Pro-choice campaigners have started a vigil outside the Cairns courthouse in far north Queensland just before the trial for a couple charged over an illegal abortion.

Across the whole country, Australian women rallied on Saturday in support of a young Queensland couple facing trial over a home abortion.

Sergie Brennan and his partner Tegan Leach are due to appear in the Cairns District Court tomorrow. He is also charged with supplying a drug to induce a miscarriage in 2008.

Leach has been alleged to procure an abortion and vigil organizer Dr Heather McNamee says that abortion law reform is required.

She said, “The fact that this case has got this far is an absolute disgrace and is totally out of keeping with society norms, where 14,000 women are having abortions.”

Dr Carole Ford from the group Pro-Choice Cairns says that the law is archaic and must be altered. She said, “The English model on which it was based was removed from English law 40 years ago, so that you have free and accessible abortion in England but we don't have it here.”