Gina Rushton

Missing Perspectives • 22nd January 2024

Endometriosis: The Silent Rage and Chronic Pain

A chorus speak of the horrific pain, the organs that fused together in adhesions, the butchered operations, the fraught sex, the bowel complications, the side effects of treatment.

The Sydney Morning Herald • 19th December 2023

Why are doctors still telling women with endometriosis to become pregnant?

One of the first times endometriosis was mentioned in Australian media was in a 1949 article in the Catholic Weekly. Doctors in the piece prescribed pregnancy as a treatment for “one of the most crippling of female diseases”, which they claimed was...

The Guardian • 8th December 2023

Mothers, of course, have abortions. And it’s time to accept they are the experts in their own lives | Gina Rushton

There are mothers and then there are women who have abortions. It might be the most powerful and pervasive myth anti-abortion lobbyists, politicians and their disciples have ever authored. When every termination becomes a decision to reject...

Crikey • 28th July 2023

Labor is running out of excuses not to solve Australia’s biggest abortion access issue

This month marked a major win for reproductive healthcare in Australia. The Therapeutic Goods Administration finally made it easier to access abortion pills by following expert advice and allowing doctors and pharmacists without specialist...

The Guardian • 29th October 2020

Women who require late-term abortions are being demonised in Australia – again | Gina Rushton

It wouldn’t be a debate about abortion without a flagrant misinformation campaign about terminations after the first trimester. A bill to decriminalise abortion was this month introduced in South Australia, the last jurisdiction to do so, and...

The Monthly • 1st August 2020

Doula by choice

Late on a Wednesday night in April before Queensland’s coronavirus restrictions had eased, Brisbane grandmother Jo Bolger answered her phone and inadvertently became Australia’s first practising abortion doula. The next morning, she packed her hand...

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...

Crikey • 7th July 2020

The government has improved abortion access during the pandemic. Doctors are fighting to keep it that way

To help women safely access abortion services via telehealth, the government would need only to keep doing what services say it has been for decades: nothing. In March the government introduced temporary Medicare rebates for telehealth appointments...

Crikey • 1st June 2020

The fight for reproductive rights isn’t over in Australia until there’s equity in access

Abortion may be disappearing from criminal codes across Australia, but a lack of access to providers means the fight is far from over. You can see how long these battles have taken in the faces of the women who were on the front line. A few days...

Buzzfeed • 7th May 2020

The Coronavirus Is Showing Up Gaps In Australia’s Abortion Access

Fiona had just survived a brutal bushfire season and moved into a small tin shed with her two toddlers and partner while they built their family home when the coronavirus outbreak hit. “Then I found out I was pregnant,” Fiona — a pseudonym to...

Buzzfeed • 1st May 2020

South Australia Is Waiting On One Man To Decide If Women Have To Travel For Medical Abortions In A Pandemic

In every Australian jurisdiction bar one, women can access medical abortions over telehealth. In South Australia, the law dictates a woman must physically see two different doctors at an approved hospital to get medical abortion pills. Only a handful...

Buzzfeed • 8th April 2020

A Supplier Refused To Fill A Face Mask Order For An Australian Abortion Provider Because They're For "Health Professionals"

Australia's largest abortion provider says its supply of face masks and hand sanitiser for carrying out surgical abortions will only last two more weeks after a number of orders from private personal protective equipment (PPE) providers were cancelled...

Buzzfeed • 1st April 2020

Another Liberal Staffer Shared A Meme About The Coronavirus Saving Lives If It Takes Out Planned Parenthood

The journalists at BuzzFeed News are proud to bring you trustworthy and relevant reporting about the coronavirus. To help keep this news free, become a member and sign up for our newsletter, Outbreak Today . An advisor to New South Wales police...

Buzzfeed • 1st April 2020

Abortion Providers Will Be Treated As Essential Health Workers During This Pandemic

Multiple state health departments have confirmed that abortion doctors will be exempt from travel restrictions if travelling interstate to carry out surgical abortions, as the procedure is essential, not elective. BuzzFeed News this week revealed up...

Buzzfeed • 24th March 2020

Dozens Of Women Are Waiting For Surgical Abortions As Coronavirus Travel Restrictions Delay Doctors

Up to 80 women on surgical abortion lists around Australia could be left in limbo as doctors fight to be exempt from the new coronavirus travel restrictions to provide vital sexual and reproductive healthcare. Australia's largest abortion provider...

Buzzfeed • 20th February 2020

Women In Cambodia Are Using Facebook Messenger To Access Abortions And Sexual Health Advice

J, who lives in Cambodia’s southern province of Takeo, wasn’t sure who to turn to for advice on her unplanned pregnancy. She couldn’t afford to have another child, and knew she wanted an abortion. “I felt afraid to discuss it with my family but I told...

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

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 • 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 • 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...