To put an end to the abortion wars, we need mass struggle

The global surge of attacks on abortion rights has been a wake-up call for pro-choice activists in Australia.1 In June 2022, thousands rallied in solidarity with women in the United States when Roe v Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court. Many media commentators argued that Australia was different from the US and abortion rights were safe here. After all, between 2002 and 2023, regional governments around the country removed abortion from criminal laws. Decriminalisation reflected community-wide popularity for legal abortion. Polls show that more than 80 percent of Australians believe “abortion should be legal and available in Australia in all circumstances”; anti-abortion sentiment is generally less than 10 percent.2

However, the bigots do not simply acknowledge defeat and disappear. Anti-abortionists inside and outside mainstream parties in Australia were emboldened by the rise of the far right and anti-abortion politics in the US and Europe. On 16 October 2024, an anti-abortion “born alive” bill to amend the new abortion law was narrowly defeated 9-10 in South Australia (SA). This bill would have meant that women seeking abortions at about 28 weeks could be forced to give birth. Two elections revealed that militant anti-abortion warriors wanted to fire up the abortion wars. Anti-abortionists in Queensland raised the threat of recriminalising abortion during the October 2024 state elections. All but three MPs in the conservative Liberal National Party (LNP) had voted against decriminalising abortion in 2018, including their current anti-abortion leader, David Crisafulli. The party’s anti-abortion credentials hurt the LNP vote, but it won the election. Hundreds of pro-choice supporters marched against the new regional government.

Wary of taking on such a battle immediately, Crisafulli gagged any discussion of abortion in parliament for the next full four-year term. Anti-abortionists hoped that federal conservative MPs of the Liberal National Coalition (referred to as the Coalition, similar to the British Tory Party) would adopt clear anti-abortion policies, promote a wider conservative agenda and win votes in the 3 May 2025 election. Coalition leader Peter Dutton seemed to be carefully positioning for such a role. However, spooked by the Queensland election result, he ruled out making abortion an issue. Then, nothing seemed to work. Unable to differentiate itself from Donald Trump, especially during the first 100 days of the US presidency, the Coalition lost spectacularly, with Dutton even losing his Queensland seat. Some Liberal Party heavyweights argued that their party is perceived as “anti-women”, but not the anti-abortion warriors.

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) won the federal election in an unexpected landslide and, in sharp contrast to the Coalition, a majority of the newly elected ALP MPs are women. The ALP formally supports the “right to choose”, and ALP politicians had led the decriminalisation process in the parliaments of most of the states/territories, but that does not mean our access to abortion health care is safe. The party’s parliamentary record is inconsistent. Two ALP members voted with the Liberals on the “born alive” bill in SA, in a “conscience” vote (which allowed them to oppose party policy). Former ALP prime minister Julia Gillard voted against a bill for marriage equality in 2012 (which had become party policy the year before), delaying the eventual same-sex marriage victory until 2017. There is a major gap between the hopes of supporters (and even their formal policy) and what they are delivering on the ground. The ALP National Platform pledges to ensure relevant services are available and to “strengthen access to sexual and reproductive healthcare”.3 Yet, prime minister Anthony Albanese dumped a stronger pro-choice policy before winning the 2022 election, which insisted on improvement in “accessibility, legality and affordability of surgical and medical terminations…and the provision of abortion in public hospitals”.4 Labor controls the federal health system as well as most state government hospitals, which all share responsibility for reproductive healthcare provision. In 2023, a federal Senate enquiry found access to abortion care was a “postcode lottery”.5 Media reports and whistleblowers revealed “abortion deserts” in the most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), where a study exposed that only three of 220 public hospitals were routinely providing essential termination services.6 Across Labor-controlled Victoria, 67 percent had no surgical abortion providers, 39 percent had no abortion medication dispensing pharmacies and 19 percent had no abortion medication prescribers.7 Albanese has promised a continuation of caution for his second term.

