‘It wasn’t that long ago when two obstetricians told me abortion went against their religion’

This story is part of the August 28 edition of Sunday Life.See all 15 stories.

Watching the fallout related to the United States Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion, the founder of Western Australians for Safe Access Zones, Jessica Williams, felt sick to her stomach.
“I’ve accessed abortion services both in Australia and in the US so I know first-hand that everything women experience here mirrors what we see over there, only on a smaller scale,” she says as she discusses what she calls the “anti-choice” picketers who harass women outside clinics as they try to access reproductive health services.

Despite being decriminalised in all Australian states and territories (most recently in South Australia in 2021), barriers to abortion access – and challenges relating to stigma – remain common, particularly in regional and remote areas. Protesters placarding outside clinics are but one issue.

Here, three women open up about the challenges they faced accessing an abortion.

“Two obstetricians told me it went against their religion”

Trying to access services in her regional town was as far from streamlined as it could get for Sabrina*, now a 35-year-old administrative assistant.

“I was in bad shape when I discovered that I was pregnant at the age of 21. Depression, stemming from childhood poverty and an inability to see a way
out of that, had led to questionable decision-making and heavy drug use.

I was working at Subway, earning just enough to cover rent in a share house. There was no way I was capable of looking after another human – I was barely able to look after myself.

I went to see my GP – the same one who said I didn’t qualify for Medicare-subsidised mental health assistance because my drug use was my ‘own fault’ – and he gave me a referral to see an obstetrician. That obstetrician angrily told me that he ‘didn’t do that kind of thing’. I was sent to another and this time I was told that while he didn’t believe in abortion and that it went against his religion and God’s will, he would do it because that was his job.

He then spent the rest of the appointment trying to convince me to carry on with the pregnancy and adopt the baby out, before performing an ultrasound and making me study the heartbeat. I was so young that I went along with it, but looking back on it now fills me with fury.

Some time after the abortion –something I’ve never regretted – I packed up my life, spent six years travelling and working on organic farms around Australia where I gained essential life skills, and cleaned up my act. I was able to create a better life for myself and climb out of depression and drug use and I’m so thankful that I had the opportunity to do that.

I don’t think Australian women are frightened enough about what’s going on with the subordination of women globally. The patriarchal control of women’s sexuality has been going on for thousands of years and what happens in the United States tends to spread tentacles throughout the West.

Some women are concerned. I know of some groups now teaching women to do menstrual extraction as a sort of backup plan and it’s terrifying that we’re back in this space. That fear and anger needs to go mainstream.”

“I had to travel three hours to access abortion services”

Turned away by her local GP, Ashleigh*, now a 37-year-old business owner, had to find a clinic that would help.

“They say one-night stands never end well but I give my first one – at the age of 19 – a 10/10 for bad experiences. We used a condom and I was on the pill, yet I still managed to get pregnant.

Devastation doesn’t come close to describing how I felt when the pregnancy test turned positive in front of my GP. Immediately my thoughts turned to, ‘Oh my God, I’m about to turn 20 and I’m going to have a baby at my 21st.’

And then I started thinking about how, as a second-year university student, I had next to no money to look after another human and how I was the first person in my family to go to university in the first place.

I asked my GP what termination services were available and he recoiled, insisting he ‘wouldn’t do that’ and that doing so would go against his ‘beliefs’. We lived in a rural Victorian town so it’s not like I had plenty of options.

I’d heard from local gossip there was a travelling doctor who came to town to perform terminations every so often, but waiting it out in the hope that it would happen just wasn’t an option.

In the end it took the help of some friends and a whole lot of searching online before I found a clinic in Melbourne – more than three hours’ drive away – that could assist. I was broke and had to find ways to cobble together enough cash to pay for the transport, for the three doctors who had to sign off on it since I didn’t have that all-important referral from my GP, the abortion itself, and a hotel to stay in after the procedure. Having to travel to access something that should have been available closer to home was both physically and mentally traumatic.

I went to the protest marches in July – not only out of solidarity with women in the United States but because of the challenges we still face in our country. There’s still so much shame around abortion. I’m a successful woman in my 30s talking about something that happened almost 20 years ago and I’m still not using my full name. If I’d been prevented from having a legal abortion, I would have found a way to have an illegal – and potentially unsafe – one.”

“My husband’s family disowned us”

Mother of two Eleanor* was able to access medical services, but it’s what happened next that really threw her.

“For as long as I can remember, I saw myself having three children. Having the first two, both girls, was easy. But it took more than five years and two miscarriages to conceive baby number three. We were thrilled.

My husband bought a box of cupcakes to take to the ultrasound so we could celebrate, but instead we discovered our baby wasn’t developing as he should. Further testing revealed he had a chromosomal abnormality, plus issues with his heart that would see him in and out of hospital for multiple surgeries.

Doctors, as well as the counsellor assigned to my case, said they couldn’t see a great outcome for him. They suggested termination.

As an older, married mother – I was 38 – I didn’t think I would ever be put in this position. My first thought was ‘no way!’ But after processing what continuing with the pregnancy would mean for our family, I realised it was the kindest choice I could make.

I didn’t want to be in a situation where our girls never got what they needed because all of their parents’ time and money was spent on their brother. I hated the idea that they would one day have to take care of him, but more than anything I couldn’t stand the idea of knowing, loving and then losing our son after a few months or short years.

My doctor made all the relevant appointments, including counselling sessions, so I was well looked after. My challenges came on the home front; although my husband was supportive and agreed that this was the right decision for us, his deeply religious parents took it badly. They bombarded us with pro-life literature and told us they would ‘pray for our souls’. After the abortion, they went silent, breaking off all contact.

More than a decade on, I know I made the right choice. If I had been forced to continue with the pregnancy I would have stopped working. And without two incomes, plus huge medical bills, I imagine we would have been broke and stressed all the time. It wasn’t a nice decision to have to make, but I’m forever relieved that I was given the choice to decide our future.”

*Last names have been withheld.

To discuss your options, talk with your doctor or call Pregnancy, Birth and Baby on 1800 882 436.

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