A Sydney paramedic has described the trauma of frightened and desperate women who felt they had no other choice but to harm themselves to end their pregnancies.
Tess Oxley has spoken publicly in support of the Reproductive Health Reform Bill 2019 to dispel the misconception that decriminalising abortion in NSW was a semantic exercise.
Tess Oxley has seen women "who can’t see any way out of dire, desperate situations but to try to end their pregnancy themselves in the most dangerous, heartbreaking ways".Credit: Renee Nowytarger
She said it was fundamental to protecting vulnerable women who lack the finances and support to access the medical procedure.
"I’ve seen women who can’t see any way out of dire, desperate situations but to try to end their pregnancy themselves in the most dangerous, heartbreaking ways," she said.
Miss Oxley is an emergency health worker caring for a predominantly low socio-economic, multicultural community where abortion can be a social taboo and prohibitively expensive.
She described responding to a call for help from a woman with abdominal pain who was at home with her children in south-west Sydney.
The woman initially said she had locked herself out of the house and had fallen trying to climb through a window, but something about the case didn’t sound right.
With time and support, the woman told Miss Oxley that she had deliberately injured herself trying to end her pregnancy as her children watched TV.
"I just can’t think of what it could take to feel you had to throw yourself multiple times from a height in a bathroom with the sound of cartoon chatter going in the next room," Miss Oxley said.
"The devastation and the crying … that she felt she was finally able to tell someone what she had to do and why; for the simple fact that she didn’t feel that she was able to continue with a pregnancy and didn’t feel she had any other option or support.
"She felt she couldn't tell anyone what she was going through and how it was affecting her mental health and all of the fears she had.
"These are jobs that stay with you and you never forget that pain that you have had to sit by and see," Miss Oxley said.
She and her colleagues have treated women who have tried to end pregnancies by overdosing on prescription medications and other harrowing cases of self harm that the Herald has chosen not to publish.
The damage extends beyond the physical consequences to mental anguish and family breakdowns that are "just horrible and heartbreaking to have to see", Miss Oxley said.
These were extreme cases on the spectrum of harms experienced by women who struggle to access safe abortions.
But even the handful of cases she had witnessed were too many, Miss Oxley said.
"These are the situations in a way we are lucky to have heard about, that we can then try and provide support and try and provide services," she said.
She suspected there were many more cases that did not come to the attention of healthcare workers "and the devastating continuing consequences of these decisions they're forced into making currently is horrifying".
NSW is the only state not to have reformed its criminal abortion laws.
The bill - co-sponsored by 15 MPs across the political divide - will be introduced to Parliament on Thursday and debated next week.
It allows abortion on request for women up to 22 weeks' gestation performed by a registered doctor. Women beyond 22 weeks would need the consent of two doctors.
The proposed legislation would excise abortion from the state’s 119-year-old criminal code and create a standalone healthcare act to regulate the procedure.
On Tuesday, former head of the Australian Christian Lobby Lyle Shelton called the new bill to decriminalise abortion "brutal laws".
A new abortion reform bill with multi-partisan support will be introduced to State Parliament. Credit: Edwina Pickles
Miss Oxley said what was "brutal" was limiting women’s access to safe pregnancy termination.
"Putting these women through so much [danger], pain and devastation is brutal," she said.
Women’s health and human rights experts say reforming NSW's abortion legislation would remove the risk of criminal prosecution for women and their doctors, and deal a major blow to the stigma, shame and isolation women feel trying to navigate a system that criminalises their reproductive choices.
It would also ease access to publicly supported services for women who can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars and travel long distances for private clinic abortions.
For the women Miss Oxley encountered, it was a combination of these factors that prevented them from accessing safe abortions, and the fear having the "hushed, under-the-table conversations" with their doctors.
"We need to decriminalise abortion in NSW [and] we need to make it a readily available health option for women because this is going to change so many people's lives."
"It's beyond time ... We owe it to women of today and future generations," she said.
Family Planning NSW 1300 658 886
Lifeline 13 11 14