In the wake of the landslide election result, many working-class people will be looking to the ALP to protect reproductive healthcare. The ALP government was reticent in its first term to challenge the Catholic Church and Coalition attacks on abortion rights and trans rights, creating space for right-wing politics. The important difference between Labor and liberal democratic parties is the connection to the trade union movement. The ALP is based on the support of the union officials. A majority of union members vote Labor. This explains the contradictory relationship between Labor and the working class—it is simultaneously a workers’ party in its support base and a capitalist party in its policies. Labor’s commitment to capitalism and parliament means workers cannot rely on it to defend their rights, such as free, safe abortion on demand. On the one hand, in 2024, the then Queensland Labor government introduced 10 days’ paid reproductive leave, including for terminations, for their workforces. In the lead-up to that year’s state election, they campaigned to defend decriminalisation. On the other hand, while some public hospitals were refusing to provide abortion care, the NSW Labor government merely announced a review.

On the left, many are placing their hopes in the Greens­—a social democratic minor party that has the balance of power in the Senate. They have a 12 percent electoral support base and, in the last election, gained votes from Labor in key constituencies. They are proposing “a plan to provide $100 million a year to ensure all public hospitals provide abortion services” and that all Australian workers receive 12 days’ paid reproductive leave when needed.8 The Greens NSW MP Amanda Cohn raised a bill to overcome the “abortion deserts”.9 Although the bill achieved some improvements for access to abortion pills, a proposal was defeated that required conscientious objectors to refer a patient to someone who will provide the service, which is the case in other states’ laws. These initiatives are welcome. However, the Greens’ strategy remains tied to parliamentary campaigns, rather than looking to mass movements outside parliament to force legislative change.

In a crisis-driven society with governments threatening further cuts to health services, abortion care may become more restricted. Tinkering with the laws may not be sufficient to push back the bigots who take advantage of legal loopholes and the chaos in a complex underfunded health system to undermine access to abortion care. We are stronger if we rely on the tradition of pro-choice struggle that has mobilised the social power of the unions, campuses and communities, with mass rallies and union campaigns.

This article first summarises the state of abortion provision in Australia, across both the private and under-funded public sectors—some of which deny abortion care, especially Catholic hospitals. Second, it traces the history of mass support of abortion rights, to show how we got to this point, over years of struggle and in response to demand for abortion care. Third, the article argues that the laws and the current management of healthcare intersect to undermine access to reproductive care. History helps us to understand how abortion law is part of the sexist capitalist social structure which benefits the capitalist class. Fourth, it argues that parliamentary “debate” cannot win our rights to free abortion on demand. The pro-choice movement is stronger by linking with the union movement, but ultimately, we need to unite the movements in solidarity to turn resistance into liberation and socialist change.

This article interchangeably refers to “women” and “pregnant people” and acknowledges that trans men, non-binary people and others who do not identify as women may need to access abortion services.

Abortion access today

More than 80,000 lawful abortions are safely performed annually in Australia, which has a population of over 27 million.10 The number did not change appreciably with decriminalisation. Before 2002, and since the pro-choice struggles of the 1970s, liberal interpretations of the laws enabled most women to access abortion, although it remained a crime. Now abortion is officially regarded as healthcare. It is clear that abortion is not a crime anywhere in Australia and women can no longer be prosecuted. Pregnant people have a right to request an abortion in the early periods of pregnancy, when there are more options with abortion medication and surgery available. SA government data shows that “the majority of abortions (91.9 percent) occur within the first 14 weeks, or first trimester of pregnancy. Abortions occurring at or over 20 weeks gestation account for about 2 percent of all abortions.”11 Abortion is a safe, common health procedure, but it is time sensitive. It should be available as early as possible and as late as necessary. The primary decision-maker should be the pregnant person throughout the pregnancy—they will have the responsibility for any outcome, whether raising a child or not. However, only in one jurisdiction, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), is abortion available on the woman’s request at any stage of the pregnancy. The six states require special approvals by two doctors or specialists at some time during gestation—Victoria after 24 weeks; Western Australia (WA) after 23 weeks; SA after 22 weeks and six days; Queensland and NSW after 22 weeks; and Tasmania after 16 weeks. At the other end of the spectrum, in the Northern Territory (NT), abortions until 24 weeks are allowed outside criminal law but only if a doctor approves. Regulations, processes, service quality and cost differ across states and depend on whether the providers are part of the public or private systems.

