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Control Abortion Referral Service was a feminist Australian organisation that existed from 1973 to the late 1980s. It informed and supported women from New South Wales, other Australian states and abroad, particularly from New Zealand, who were seeking abortion and it also developed new women-run abortion services.

Origins – changing the law

The United Kingdom Abortion Act 1967 legalised abortion in Great Britain on certain grounds by registered practitioners and regulated the tax-paid provision of such medical practices. This UK act became the basis of the Australian Humane Society’s Abortion Law Reform Associations (ALRA) which set up in each Australian State and Territory over the next few years.[1][2]

On 26 May 1969 the Victorian Menhennitt ruling in R v Davidson ruled that abortion might be lawful if necessary to protect the physical or mental health of the woman. It was the first ruling on the legality of abortion in any part of Australia. In contrast, the New South Wales (NSW) conservative Liberal Party Premier Robert Askin cracked down on illegal abortionists, and by the following year, NSW had a full time abortion squad of 27 police officers.[1]

On 11 May 1970, police raided the Heatherbrae Clinic at Bondi. Women patients were taken for questioning and medical examinations and five staff members were charged with performing illegal abortions. On 28 October 1971 the Sydney Central Court jury found the five clinic staff not guilty. The presiding Judge Levine’s ruling, based on the Victorian Menhennitt ruling, established that an abortion would be lawful in NSW if there was 'any economic, social or medical ground or reason upon which a doctor could base an honest and reasonable belief that an abortion was required to avoid a 'serious danger to the pregnant woman's life or to her physical or mental health.' That danger might arise at any time during the pregnancy.[3] The Levine Ruling's more liberal interpretation of the existing abortion laws thereby made abortions more accessible to NSW women and ending the era of backyard abortions, opening the way to specialised day clinics offering medically safe abortions.[4]

Almost coinciding with the Heatherbrae raid, the first Women's Liberation National Conference was held at Melbourne University16–18 May 1970. A key outcome arising was an Australian national campaign on abortion. The first public meeting of coalition groups to change abortion laws in Australia was held at Sydney University the following week.[5] The rapidly growing Sydney Women’s Liberation Movement felt need for a reliable New South Wales clearing house for information on fertility planning and safe abortion services.

Among the first organisers around access to safe and legal abortions were Communist Party of Australia campaigners Joyce Stevens[6] Mavis Robertson and Gloria Garton.[7] Following a successful “Women’s Speak-Out for Abortion” event at Women’s Liberation House in October 1972,[8] Stevens, Robertson, Nola Cooper and other feminists launched a two day “Women’s Commission”[9][10] congress, bringing together 600 women of different backgrounds and politics. Many issues were discussed, including abortion access.[11][12][13] The organisers then convened a June 30 march through Sydney streets demanding repeal of abortion restrictions followed by a rally at Hyde Park, after which some feminist activists returned to Women’s House and laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Control Abortion Referral Service.[14][15]

Control's early years

Launched July 1973, the Control collective provided advice for women seeking pregnancy testing and safe and affordable options for pregnancy termination.[16] Volunteer counselors based at Sydney Women’s House responded to inquiries both by phone and in person, 6-9pm, Monday to Friday.[17][18]

In August 1973, Stevens[6] Lyndall Ryan and other Control members sought funding from Australian Labor Federal Health Minister Doug Everingham for a women’s community health centre under the Innovative Projects, Community Health Program.[1] Control registered a new company, The Women's Health and Resources Foundation[1] and submitted an annual budget of $A55,000, which was approved by the ministry, much to the women's surprise.[19] Control activists sought for premises and staff and the Leichhardt Women's Community Health Centre (LCWHC) opened in January 1974 as Australia's first women’s health centre. It was formally launched on International Women’s Day 8 March 1974.[15][19]

Control had from the start pressed for LCWHC to provide outpatient abortion services. The first LCWHC administrator, Judy McClean and the first doctor Stephania Seidlecki asked the hospital if LCWJC "could refer any women to them if something went wrong, and they agreed it was a good idea. They supported Leichhardt because it cut down the number of women that would have to be referred to them. We did abortions one or two days a week, 8-10 women a day."[19]

Seidlecki later wrote: “Leichhardt was only a small centre and never performed more than ten abortions a week. Its significance lay in what its stood for, not what it was. It changed the abortion environment in NSW and it was “woman centred”.  It also broke established conventions: it functioned as a salaried service, it taught women to become familiar with their own bodies, and broke down professional barriers between staff."[1]

