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.
December 5, 2023
Barbara Baird, Associate Professor, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University
Abortion is now fully legal in every jurisdiction in Australia. Western Australia became the last state to decriminalise it just two months ago, in September 2023. And the Australian population is solidly pro-choice: a 2021 study found 76% of Australians support access to abortion.
Yet access to abortion care here has been described as a “lottery” in a 2023 Senate inquiry report. My research into abortion provision in Australia over the past 30 years doesn’t describe chance, but an inadequate system.
By Melissa Cunningham
August 30, 2021
Surgical terminations have dropped in Australia in recent years as an increasing number of women instead choose to take an abortion pill early in their pregnancy.
A new study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, for the first time examines abortion rates nationally since two oral medications – mifepristone and misoprostol – were added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in 2013.
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