Home abortion trial set for October

AAP

A YOUNG Queensland couple facing criminal charges over a home abortion will face trial in October.

Tegan Simone Leach, 20, and her partner, Sergie Brennan, 22, were last year committed to stand trial for allegedly importing abortion drugs from Ukraine to terminate a pregnancy.

Cairns District Court Judge Brian Harrison on Tuesday set the matter down for a trial starting on October 12 that's to last three or four days.

It's alleged Brennan's sister smuggled the abortion drugs RU486 and Misoprostol into Cairns in December 2008.

Brennan then allegedly provided the drugs to his girlfriend, who used them to induce a miscarriage.

The matter came to the attention of authorities after empty blister packets, alleged to have contained the contraband drugs, were found alongside doctors' instructions written in Russian during a police search of their Cairns property in early 2009.

Leach is facing one count of procuring her own abortion, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years' jail. Brennan is facing the lesser charge of supplying drugs to procure an abortion.

The case revealed a loophole in Queensland's criminal code which could have seen doctors who prescribed abortion drugs prosecuted.

It forced the Queensland parliament to change the law to clarify the issue.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on Tuesday said RU486 remained an unregistered drug in Australia, because no pharmaceutical company had applied for its registration.

However, doctors can apply to the TGA to become authorised prescribers of the drug and there were doctors in every state or territory who had gone through that process, a spokeswoman said.