Abortion Rights in Australia: Where They Stand After Roe V. Wade Overturned?
The Australian Medical Students' Association (AMSA) is standing strong for equitable access to legal, safe, timely, and compassionate abortion care in Australia at times of increasing deficits in national quality and accessibility.
This has been happening exactly one year after Roe v Wade was overturned in the USA. In this historic case, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that guaranteed the right to an abortion.
How Does the Overturn of Roe v Wade Affect Australia's Abortion Rights?
Abortion is an important and emergency health service. Hence, access to abortion services is a basic human right being an integral part of reproductive well-being (). Though legal access to abortion remains in all Australian states and territories, it is available as highly inequitable and even lethal in some circumstances. This is due to the negligence of integrating abortion care into the Australian healthcare system.‘A situation like Roe v Wade may not overturn abortion rights in Australia, but significant barriers to accessing abortion need to be reformed.#abortion #human rights #pregnancy’
The barriers to accessing abortion services push pregnant people to seek unsafe abortion methods - either by self-inducing abortion or seeking abortion clandestinely, all these contribute to maternal mortality.
While the overturning of Roe vs. Wade has emerged from the American context, AMSA believes it is important to be reflective of the increasingly hostile nature of abortion care in Australia, especially for specific communities.
Aboriginals, different sexual orientations, and culturally and linguistically diverse communities continue to face systemic barriers and decreased quality of access to abortion care. The recent Senate Inquiry into Universal Access to Reproductive Healthcare has made many recommendations for addressing inequity and inaccessibility in Australian abortion care systems ().
AMSA reflects the recommendations made in the "Ending the Postcode Lottery" report in response to the Senate Inquiry into Universal Access to Reproductive Healthcare.
This report calls upon the Australian Government to mandate abortion training for health professionals and students in the healthcare setting, including gynecology and GP trainees, nurses, nurse practitioners, midwives, pharmacists, and medical students. It is also important to mandate abortion in health curricular, including medicine, nursing, midwifery, and pharmacy.
References:
- An Overview of Medical Abortion for Clinical Practice - (https:journals.lww.com/obgynsurvey/Abstract/2014/01000/An_Overview_of_Medical_Abortion_for_Clinical.16.aspx)
- Barriers to abortion access in Australia before and during the COVID-19 pandemic - (https:www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539521000340?)
Source: Medindia