The federal government regulates abortion pills, the combined mifepristone and misoprostol medication (MS-2 Step in Australia, also called RU486). They can be prescribed and administered by state/territory registered trained personnel only during the first nine weeks’ gestation. Costs vary. Since 2023, most governments have amended laws to allow qualified nurses and midwives to prescribe and supervise the procedures. Abortion pills are not appropriate for all pregnant people. If you cannot get the pills, or use them, you need to find a practitioner, in a clinic or a hospital, who can provide surgical abortion.12 Early surgical abortion is free where it is accessible in a public hospital, which is possible in SA, ACT and NT. For example, for ACT residents, surgical procedures are free during the first 16 weeks. In other states, private clinics predominate and are expensive. In some Victoria and NSW public hospitals, free surgical abortion is available usually up to 12 weeks but are usually booked out. The cost of surgery has become exorbitant, starting from $AU620 (£300) and reaching to $AU8,000 (£3,870) for complex cases.13 Some patients are eligible for a Medicare (government health insurance) subsidy. If there is no suitable local service and travel to a major city is required, there will be more delays and costs, unsubsidised.

Australia is a wealthy country and has nearly 700 federally-funded public hospitals (63,000+ beds), of varying capacities, which, in the financial year 2022-3, received $AU85.6 billion (£41 billion) in recurrent expenditure.14 The Catholic Church administers about 12,000 publicly-funded hospital beds in Australia.15 Yet, these public hospitals can refuse abortion care: “Despite public funding, multiple hospitals are bound by Catholic Health Australia’s code of ethics, which prohibits birth control, IVF [In Vitro Fertilisation] and abortions, even after rape”.16 Barbara Baird has argued that abortion doctors and providers are limited to finding cracks in the public health system and establishing clinics in the private sector, now dominated by MSI Australia.17 Quality training remains difficult to obtain.

How did we get here?

From the end of the 19th century, colonial governments in Australia imported much of the content of the British 1861 Offences Against the Person Act banning abortion. Australia was a recently established colonial settlement that would become a federation of states in 1901. As an outpost of white capitalism in Asia and the Pacific, unmistakable violent racism accompanied the “Frontier Wars” from 1788, with massacres to force Indigenous people off their land. Sovereignty was never ceded. Community survival was threatened by coerced abortions, sterilisations and child removal, as Indigenous writers explain.18 Colonial governments looked to create a stable society for capitalist exploitation of an imported working class. So, recreating and establishing nuclear families like in the mother country became central for the security of the white settler capitalist state. Such structures were accompanied by a raft of pro-family laws and regulations, justified with ideology about the roles of white breadwinner men and unpaid child-rearing women.19 The key role of procreation was to build up the white population against the “invasion” from “Asian hordes”. The nuclear family structure could, moreover, maintain cheap labour power. Early birth control movements in the US, Britain and Australia were often shaped by the dominant eugenicist ideas of the time. Anti-abortion laws were part of the armoury of the colonial settler state, and far-right and fascist groups, which are still comparatively weak in Australia, are trying to revive these arguments today.

