Australia – To put an end to the abortion wars, we need mass struggle

Issue: 187
1st July 2025
Judy McVey

The global surge of attacks on abortion rights has been a wake-up call for pro-choice activists in Australia.1 In June 2022, thousands rallied in solidarity with women in the United States when Roe v Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court. Many media commentators argued that Australia was different from the US and abortion rights were safe here. After all, between 2002 and 2023, regional governments around the country removed abortion from criminal laws. Decriminalisation reflected community-wide popularity for legal abortion. Polls show that more than 80 percent of Australians believe “abortion should be legal and available in Australia in all circumstances”; anti-abortion sentiment is generally less than 10 percent.2

However, the bigots do not simply acknowledge defeat and disappear. Anti-abortionists inside and outside mainstream parties in Australia were emboldened by the rise of the far right and anti-abortion politics in the US and Europe.

Continued: https://isj.org.uk/abortion-wars-australia/

Improving access to medical abortion in Australian primary care

Primary care providers play an integral part in medical abortion access, but many barriers are preventing uptake of medical abortion provision.

Annika Howells
Issue 25 / 30 June 2025

Access to safe and affordable abortion is essential health care and a human right.

Medical abortion — via administration of the combined mifepristone–misoprostol regimen (MS-2 Step) — is becoming more accessible, thanks to increased access via telehealth models and subsidisation in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

However, medical abortion is still not widely available in primary care, and geographic and financial barriers remain.

Continued: https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2025/25/improving-access-to-medical-abortion-in-australian-primary-care/

30.06.2025

Commentary

belief-based care denial

conscientious objection

Dr Greta Skahill

medication abortion

mifepristone and misoprostol

MS-2 Step

primary care providers and abortion

Australia – Women choosing abortions to keep work visas, slavery inquiry told

By Emily Doak and Jess Scully
ABC Riverina
June 19, 2025

An obstetrician has told a parliamentary inquiry that hundreds of migrant women seek abortions with her each year to avoid breaching their visa conditions.

Dr Trudi Beck, a GP based in NSW Riverina city of Wagga Wagga, told the inquiry an "unseen population" of migrant women was seeking abortions they would not normally want.

Continued: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-19/modern-slavery-abortion-rates-palm-scheme/105427330

19.06.2025

News

Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioners

Berries Australia

Dr Trudi Beck

migrants and abortion

Pacific Australia Labour Mobility

Australia – General practice nurses could be key to better contraception and abortion care

19 June 2025
Monash University

A significant opportunity to increase women’s access to the most effective form of contraception and abortion care is being missed in Australia, according to new research from Monash University’s SPHERE Centre of Research Excellence.

A comprehensive study, published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, reveals practice nurses – registered or enrolled nurses working within a general practice setting – are underutilised when it comes to advice, and treatment, for patients about long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs). A second study from the same research, also published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, reveals similar results. The online survey involved about 500 practice nurses, most of whom were women working as registered nurses in metropolitan settings.

Continued: https://www.monash.edu/medicine/news/latest/2025-articles/general-practice-nurses-could-be-key-to-better-contraception-and-abortion-care

19.06.2025

Research

Dr Sharon James

Journal of Advanced Nursing

LARCs

long-acting reversible contraceptives

Monash University

Therapeutic Goods Administration

Australia – How abortion is weaponised in family court

A recent change to the Family Law Act may still fall short of protecting women from being cross-examined about their sexual health history.

By Madison Griffiths
June 14 – 20, 2025

In the mid 1990s, Louisa* – barely an adult – made two decisions to spare herself a lifetime of pain. On two separate occasions, she slipped quietly through the gates of a concealed clinic, careful to avoid the protesters gathered out the front. Louisa had weighed up her options and knew that acquiring abortion care was her best bet. She wasn’t yet financially or emotionally fit to become a mother. Nor could she bear to be tethered to the man who had got her pregnant.

