Imported stigma: Roe v Wade distorts Australia’s reproductive rights fight

Thousands of people across Australia took to the streets in July to protest against the United States Roe v Wade ruling in a display of solidarity and resistance. Then came a slew of articles posing versions of the same question: could it happen here?

As experts patiently explained to reporters, we are not going to wake up one morning and find each state and territory has unpicked decriminalisation and moved abortion from health legislation back into criminal law. Abortion rights here are not, as they were in the US, enshrined as an implied constitutional right.

But new research reveals how what is happening in the US is affecting the way Australians feel about abortion.

The Australian Abortion Stigma Study, from the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University, has found primary news sources from US social media distort people’s perceptions about abortion in Australia.

The online survey of more than 70,000 and interviews with young people were undertaken before the Roe v Wade decision but during a well-publicised attack on abortion rights in Texas.

The renewed focus on the legal status of abortion in Australia, a country where it has been all but completely decriminalised, disguises the biggest remaining battle here — equitable access — while taking us a step back when it comes to stigma.

Researcher Kari Vallury says most of the content about abortion that participants had access to was American and framed abortion as inflammatory. 

“It was teaching them that abortion is really political and contentious,” she says. “On the one hand they were able to say ‘that is America and it is so different over there’ and at the same time they had internalised a lot of what they’d seen and read, so when it came time to have or consider having an abortion they were fearful of protesters and other social consequences”.

Many of the sample respondents (65%) anticipated that people who have an abortion are likely to experience harassment. In reality, unlike in the US, Australian patients are physically safer than they ever have been from protesters as safe-access zones protect clinics in most jurisdictions — so a media diet marinating in images of angry religious picketers in America just doesn’t reflect the reality here. 

“Young people in particular are learning that there are social consequences related to seeking and providing abortion from American media content, so it was essentially teaching them what was and wasn’t likely to happen,” she says.

“Many said they wouldn’t dare say anything online about abortion or they’d get piled on and experience harassment, but it was primarily from American conversations and comments sections that they were learning all of this.”

The internet does not have borders, but the study found — as others have — that at least in Australia most people support access to abortion care without restrictions. When the survey was weighted to reflect the whole Australian population, 97% of non-religious participants and 87% of people who were religious but rarely attended religious services supported abortion.

Who were the people most likely to think Australians were anti-abortion? It was specifically those who attended religious services at least once a week and other factors including voting Liberal or National, having poor abortion-related knowledge, scoring highly on measures of sexism, and, of course, never having had an abortion. 

In March 2019, while taking media on a tour of Australia’s notorious offshore detention facilities on Christmas Island, then prime minister Scott Morrison spoke about Labor’s proposed abortion policy. He was disappointed the issue had even been raised ahead of an election, which he said was typically a “politically charged context”.

He stood in an island prison for a press conference estimated to cost taxpayers $2000 a minute, dismissing something his party had politicised as too political to discuss: “I don’t find that debate one that tends to unite Australians and I certainly am not going to engage in the political elements of that discussion because frankly, I don’t think it is good for our country.”

Data was released weeks later that confirmed what previous surveys had shown: most Australians, including most who voted for his government, believed abortion should be more accessible.

There is a cost to reinforcing the notion that abortion is too prickly to discuss — for patients, for potential healthcare providers and for policymakers. Stigma feeds on stigma.

The gut-wrenching revocation of basic reproductive autonomy in the US made plain that these rights can be fragile and provisional, too hard to win and too easy to lose. The struggle for access, justice and equity in reproductive healthcare in Australia is of course still stigmatised, even though most people with uteruses use contraception and up to a quarter of them will have an abortion.

These battles will continue to be hampered by political cowardice and muddied by misinformation, but the ugly rhetoric here and abroad should never overshadow the reality: most Australians support the right for people to safely and legally access a common medical procedure without shame.

Do you, unlike Scott Morrison, believe a national abortion policy would be good for our country? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.