Abortion Care is Health Care

Since 1990, abortion care in Australia has been primarily provided by the private sector, excluding women who are marginalized due to poverty, rural and remote residency, lack of Medicare entitlement, racism, and other factors. Barbara Baird's book "Abortion Care is Health Care" traces the changes in the private sector, the long struggle to make medical abortion available, and the nationwide decriminalization of abortion since 2002. It introduces readers to the champions and everyday healthcare workers and activists who have persisted in their commitment to make abortion care available.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 30 November 2023
Publisher: Melbourne University Press

Since 1990, Barbara Baird has been chronicling the history of abortion care in Australia. Baird describes a system of predominantly private provision, which has excluded women who are already marginalized by poverty, rural and remote residency, lack of Medicare entitlement, racism, and other factors, against the backdrop of a reticent public sector.

Baird traces changes in the private sector, the long struggle to make medical abortion available, and the nationwide decriminalization of abortion since 2002. Baird introduces readers to the large cast of champions and everyday healthcare workers and activists who have persisted in their commitment to make abortion care available when governments and the medical profession have so often failed.

Drawing on oral history interviews conducted nationwide with abortion-providing doctors, nurses, counselors, and managers, women's health workers, academics, and community activists, Baird brings a critical feminist analysis to create a sophisticated historical narrative of abortion provision over the last thirty years.

Weight: 392g
Dimension: 234 x 154 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780522878400