Almost two decades later, in 2021, Louisa arrived at the Family Law Court in Brisbane’s central business district. She was ready, she thought, to fight for the custody of her then seven-year-old daughter. The last thing she expected was for those choices in her early 20s to be raised in the hearings. On the sixth day, the independent children’s lawyer asked Louisa’s ex-husband if he was aware that, in a previous relationship, she had terminated two pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/health/2025/06/14/how-abortion-weaponised-family-court

Australia – Scott Morrison sought advice to obstruct Nauru asylum seekers from accessing abortions, documents reveal

Advocate claims Abbott government was concerned asylum seekers and refugees were using medical transfers as a back door to get into Australia

Krishani Dhanji
Sat 7 Jun 2025

Scott Morrison overrode medical advice in the case of an asylum seeker in offshore detention trying to access an abortion, and had previously sought advice that would effectively prevent access to terminations entirely, ministerial advice reveals.

Documents released under freedom of information laws show Morrison, in 2014 as immigration minister, had sought advice to deny the transfer of women to a hospital on the Australian mainland to access termination services before 20 weeks’ gestation.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jun/08/scott-morrison-sought-advice-to-obstruct-nauru-asylum-seekers-from-accessing-abortions-documents-reveal-ntwnfb

07.06.2025

News

David Manne

Jana Favero

medical transfer from Nauru

Peter Dutton

Philip Moss

Refugee Council of Australia

Home abortions and hiding pregnancy, research reveals hard realities for migrant workers

By national regional affairs reporter Lucy Barbour and Cath McAloon
June 1, 2025

An Australian researcher has uncovered shocking accounts of workers employed on temporary visas hiding pregnancies, attempting home terminations, or spending thousands of dollars to access abortions.

Australian National University's Lindy Kanan has been investigating the experiences of workers from Pacific Island countries and Timor Leste employed in Australia under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme (known as PALM).

Continued: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-02/migrant-workers-face-pregnancy-discrimination-barriers-abortion/105337020

01.06.2025

Commentary

Australian Women's Health Alliance

Lindy Kanan

migrant workers and abortion

Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme

PALM migrant worker scheme

Australia – Dollars, distance and political power: Inside the barriers to abortion access

By national regional affairs reporter Lucy Barbour and Lucy Sweeney

May 31, 2025

Every week, Australians seeking a legal form of health care are forced to traverse their home states and territories — sometimes crossing borders — to access an abortion.

Depending on where someone lives, and how far into the pregnancy they are, the path to this time-critical procedure can be obstructed by hurdles that amplify fear, trauma and financial disadvantage.

Continued: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-01/abortion-access-in-australia-financial-and-regional-disadvantage/105291406

Hate over love: conservative influencers have brought angrier anti-abortion politics to Australia

May 27, 2025
Prudence Flowers

After two decades of abortion decriminalisation across Australian states and territories, there has been a sudden surge of anti-abortion activity online, in the streets and in parliaments.

Since 2022, right-to-life bills were introduced federally and in Queensland and were voted on in South Australia. During the 2024 Queensland state election, one politician vowed to introduce a conscience vote on abortion to return it to criminal law.

Continued https://theconversation.com/hate-over-love-conservative-influencers-have-brought-angrier-anti-abortion-politics-to-australia-257444

UK – State and federal MPs describe death threats and vile abuse in wake of Joanna Howe’s anti-abortion campaign

Representatives around the country say third parties sent abusive messages after they were targeted for their stance on abortion

Tory Shepherd
Wed 21 May 2025

State and federal MPs around the country say they and their staff have received death threats from third parties amid controversy generated by the self-described “assertiveness” of the anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe.

Howe, an expert in migration law at the University of Adelaide, has campaigned for anti-abortion laws in various state parliaments, and this month organised a rally – attended by the former prime minister Tony Abbott – against NSW reforms to improve access to services. She said on social media people “need to be hysterical” about the bill, which represented what she called “an extreme, radical takeover of our country”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/21/state-and-federal-mps-describe-death-threats-and-vile-abuse-in-wake-of-joanna-howes-anti-abortion-campaign-ntwnfb