In the 1960s, Australia was changing in the midst of a booming economy. Abortion legislation was challenged by civil libertarians and liberal feminists concerned about excessive state intervention in the private lives of homosexuals and women. Most governments were extremely hostile bastions of bigots. Only in one state, SA (1969), did a reform bill succeed along the lines of British 1967 Abortion Act. Although abortion remained a crime, doctors could decide whether an abortion was necessary and lawful and perform surgical abortions for SA residents. In other states, conservative Liberal Party governments and the “pro-life” Catholic Church were intransigent, effectively protecting the lucrative illegal abortion racket that involved a network of greedy backyard abortionists and corrupt violent police. Women and doctors bravely defied the laws.20

A test case in the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1969 resulted in judge Clifford Menhennitt’s ruling that abortion was lawfully justified if “necessary to preserve the physical or mental health of the woman concerned”.21 Because most doctors and women did not automatically trust the court rulings, the issue had to be forced onto the public agenda by activists of the early women’s liberation movement (WLM), comprising radical feminists, socialists and unionists working alongside the reformist Abortion Law Reform Associations. Liberalisation was won in the courtroom but militancy was necessary to challenge taboos. In May 1970, when the NSW government’s infamous “Abortion Squad” raided the Heatherbrae abortion clinic and arrested five staff, Sydney WLM responded with six lively demonstrations over 18 months. In October 1971, judge Aaron Levine acquitted all staff and handed down a ruling similar to Menhennitt’s. Equal pay unionist Zelda D’Aprano stated that despite “all the scandal and exposure of the abortion (graft and corruption) trials, women were silent”. Her group pasted up “Pregnant Bolte” posters (depicting then Victorian Liberal premier with a huge stomach), which caused quite a sensation at the time. Melbourne street protests began with a Mother’s Day demonstration on 8 May 1971, shouting “Contraceptives, Not Chrysanthemums!”and demanding free contraception, family planning clinics and free abortion on request.22

Activists attempted to win change in the NSW parliament and submitted a petition with 9,000 signatures, invading the public gallery only to see 79 ALP and conservative politicians voting against even allowing the petition, with just 15 Labor MPs in favour. They concluded that the prospects for parliamentary reform were very slim and responded in a number of ways. The Sisters in Liberation Union of Terrorists brigade (SLUT) painted signs on the houses of anti-abortion Labor MPs, informing neighbours of their stance. More moderate parts of the movement produced booklets aimed at school children and organised public meetings and debates. In March 1972, feminist Germaine Greer debated with religious leaders and intellectuals at the Sydney Town Hall before an estimated audience of 5,000 people that overflowed into the street.23

The wider 1970s political context made a difference after union action won the right to strike in 1969, and unionists turned to political unionism overcoming sexist and racist union structures. The Vietnam Moratorium of May 1970 saw more than 100,000 protesting with the slogan “Stop Work to Stop the War!”. Formal equal pay was won in 1969 and an equal minimum wage in 1974. Women’s rights were not automatically supported by fellow workers, and the results would be uneven, some men accepting right-wing ideas that their pay would be cut to fund women’s pay rises. When bosses refused to grant workers’ demands, leading to struggle, workers started to see how they relied on each other to win their demands. Unity on the picket line combined with arguments from socialist and feminist activists brought old prejudices and taboos tumbling down.

In 1973, parliamentary reform failed again when a bill to reform the abortion laws in the ACT was raised by left Labor federal MPs. It was resoundingly beaten by the “conscience” votes of Catholic ALP and all conservative MPs. Because public hospitals did not offer abortion procedures, feminists and pro-choice doctors turned to mutual support and private abortion clinics, which helped to “normalise” abortion care. Women seeking abortions travelled from all over Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand) to the clinics in Sydney and Melbourne. Significantly, the government introduced a public health insurance system, Medibank (now called Medicare), which subsidised the surgical abortion procedures. This opened up access to subsidised safe termination services, but, legally, it remained tenuous. Socialists and radical feminists maintained struggle in the streets and their unions. In 1977, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) adopted a “Working Women’s Charter” and abandoned their support for the family wage, an indication of a clearer position supporting equal pay.24 In 1979, when right-wing MP Stephen Lusher attempted to remove abortion from Medibank funding, he was met with a strong union-supported pro-choice mobilisation, and his proposal was defeated. Working-class families, the constituents of the MPs who voted at the time, needed the Medibank subsidies for reproductive healthcare.

