Abortion access has recently been thrown centre stage in this federal election after Labor’s most recent announcement – mandating state-run hospitals to provide abortions for free. However, unless you’ve sought out an abortion yourself, you might not know much about what the current process is to get one.

So in this edition of Out of the Loop, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of someone with an unwanted pregnancy. Where would you go? Who is qualified to provide an abortion? And how much would it cost?

Depending on your age, health, postcode, and financial status, you might undergo:

• a surgical abortion (day procedure),
• a medical abortion in person (at an abortion clinic or led by an accredited GP), or
• via telemedicine (requires woman to live within 2 hours of an emergency department)

So where would access these services? Well, this largely depends on how much money you have, as provision of abortion is highly privatised. Marie Stopes is Australia’s largest independent provider of abortion services, with 17 clinics across the country. At these clinics, costs of a tele-abortion and medical abortion start at $290 and $440 respectively. Public services are only found in a few large centre facilities, and tend to suffer from high demand and long waiting lists.

Another option would to visit your GP – as long as they have completed the mandatory training that allows them to prescribe the medical abortion drug, mifepristone. However, only 5% of Australia’s 32,000 GPs have this training. Even if you manage to find a GP who is a registered provider, access to the drug also requires you to find a pharmacy that is registered to dispense it.

Access can also vary greatly depending on where you live, because abortion laws are determined by the state and territory. Abortion remains illegal in NSW and the timing of which you can recieve an abortion can vary.

Scott Morrison has said that “these are matters dealt with by the state and territories”. But the federal government does control one thing that has an enormous impact on abortion access: funding. Funding for hospitals, medicare rebates, PBS restrictions, telemedicine – the list goes on.

While the federal election can’t change whether abortion is legal or not, a committed federal government can help destigmatise abortion, improve access, and make it a less daunting, bureaucratic, and expensive procedure for women who need it.

#VoteGlobalHealth

By AMSA Reproductive Rights 2019
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