruled the Department was justified in revoking Mr Newman's visa over fears the visit would pose a risk to the community. Justice Nettle ruled Mr Newman may have had a case to challenge the refusal, but said he should not have boarded a plane to Australia knowing his visa had been cancelled. "Acting as he did means he does not come to this court with clean hands," he said. Mr Newman had no right to treat the law as "nought", Justice Nettle ruled.

Mr Newman is the head of anti-abortion organisation Operation Rescue and was due to speak in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Hobart and Cairns over the next fortnight at events run by the group Right To Life Australia. He is the co-author of the book Their Blood Cries Out, which was published in 2000. In the book he questions why doctors who perform abortions are not executed and asks why women or men who request the procedure are not charged with murder.

In a statement, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said he had instructed the Department to "expedite" Mr Newman's removal from Australia. "Any person who enters Australia without a valid visa and does not have a lawful basis to remain in Australia is expected to depart," he said. "His detention and removal is entirely related to his decision to openly flout Australian law and travel to Australia without a valid visa."

Mr Dutton said he had also asked the Department to look at how Mr Newman was able to board a flight to Australia despite him being flagged on the Movement Alert List system. "Any airline involved faces a fine for carriage of a person who does not hold a valid visa," he said in the statement.

In a mid-flight Facebook post on his way to Australia earlier this week, Mr Newman urged his followers to pray for him to get through immigration. "The revocation was based on a pile of lies, including the idea that I promote violence," the post said. "My 25-year history of peaceful, prayerful action speaks for itself.
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I'm glad the High Court acted so swiftly (literally overnight) to reject the man's appeal. Access to abortion is not a guaranteed right in Australia; it's a legal grey area in most states and territories, still officially (but not entirely in practice) in the criminal codes in all jurisdictions but Victoria and the ACT. To have such poisonous, violent voices would not encourage a healthy, safe or reasonable debate.

Fortunately, the death penalty has long been seen as unacceptable and brutal, so to advocate for such in Australia was a big red flag even for the rather conservative immigration minister. Even though there are a number of anti-abortion advocates in the governing Liberal and National parties, as well as in the Labor opposition (one of whose MPs incidentally has led the push to keep Newman out before he arrived yesterday), the government has been pretty unequivocal that Newman's violent and intolerant advocacy is impermissible. Even though the court's immediate decision was because of his visa status and refusal to go through the proper channels, it's good that the Federal Government has had no serious challenge in denying entry to violent advocates.

It's a pity there can't be federal legislative or judicial reforms to the states' criminal codes to universalise the right to access abortion. There's no certain legal mechanism by which abortion rights can be made accessible throughout all Australia in one fell swoop, but at least a strong stance on what is acceptable in this debate from the Federal Government and the High Court brings the issue forward.

Distant Echo · Oct 2, 2015

The sooner he is gone the better. And the airline that let him fly here needs to be severely punished to make sure it can never happen again.
We have quite enough idiots in Australia, without importing them, even for a few days.

I hope he will also be forced to pay the costs for his "stay"

Pret Allez · Oct 2, 2015

I am glad he's one of the few activists being honest about what the anti-abortion position implies. If abortion is murder, then doctors and people who get abortions are murderers, and they should be punished as such.

Anything less is lying in order to be more palatable to the public.

In the United States, people lie all the time, because they know their position is cruel, and they should be utterly rejected by polite society. Anti-abortion views don't face the extreme hatred they deserve only to the degree that their advocates are willing to lie about what they really think.

HuskyPup · Oct 2, 2015

What's he gonna do, seek asylum in Nebraska?

Awesome · Oct 2, 2015

That's it, I'm moving to Australia.

General News Extreme US anti-abortion activist to be deported from Australia immediately

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