In 1980, the Queensland National Party government attempted to strengthen anti-abortion criminal legislation, and it was defeated by a mass campaign in which the trade union movement was a crucial element. Pro-choice activists organised rallies in Brisbane, Ipswich, Sydney and Melbourne, while Trade Unionists for Abortion campaigned within unions. The Trades and Labour Council (TLC), along with ten unions, some contributing funds, encouraged member participation at rallies, distributed leaflets and invited pro-choice speakers to address workplace meetings. The new legislation threatened any nurse who agreed to assist with an abortion. After some nurses heard that their union had a policy against abortion, they organised a meeting of 80 members to challenge the officials and to support rallies. Previously, the premier tried to ban street marches and attacked trade union rights, but a two-year campaign pushed him back by late 1979. Pro-choice activists marched illegally to parliament the night the bill was defeated. Angry women rattled the rusty parliamentary gates, which collapsed. Workers were open to arguments from fellow unionists campaigning against the reactionary anti-union government. At one workplace, owned by white goods manufacturers Email, union members went on strike and held a picket with placards supporting abortion rights.25 In 1986, Queensland law was tested with a similar outcome to NSW and Victoria, although few clinics were set up.26 The anti-abortionists tried to turn back the clock—yet, they failed.

Ten years later, the battle was taken up by anti-abortion politicians such as Tony Abbott in the federal Coalition government of John Howard (1996-2007). However, the political environment overwhelmingly supported the right to choose. An analysis of changing attitudes to abortion at this time showed that 89 percent of voters supported abortion “in certain circumstances”, including 50 percent when women “want one”.27 The abortion war continued with the decriminalisation process of 2002-23, which was a parliamentary affair mostly under ALP governments, accompanied by pro-choice rallies, anti-abortion demonstrations and pressure from the Catholic Church. Most Liberals opposed decriminalisation while most ALP members opted for compromise. The 1969 and 1971 Court rulings left abortion as a crime but did not include gestational limitations, which now would be included in all laws except in the ACT. In Victoria in 2008, a private member’s bill to decriminalise abortion regardless of the stage of pregnancy was supported by some ALP and all Green MPs. However, the Labor government rejected that model and included restrictions on abortions later in pregnancy. In NSW in 2019, an independent private member’s bill led to the Liberal government decriminalising. The anti-abortion right unsuccessfully proposed new legal requirements on doctors to preserve live foetuses following abortion procedures—supported by former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott (2013-5) and his former National Party deputy, who labelled abortion as “infanticide on demand”.28 In 2021 in SA, anti-abortion MPs successfully raised restrictions such as mandatory counselling, despite a five-year pro-choice campaign, supported by 32 health, legal, union and community organisations.

All Australian state/territory jurisdictions legislated to remove the regulation of abortion from criminal laws and include it in either stand-alone acts or sections of existing health law. The new laws are a major gain. Dr Vijay Roach, president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), the top national body for women’s health care, said after decriminalisation was achieved in NSW:

It isn’t just words or the possibility of being charged, it’s the stigma that’s associated with making abortion the one area of healthcare that is in the Crimes Act. Therefore, removing it sends a significant message that abortion is the right of a woman and that it is part of healthcare.29

However, the process was incomplete. For abortions later in pregnancy, women are not the primary decision-maker—doctors and specialists are. There is no legal or health reason why all states cannot follow the ACT and end gestation limits. RANZCOG believes women “should be able to choose the method of abortion most acceptable to them, without coercion, informed by their values and preferences”.30 The Public Health Association of Australia, which “represents over 40 professional groups interested in the promotion of public health”, opposes limitations on abortion access.31 There are many reasons women may require an abortion later in their pregnancy, including severe medical complications, the physical or mental health of the woman, and rape or incest. Patients may need more support in specific circumstances but that is the case with many other medical procedures.32 By comparison, in Canada, a national law makes abortion legal across the country throughout pregnancy with no gestational limitations, and it is publicly funded as a medical procedure (although access to services and resources can be restricted depending on geographic region, financial means, ethnicity and immigration status).33

