AFMW Member Professor Deborah Bateson, Professor of Practice at the University of Sydney and former Medical Director of Family Planning New South Wales was interviewed for this inSight+ article.
Extract
LEGISLATIVE support for abortion is nationwide in Australia, to varying degrees, but that has limited value if there are not enough doctors willing to prescribe medical abortion, or public hospitals willing to provide access to surgical abortion, say experts.
With the overturn of Roe v Wade by the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) last week, power to determine abortion access in the US has reverted to the states, with abortion bans in Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Alabama coming into immediate effect. Louisiana’s ban was temporarily blocked by a District Court judge. Idaho, Tennessee and Texas will implement abortion bans within 30 days of the SCOTUS decision. Abortion bans in Mississippi, North Dakota and Wyoming go into effect when legislative bodies certify the SCOTUS ruling.
Effectively people needing abortions in those states will be forced to either travel to a state where it is legal, carry the baby to term, or risk an illegal abortion with all the health and legal consequences that may entail.
So, surely Australian people needing abortion are in a stronger position than their US counterparts? It turns out, not so much.
“We’ve still got big challenges in terms of access,” said Professor Deborah Bateson, Professor of Practice at the University of Sydney and former Medical Director of Family Planning New South Wales.
Dr Philip Goldstone, Executive Director of Medical Services and Medical Director of MSI Australia, agreed.
“Ideally, women should have access to surgical abortion in their local health district through the local hospital, and ideally they should have access to medical abortion through a GP in their local area,” he told InSight+.
But in reality, for people needing abortion services outside the major cities, nothing could be further from the truth.
“There’s an outcry that US women are going to have to travel hundreds of kilometres across two states to access abortion now,” he said.
“Well, our states are bigger in Australia, and there are women that have to travel hundreds of kilometres from, for example, Far North Queensland to Brisbane or from the top of Western Australia down to Perth.
“We have huge ‘abortion deserts’ in Australia.”
Continue reading the full InSight+ article…
(photo credit – inSight+)
Associate Professor Magdalena Simonis AM is the Immediate Past President of the AFMW (2020-2023), former President of VMWS (2013 & 2017-2020) and current AFMW National Coordinator (2024-2026). She is a full time clinician who also holds positions on several not for profit organisations, driven by her passion for bridging gaps across the health sector. She is a leading women’s health expert, keynote speaker, climate change and gender equity advocate and government advisor. Magda is member of The Australian Health Team contributing monthly articles.
Magdalena was awarded a lifetime membership of the RACGP for her contributions which include past chair of Women in General Practice, longstanding contribution to the RACGP Expert Committee Quality Care, the RACGP eHealth Expert Committee. She is regularly invited to comment on primary care research though mainstream and medical media and contributes articles on various health issues through newsGP and other publications.
Magdalena has represented the RACGP at senate enquiries and has worked on several National Health Framework reviews. She is author of the RACGP Guide on Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery and co-reviewer of the RACGP Red Book Women’s Health Chapter, and reviewer of the RACGP White book
Both an RACGP examiner and University examiner, she undertakes general practice research and is a GP Educator with the Safer Families Centre of Research Excellence, which develops education tools to assist the primary care sector identify, respond to and manage family violence . Roles outside of RACGP include the Strategy and Policy Committee for Breast Cancer Network Australia, Board Director of the Melbourne University Teaching Health Clinics and the elected GP representative to the AMA Federal Council. In 2022. she was award the AMA (Vic) Patrick Pritzwald-Steggman Award 2022, which celebrates a doctor who has made an exceptional contribution to the wellbeing of their colleagues and the community and was listed as Women’s Agenda 2022 finalist for Emerging Leader in Health.
Magdalena has presented at the United Nations as part of the Australian Assembly and was appointed the Australian representative to the World Health Organisation, World Assembly on COVID 19, by the Medical Women’s International Association (MWIA) in 2021. In 2023, A/Professor Simonis was included on the King’s COVID-19 Champion’s list and was also awarded a Member (AM) in the General Division for significant service to medicine through a range of roles and to women’s health.
