Gina Rushton

The Guardian • 14th July 2020

Abortion drugs remain inaccessible, unsafe and unaffordable for many Australian women | Gina Rushton

It has been 24 years since the federal government chose the partial privatisation of Telstra over the rights of Australian women to safely terminate a pregnancy with abortion drugs. In 1996, anti-abortion independent Brian Harradine, who held the...

Buzzfeed • 6th February 2020

Australian Doctors Can Already Turn Away Women Seeking Contraception Or An Abortion. What Will The Religious Discrimination Bill Do?

Doctors in Australia can already object on religious grounds to providing contraception and abortion. In fact, several doctors have signs in their offices outlining that they will not see patients about contraception, abortion, sterilisation or...

Buzzfeed • 20th December 2019

These Signs Show Doctors Can Already Refuse To See Women Wanting The Pill Or An Abortion In Australia

The Australian government is pushing ahead with its proposed religious discrimination laws, and doctors and lawyers are concerned the legislation could allow practitioners to deny or delay medical care when it comes to reproductive health. But as...

Buzzfeed • 4th September 2019

Women Are Finding Abortion Flyers In The Mail And Don't Know Who To Complain To

Anonymously authored anti-abortion flyers that compare women who have had abortions to Nazis are turning up in letterboxes around Sydney, ahead of a vote on a bill that would decriminalise abortion in New South Wales. The flyers ask "When is it OK to...

Buzzfeed • 4th September 2019

Doctors Say Abortion Bill Amendments Require Them To “Interrogate” Women, And Read Their Minds

It is one of the most supported pieces of legislation ever to be introduced into the state’s parliament — yet anti-abortion politicians are proposing amendment after amendment to the bill that would remove abortion from the New South Wales Crimes...

Buzzfeed • 30th July 2019

This Woman Advertised Her Illegal Abortion In A 1970s Newspaper. She's Been Fighting For Change Ever Since

Wendy McCarthy was one of 80 women who put their names and the fact that they'd illegally terminated pregnancies in a full page advertisement in a national newspaper in the early 1970s. “We wanted to provoke the cops because we thought if it is...

Buzzfeed • 11th July 2019

Women In Regional Australia Will Have To Drive For Hours To Get An Abortion

Hundreds of women seeking surgical terminations in regional New South Wales will now have to go to Canberra, as the service they were accessing in Victoria will no longer take them as patients.

Buzzfeed • 4th June 2019

This Catholic Schoolgirl Is Leading A March For Reproductive Rights

Sydney teenager Bella Ziade created a Facebook event to march for reproductive rights two weeks ago when her timeline was "blowing up" with news that conservative lawmakers across the United States were purging abortion services from their...

Buzzfeed • 3rd April 2019

Women Are Crossing The Border To Take Two Pills In A State With Better Abortion Access

“We have had a significant number of women getting to our service after their NSW GP has told them abortion is illegal,” Orr said. “I am in Victoria and our abortion law reform makes it very clear to me that if a woman comes in with an unplanned...

Buzzfeed • 19th March 2019

This Is How Hard It Is To Access Contraception And Abortion In Regional NSW

Ellen — a pseudonym to protect her privacy — grew up Wagga Wagga in the Riverina region of New South Wales and says a "problematic" and "stunted" attitude to reproductive and sexual health has long prevailed in the regional city.

Buzzfeed • 7th March 2019

Kerryn Phelps Says The Liberal and Labor Parties Need To Speak Up About Abortion

"I would urge the major parties to consider a policy on reproductive rights, including a national approach to the safe and legal termination of pregnancy, in the lead up to the next election," Phelps told BuzzFeed News. "I will be encouraging a...

Buzzfeed • 28th February 2019

A Woman Was Turned Away From A Hospital After A Failed Medical Abortion

A woman in regional NSW has been turned away from her closest hospital and forced to drive six hours to another hospital for a minor operation after a failed medical abortion. Sophie — a pseudonym to protect her privacy — found out she was pregnant...

Buzzfeed • 3rd February 2019

This Video Shows An Anti-Abortion Picketer Offering A Woman Help With Immigration If She "Keeps The Baby"

"I learnt that one of the things they do is specifically target people of colour and migrant patients who are trying to access the clinic," the 24-year-old Chinese-Australian told BuzzFeed News. "[The patients] are told that if they keep their baby,...

Buzzfeed • 1st February 2019

This Church-Funded Cafe Is Raising Money For The Anti-Abortion Clinic Next Door

Online reviews of Esencia cafe in the NSW border town of Albury praise the "top notch" hot chocolate and "divine cheesecakes" , sold to raise funds "for a good cause". But it isn't clear whether the customers know they are topping up a fund to buy a...

Buzzfeed • 4th February 2019

This Woman Didn't Know Abortion Was A Crime When She Had One. Now She's Fighting To Decriminalise It

A woman and her doctor can be convicted for an unlawful abortion in NSW, but case law has established that abortion is lawful in the state if the doctor has an honest opinion that continuing the pregnancy would be seriously harmful to the health of...

Buzzfeed • 1st February 2019

Women Are Being Handed Plastic Foetuses By Protesters Outside A Fertility Clinic

But over the past six months the anti-abortion demonstrators have employed a "shameful" new tactic in an attempt to dissuade patients seeking abortions, abortion rights advocate Liz Marmo told BuzzFeed News. "They have been handing foetal dolls to...

Buzzfeed • 1st February 2019

This Court Case Shows The Risks Of Abortion Remaining In The NSW Crimes Act

In 1994 a young woman visited a NSW medical practice to confirm her unwanted pregnancy. Five different doctors at the clinic each told the woman, who came to be known by her initials CES, she was not pregnant. By the time the pregnancy was finally...

Buzzfeed • 2nd February 2019

We Went To The "Day Of The Unborn Child" Anti-Abortion Rights Rally

"It is about saving babies' lives, because every life matters and even science says that," Prtenjaca told BuzzFeed News. He attended the rally with an embroidered image of St Patrick – "the Arnold Schwarzenegger of patron saints" – on a pole. Global...

Buzzfeed • 2nd February 2019

This Is What It Is Like To Be Harassed Outside An Abortion Clinic

Albury woman Enisa Bennett fell pregnant to her fiance in 2014. Three months earlier she had been raped by a friend, the 29-year-old told BuzzFeed News. "When I fell pregnant I was still dealing with the trauma of the rape, struggling to get out of...

Buzzfeed • 4th February 2019

These Labor Women Who Terminated Pregnancies Could Change How Their Party Deals With Abortion

"It was a very different time and I was 19 and very naive, so I had no idea because I didn't want to discuss it and talk openly about it," the now 46-year-old Canberra mother told BuzzFeed News. "It was all so clandestine and terrible."