The incomplete nature of the process has ramifications. First, the state has conceded women’s right to choose only in early stages of pregnancy. The ideological message remains that women should not have bodily autonomy. Second, access to abortion remains precarious. The situation in Queensland illustrates how the laws have overcome some obstacles to abortion access but not for all women: the Guardian reported that: “In…Cairns in the far north, where last year more than 10 women a month were flown interstate for procedures, doctors say the law change has had a radical effect. One thing that has not appreciably changed is the number of abortions”.34 However, terminations are usually performed in private day surgeries in Brisbane and the southeast of the state, leaving many women without access. Access to abortion care is hampered by inadequate privatised healthcare systems and underfunding of public healthcare, lack of practitioners and training, cost and unlawful obstruction by anti-abortion administrations. There are plenty of suggestions for change from health experts. The 2024 Realising Access Report, published by Women’s Health Victoria, proposed expanding access to low and no-cost abortion and contraceptive options (regardless of visa status), increasing surgical abortion provisions in publicly funded hospitals and providing in-community training for more health practitioners.35 Feminist Australian abortion historian Barbara Baird explains:

Based on the economics and geography of access alone, the system creates reproductive injustice for about one-third of all people who have an abortion, and for all those who have no choice but to continue an unwanted pregnancy. These are often people who are already severely marginalised by poverty, geography, isolation, youth, lack of internet literacy or connection, lack of Medicare entitlement, violent and coercive relationships, racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia, and by abortion’s own internal ‘other’: presenting ‘late’.36

There is an additional problem in NSW. Despite the requirements that only doctors can legally perform abortions, the laws allow them to opt out of providing abortion, including but not limited to a conscientious objection. The “abortion deserts” exposed by a far-reaching University of Sydney study will continue. In this study, some NSW practitioners commented on the underground nature of service delivery, and one interviewee said: “It’s kind of whispered in corridors, like, ‘Do you know anyone who does abortions?’.”37 A GP said simply: “Demand far outstrips our ability to provide…[so] we turn women away every week, every day.” Some healthcare providers were unprepared to provide information in relation to abortion services. As another interviewee said: “The problem is that you do have a number of conscientious objectors in the hierarchy of these larger hospitals…that is going to be super hard to get past, because they’re the people that make the rules.” Practitioners may arrange things on the quiet and “no one stands up and says, right, I’m offering this service”.

Australian feminist academics Barbara Baird and Erica Millar argue: “Exceptionalism is the hallmark of abortion jurisprudence… There is no need for abortion-specific law because abortion is covered under the more general ‘health framework’.” They have drawn attention to the only criminal restrictions remaining in legislation in every jurisdiction, which prevent anyone who is not a medical doctor from performing an abortion. Their feminist history shows that abortion provision and official ideology wrongly continues to “associate abortion with danger, and women with vulnerability”, explaining that abortion decriminalisation “holds the potential to radically reimagine the power relations invested in the continued state control of abortion through its medicalisation”.38 State institutions invest doctors with the authority of gatekeepers deciding who is entitled to an abortion later in pregnancy, which shifts the responsibility and the blame away from the government and the ruling class.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA), a doctors’ lobby group, remains a powerful influential force to protect their own economic and political interests. Allowing trained registered midwives to perform abortions would overcome some of the problems such as staff shortages. Access is paramount for a time-sensitive procedure. As Greens NSW MP Dr Amanda Cohn states: “Abortion is healthcare—it’s not something hospitals with public funding and the capability to provide abortion should be able to opt out of… We would never accept a public hospital turning away all patients with diabetes or all patients who needed a knee replacement”.39

