Thousands of pro-life supporters packed Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral today before rallying outside parliament in an emotive last stand against decriminalising abortion.
Two days before the Victorian upper house is due to debate new abortion laws, demonstrators made an impassioned plea to MPs to dump the bill, which would give women open access to abortion up to 24 weeks.
The protest came as Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart, in a rare presentation to the media, again vowed to defy the new laws by not forcing Catholic health care workers to comply with the reforms.
Under the legislation, doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion are required to refer a woman to someone with no such objection.
Doctors must also perform abortions in an emergency if necessary to save the woman's life.
"I would say that we can't perform and we can't refer ... we have nowhere to go, that is a firm irrevocable position and I believe it's the only position that people of conscience can hold," Archbishop Hart said.
"To put it plainly, the Catholic Church believes in life from womb to tomb."
More than 2,500 worshippers packed St Patrick's Cathedral for an Hour of Prayer anti-abortion service.
Archbishop Hart told the congregation the abortion bill was a "strident challenge" to fundamental religious beliefs and made a mockery of human rights and equal opportunity.
He said every person from conception deserved the protection of the law and described women with unwanted pregnancies as the "principal victims of the new culture of death".
Thousands of people later converged on the steps of state parliament for a rally of speeches, song and prayer.
Spring Street was closed for more than an hour as Christians, including young children, waved placards that read "abortion is murder".
Matthew Prince, a father of two, held a 14-day vigil on the steps of parliament and wept as he spoke about how his "heart broke" learning about the abortion reforms.
"What this bill is doing is taking the right to live from the unborn child and it eliminates any hope a father may have to protect his child."
Pastor Dale Stephenson from Crossway Baptist Church said the laws were "morally repugnant".
"If this law is passed it will be illegal to dock the tail of a puppy but legal to kill a fully formed baby."
The rally also heard from an abortion counsellor about the profound effect terminating a child had on women and from a disabled woman about the threat of not being born.
The upper house is set to debate the Abortion Law Reform Bill on Tuesday.
It was passed by the lower house without amendment last month.
