As in Canada, there is very limited common law specifically relating to extremely preterm infants. How the courts might act if presented with questions concerning life-sustaining treatment for such infants may be derived by considering the legal history of the extent of parental and physician autonomy over treatment decisions for children, and how the courts might exercise the best interests test for disabled children. Australian law recognizes that once a baby is born alive, that baby becomes a legal person,(369–370) with the full protection of the law. However, in 1988 the National Health and Medical Research Council(371) reported that:

In 1986, in F v. F (unreported, 2 July) Vincent J, in the Supreme Court of Victoria, judged that physicians have a legal obligation to sustain the life of a child without concern for quality of life: “The law does not permit decisions to be made concerning the quality of life nor any assessment of the value of any human life.”(372) But this statement was made in an urgent hearing, and the judge made it clear that he was only dealing with the urgent specific question at hand, which was feeding for the infant, who had spina bifida.