The partial nature of the decriminalisation, including gestational limitations, means that the state’s clear ideological commitment to the “traditional” role of women in the family remains intact. This message is reinforced in the way abortion care services are delivered, again with limitations for which governments avoid taking responsibility. Although the entrenchment of women’s oppression pre-dates capitalism with earlier class societies, the anti-abortion laws were part of the construction of the capitalist nuclear family: they reinforce the right-wing pro-family ideology, helping to remind women of our so-called primary “natural” social role as mothers and carers. When abortion is “unlawful” or criminalised, it is deemed a crime against the family. Capitalism relies heavily on the kind of family that dominates our societies for economic and political reasons: it is cost effective, relying on unpaid domestic labour, and it reinforces conservative ideas and stability for capitalism. The bigots latch on to these pro-family sexist prejudices to fuel their own dystopian aims. Thus, anti-abortionists remain a relevant force. We can expect anti-abortionists to continue to take advantage of gaps in the laws and target abortions later in pregnancy, which has been a stalking horse for clamping down on abortion rights in general.

Anti-abortion groups are less visible in Australia since legislation secured safe access zones around abortion clinics, and the decriminalisation process. However, supported by the anti-abortion Catholic Church since 1969, the well-resourced Right to Life Australia group (RTL) has mobilised thousands of mostly church parishioners in “marches for life” and other noisy militant protests, carrying graphic pictures of foetuses and photos of pro-choice MPs labelled “murderers”.40 Committed to the strict gendered definition of a family—one man, one woman and children, united for life—they are also homophobic and transphobic and oppose same-sex marriage and euthanasia. They aim to get moral and legal recognition of “foetal personhood”, a nonsense demolished by Labor lawyers.41 They use parliament as a platform for their vile sexist prejudice. In 2024, SA Liberal MP Ben Hood proposed that for all pregnancies beyond 27 weeks and six days, mothers be induced early to give birth. SA government data shows that in 2023, fewer than 1 percent of terminations (47) were performed after 22 weeks, and fewer than five abortions in total were performed after 27 weeks.42 Hood falsely claimed 45 abortions had occurred after that threshold. In August 2024, a far-right senator moved an urgency motion regarding “the need for the Senate to recognise that at least one baby is born alive every seven days following a failed abortion and left to die”, which was factually incorrect but supported by five Coalition senators. When the Greens attempted to remove the motion from the parliamentary agenda, the Liberals and others combined to keep it on the agenda, although it has not been moved or enacted. Coalition parties have never formally supported abortion rights. As health minister in the federal Coalition government (1996-2007), Tony Abbott, later prime minister, temporarily achieved an effective ban on abortion pills until 2006. From retirement, Abbott has indicated he will continue to campaign against abortion access and joined an anti-abortion post-election rally in NSW supporting over-riding doctors’ rights to conscientious objection, a key factor in the NSW “abortion deserts”.

Mass support won in struggle

Our current mass support was won in struggle, with reforms won under both Labor and Coalition governments. Because abortion is a class issue as well as a gender and race issue, the pro-choice movement has won allies among trade union, migrant, Black, LGBT+, student and community organisations. Campaigns for abortion rights have always been divided: between those who can live with reform of the laws and those working-class and poorer women who need publicly funded healthcare and repeal of all anti-abortion legislation. Although rich women suffer oppression, they have always had easy access to safe abortion and other privileges. Rather than fighting for complete reproductive freedom, ruling class women have a greater interest in maintaining and winning more privileges within capitalism. Feminism’s call for women to unite always comes up against this fundamental class divide. Our activist history shows that there is nothing automatic about struggle, it requires conscious political argument and leadership. Women joining the workforce laid the basis for improvements in their lives, but change depended on a political understanding of how to fight for and win the demands that can improve our lives. First, that for free and safe abortion on demand, we need to repeal all anti-abortion laws; second, that our method of struggle must reject relying on parliamentary “debates” and that parliaments must be forced to reflect the mass support for a woman’s right to choose; and third, that because the state wants to maintain control over abortion access, we must identify our power. Capitalists and their governments have an interest in our reproductive labour, which provides a cheap source of labour power, the source of capitalist profit. They depend on us. We are exploited in the workplace and that gives us a power in working-class struggle as we can use industrial action to disrupt and strikes to deny their profits.

