R v Davidson, also known as the Menhennitt ruling, was a significant ruling delivered in the Supreme Court of Victoria on 26 May 1969. It concerned the legality of abortion in the Australian state of Victoria. The ruling was not the end of the case, but rather answered certain questions of law about the admissibility of evidence, so as to allow the trial to proceed. In the ruling, Justice Menhennitt ruled that abortion might be lawful if necessary to protect the physical or mental health of the woman, provided that the danger involved in the abortion did not outweigh the danger which the... abortion was designed to prevent. It was the first ruling on the legality of abortion in any part of Australia. The principles put forward by Justice Menhennitt have since been drawn upon in other parts of the country. Charles Davidson, a medical doctor, was charged with four counts of unlawfully using an instrument to procure the miscarriage of a woman, and one count of conspiring to do the same, offences prohibited in the Victorian Crimes Act 1958. When Justice Menhennitt gave this ruling, the trial had been going for eight days.
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