Abstract
Doing It Alone
A woman has won a case allowing her to access IVF without her estranged husband’s consent. The Federal Court ruled in the woman’s favour despite Victoria’s 2008 reproductive legislation that prohibits any such procedure being provided to a married woman without her husband’s consent. The applicant, in her mid-forties, is separated but still legally married and must wait for the 12-month separation period before she can divorce.
Judge John Griffiths ruled the legislation invalid and inoperative because it discriminated against the woman on the grounds of her marital status. The woman intended to use donor sperm, did not intend to assert her husband was the father and did not want him to be involved with the child. (Melissa Cunningham and Miki Perkins, ‘Woman wins landmark IVF access’, The Age, 22 September 2018.)
Deliver Us from Violence
The University of Melbourne-based Centre of Research Excellence, Safer Families held the International Domestic Violence and Health Conference: Sustainable change in the health sector in Melbourne during November 2018. It was a truly multidisciplinary and multicultural event attended by practitioners, survivors, carers, researchers, students, policymakers, community leaders, managers, advocates and more. Keynote features included: early intervention in the health sector for the whole family, dynamics and complexity of abuse and resilience, culture, kinship and connection: strong and safe families, pathways for listening and for responding to children, young people and their families.
Dark Ages
Dr Susie Allanson spent more than 25 years providing counselling, care and kindness to women needing reproductive health services. Instead of enjoying retirement, she continues as an advocate for women. Dr Allanson fears a return to the dark ages when protesters forced clinic staff, patients and carers to run the gauntlet simply to see their doctor. Anti-abortionists have challenged safe access laws in Victoria and Tasmania in the High Court. The laws do not prevent the self-appointed ‘sidewalk counsellors’ from protesting but do stop them harassing people outside the clinic. Law firm Maurice Blackburn is representing the Fertility Control Clinic in Melbourne pro bono. (Aisha Dow, ‘Threat to abortion clinic access’, Sunday Age, 7 September 2018.)
Shine a Light on Queensland
It only took 119 years but, thanks to the hard work of sisters and friends, on 18 October 2018 laws that made abortion criminal in Queensland were scrapped, ditched, tossed out and ripped up. A conscience vote passed comfortably, 50 to 41. The new law means Queensland women will be able to access abortion services up to 22 weeks gestation; also, after 22 weeks, if a medical practitioner performing the procedure has consulted with a second medical practitioner and both agree the abortion should be performed. Reform action will now focus on NSW where abortion remains technically illegal.
Strange World
It is 2018 and the 70th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While women the world over have benefitted from the protections proclaimed for them in the Declaration, there are still some strange goings on.
Just as Donald Trump’s nominee for the US Supreme Court Kavanaugh received Senate approval despite allegations of sexual assault against him, a survivor of sexual assault won a Nobel Prize. Nadia Murad, a Yazidi human rights activist, shared the prize with Denis Mukwege, a gynaecologist who treats victims of sexual assault in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded them the prize for their efforts to end sexual violence as a weapon of war.