Abortion rights are union business. In the 1970s, some left-wing unions officially supported abortion as an industrial issue, arguing that, without these rights, women could not participate in work and unions on an equal footing. The Builders Labourers’ Federation in NSW (of Green Bans fame) supported pro-choice demonstrations from 1971. They welcomed women into workplaces and the union, opening up non-traditional jobs. By 1974, they supported abortion leave as well as paternity and maternity leave.43 Rank-and-file workers in other industries followed this example, putting pressure on union leaders. At their conference in 1980, the union covering federal public servants, the Administrative and Clerical Officers’ Association (ACOA), adopted a position supporting abortion rights.44 Organising within trade unions helped to reform many unions that, until the mid-1970s, were slow to support women’s rights. Today, a more substantial campaign for paid reproductive leave (outside of sick and personal leave) is on the agenda. Because it can cover a range of issues, all genders are directly affected, although differently.45 There have been a series of successful struggles winning paid gender affirmation leave at every Australian public university and against sexual harassment.46 In 2019, workers at Chemist Warehouse went on strike for 16 days to win pay rises and permanent positions. They were angry about frequent sexual harassment by managers, got one manager fired and won compulsory sexual harassment training for management.47 The Victorian Trades Hall Council supported the massive rally against the overturning of Roe v Wade in June 2022, called a 5,000-strong rally on the International Day of Trans Visibility in 2024 and organised International Working Women’s Day rallies. The union movement can be strengthened by building solidarity and action in workplaces for reproductive rights and leave.

Our bodies, our rights: another world is possible

Globally, the movements fighting for abortion rights have won mass support, legal reform and improved access; they have never been more popular. In Trump’s US, polls show that support for abortion rights has grown to about 80 percent in response to the misogynist attacks as struggles grow.48 The #MeToo spirit of defiance against sexism remains. In the fight for our rights, we can turn this mass support into a wider struggle for liberation.

Those in charge of capitalist societies cannot solve the health and cost-of-living crises nor defend women’s rights, even if they wanted to. The struggle for the right to control our bodies is tied up with the struggles for control over our lives and labour, which capitalism will not just concede. As the capitalist economic crisis deepens, governments opt to shift the blame for social problems such as housing shortages onto immigration and marginalised oppressed groups in society. They attempt to divide our struggles with racism and by attacking women’s rights to weaken opposition to their agenda. They can give a green light to the far right as they have done in the US, shifting society rightwards to maintain capitalist rule.

Today, tiny far-right and fascist groups try to link racism and sexism, which was illustrated in the manifesto of the Islamophobic Australian terrorist who, in 2019, massacred 51 Muslims in Christchurch. He promoted the racist conspiracy theory of the “Great Replacement”, the idea that people of colour are “invading” Western, white nations, guided by shadowy Jews. Far-right ideologues have used this concept as a rallying cry globally to attack feminism and immigration.

We cannot afford complacency or ignoring the “culture wars”.49 However, a new audience of activists can be mobilised to fight the far-right agenda. In Australia, tens of thousands marched on Invasion Day (26 January) this year as Indigenous and Palestinian struggles combined to call out the racism of Labor governments. Although only a socialist society can finally end all oppression and exploitation, it can be built out of the struggles for women’s liberation alongside other social struggles—for Indigenous rights, climate justice and Palestinian liberation, for LGBT+ rights and workers’ rights. These struggles show that another world is possible. To put an end to the abortion wars and beat back the far right ultimately, we need to put an end to the system that causes them.

Judy McVey is a member of Solidarity in Australia, part of the International Socialist Tendency. She is the author of the forthcoming pamphlet, Abortion: Stop the Bigots, Fight for the Right to Choose, and recently completed a PhD about the struggles for abortion rights and equal pay in Australia 1968-80.

Notes