It is unsurprising to Americans by now, how the newly elected president swiftly limited women’s access reproductive autonomy. In just more than a week into his presidency, Donald Trump has already re-established the Ronald Reagan policy called the “global gag rule”.
Access to safe abortion pills and services has always been a social and political fight for women in America, with pregnancy termination being a hot topic for every presidential debate. Of course denying a women’s right to choose has always been a hallmark for Republicans to influence voters from Democrat candidates.
Meanwhile in Australia, a majority of citizens support women’s right to pregnancy termination (80%), however the reality of abortive rights in the country tell a much different story than what the survey speaks. Therefore, there is a definite gap between what is been said and what is legislated. Pro-Choice women in Australia have called to change abortive laws especially in North South Wales and Queensland.
Restrictive laws in Australia
The country had its own gag rule when the former prime minister had made a deal with the conservative Tasmanian senator in 1996; that made out women’s bodies to be an instrument – something expendable to placate the political crossbencher.
Despite being a pro-choice country, Australia has a number of restrictions that prohibit women from accessing abortive services. It is only through the ACT, that women can access legal, on demand termination. Both Tasmania and Victoria have legalized pregnancy cancellation but provide only conditional services based on the gestational limit. Meanwhile South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia have only legalized it based on specific caveats. In Queensland and New South Wales, pregnancy termination remains criminalized.
Queensland’s position
While majority in Queensland support women rights to abortion, the reality is vastly different. An influential family planning organization in Queensland opined that due to lack of information about birth control, isolated areas (lack of access), domestic abuse, coercion, imposition of the healthcare professional’s beliefs are some of the elements that keep women from seeking abortive services.
New South Wales restrictions
According to one of the many activist fighting for women’s rights in New South Wales, there are three major drawbacks to abortive rights. The first one being legal restrictions which forces women to seek referrals as well as physical/administrative access to any providers. The second being location- as NSW region doesn’t offer many choices in clinics. Meanwhile the third restriction is that there are no public hospitals where women can buy abortion pill or seek surgery.
Medical abortion in Australia
It seems bizarre, but terminations done medically (with abortion pills) which accounts for 100% of pregnancy cancellations in Norway and 2/3rd of United Kingdom, are only used up to 23% in Australia. Due to legal requirements in Queensland, to buy abortion pills, the utilization of them is lesser than surgical ones. Furthermore, as access to abortive medication can only be done if the women is able to identify the pregnancy in the very initial stages, the amount of women terminating medically is really low.