Tasmania's new abortion laws will help remove the stigma around the procedure, the state's health minister says.
Minister Michelle O'Byrne's private members bill to remove abortion from Tasmania's criminal code has resulted in the state becoming the third jurisdiction in Australia to do so, joining Victoria and the ACT.
Ms O'Byrne said abortion should be dealt with as a health matter, not a criminal matter.
"It brings our laws into the 21st century, into line with community expectations and into line with the overwhelming majority of medical, legal and human rights opinion," Ms O'Byrne said in a statement.
"Importantly, it will also reduce the stigma around what is always an incredibly difficult and complex decision.
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"Women should not have to make such a decision with the threat - real or imagined - of criminal charges."
The Tasmanian Legislative Council voted by a nine-to-five margin to allow terminations up to 16 weeks with the woman's consent, and after that if two doctors agreed on medical or psychological grounds.
Doctors opposed to abortion will be required to give women a list of those willing to perform the procedure.
The bill introduces "access zones" that make it unlawful to protest, film or intimidate patients within 150 metres of a clinic.
The legislation was passed on what is likely to be the last sitting day of Tasmania's parliament before next year's state election.
It is the one social reform bill with which the Labor-Green government has had success, after failing to have same-sex marriage and voluntary euthanasia bills passed in recent months.
Conservative Christian groups opposed all the reforms.
FamilyVoice Tasmania spokesman Jim Collins said the abortion law could lead to less counselling and more pressure on women to terminate pregnancies.
"The bill decriminalises abortion but criminalises well-grounded medical or conscientious objection to the destruction of unborn human babies," Mr Collins said.
