Jamal Hakim, Managing Director of Marie Stopes Australia, has called for redress for women who were sterilised without their consent because of a disability. The call is prompted by revelations from the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with a Disability which, according to Hakim’s information, heard “that children as young as seven were sterilised because of their disability, such as having vision impairments”.

Comments made by Taiwanese Netflix star Mike He made in a 2020 interview have surfaced causing a backlash online.

A 26-year-old British woman with Down Syndrome, Heidi Crowter, recently took the Department of Health and Social Care to court, arguing that part of the UK’s Abortion Act was “discriminatory and violated the European Convention on Human Rights”. 

The number of women undergoing medical abortions has increased more than six-fold since the RU486 abortion pill was listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in 2013. 

Texas has become the first US state to pass a heartbeat bill, after an emergency appeal from abortion providers and others failed in the Supreme Court. The law prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks of pregnancy.

“More lives are lost from violence against women, sex-selection abortion, female infanticide, suicide, egregious maternal mortality, and other sex-linked causes than were lost during all of the wars and civil strife of the 20th century.”

University students at one of Australia’s top universities are only allowed to hear one side of a debate on the complex and multifaceted issue of abortion, because its student association has banned a pro-life group.

The personal stories of women’s experiences following an abortion are rare in our public discourse. As a topic that continues to evoke strong emotions on both sides, there can be a reluctance to give airtime to women’s negative experiences for fear that it could result in abortion laws being wound back or public support for abortion being weakened.

“I want to be able to get married and have a baby. I was told right now in the conservatorship I’m not able to get married or have a baby. I have an IUD inside of myself right now so I don’t get pregnant. I wanted to take the IUD out so I could start trying to have another baby, but this so-called team won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don’t want me to have children, any more children.”

The term “doula” may be unfamiliar to many people but the role itself is an ancient one. Traditionally, a doula would “provide emotional, physical and information support to women throughout their pregnancy, birth and the early postpartum.” Modern doulas are professionally trained to equip them for this work.