Stevens[6] and others in the Control collective,[20] then secured additional federal funding[21] for a second women's heath centre, the Liverpool Women's Health Centre which opened on 21 April 1975, initially performing some early term abortions as part of its overall services.[22][23] In the changed political climate following the November 1975 dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and in the midst of a public health crisis caused by a NSW doctor's strike[24] the police raided the Liverpool Women's Health Centre,[25] arrested a woman doctor at the clinic on the charge of conducting an illegal abortion on a minor and a counsellor on the charge of aiding and abetting a crime.[26][27] The charges were dropped 18 months later when the NSW Attorney General ruled a "no-bill."[1]

Control relocated in July 1976 along with Women's House to new premises in Chippendale,[28][29] purchased with funds provided by the Women's Liberation Movement.[4]

Meanwhile an intense debate began May 1973 in Federal Parliament was prompted by Gough Whitlam's consideration of abortion law reform. The initial David McKenzie and Moss Cass private members bills failed, but in September 1973 the Race Mathews and Don Chipp bill (being originally a royal commission into sex and abortion), was broadened to a Royal Commission on Human Relationships.[30] It was carried in a free vote 85 to 11 and the Royal Commission was established 21 August 1974. The three commissioners Justice Elizabeth Evatt (Chair), Archbishop Felix Arnott and journalist Anne Deveson. presented their final report in November 1977.[31] In an investigation originating from the abortion reform debate, it became "one of the most explosive and controversial social inquiries in Australia's history."[32] One of the very many groups Australia-wide to make submissions to the Commission was Control, signed by six ex-PSI/Control workers, on the quality of abortion services.[33]

Growth of free standing abortion services in NSW

In this post Levine ruling era, new free standing clinics were opening in Sydney and the price of abortion with private practitioners dropped from $350 to well under $120.[1] However as access became easier, the anti-abortion activities also increased. With the public controversy arising over the public funding of abortion, Leichhardt Womens Centre stopped doing abortions after Preterm Foundation opened in June 1974.[1]

In June 1974 Preterm Foundation Surrey Hills was the first legal abortion clinic to operate in NSW. Preterm did 80–100 early terminations under local aneasthetic per week, charging $90 ($56 reimbursed via Medibank).[34] It was inspired by Dr Ian Edwards modeled on USA services. It was supported and privately bankrolled by media magnate Clyde Packer, Australia Party founder Gordon Barton and barrister Country Party politician Geoffrey Keighley. Dr Dorothy Nolan was the first medical director. Newcastle gynaecologist Dr Lachlan Lang trained Preterm and Leichhardt doctors in no-touch technique vacuum extraction under local anaesthesia. Preterm finally closed in 2015.[1] Siedlecki claims “Preterm was a  model for the feminist centres Bessie Smythe and Control Darling Street Women's Health Centre which both opened in the late 1970s.[1] Feminist clinic workers did not agree however, given the non-hierarchical structure and work practices of collectives.

In March 1975 Population Services International (PSI) opened a clinic in Arncliff, which did abortions up to 20 weeks LMP under general anasethetic. [2] In April 1975 PSI opened a smaller clinic in Challis Ave Potts Point. They carried out well over 150 abortions per week in 1975[34]. Whilst other private doctors also provided late term abortions under GA, their practices were smaller and their reputations affected by their pre-Levine practices. PSI Director Dr Geoff Davis initially recruited some feminist staff given the referral power of the growing women's health movement.[29]

In 1972 the Queensland ALRA group, renamed Children By Choice (CBC) began referring women to interstate for abortion, given the State's very restrictive abortion laws. By early 1975 CBC was referring about 50 women a week to the Sydney St Annes Private Hospital.[29] Then, in March 1975 the new PSI service negotiated with CBC and won most of these Brisbane referrals.[35] On 6 March 1975 Dr Geoff Davis writes a signed letter to his international company headquarters noting: "Rader Rollen fur den Zeig, as we used to remark while warming ourselves round the burning Reichstag. This week we crushed St Annes; next week  Preterm."[29]

On 7 April 1975 Preterm, burnt down one year after it opened. The causes of the fire started was never established by the police.[29] The Commonwealth family Planning Program with approval from NSW government provided $80,000 for Preterm's re-establishment. [1] By December 1976 the yearly cost of abortion to Queensland women had reached almost a million dollars, almost all clients were traveling to PSl on two regular Ansett flights. PSI's numbers increased to well over 300 women per week.[36][29][36]

On 11 September 1975 a meeting of abortion activists decided to set up a feminist abortion clinic.[19][37]

Over this same time period there were months of confrontations between PSI staff and management over medical and counselling practices. Representatives from Control, the Leichhardt and Liverpool women's health centres, Family Planning and Women's Liberation Movement health workers met in May 1976 and decided to mobilize against PSI practices, scaling back and then ultimately halting referrals of women to PSI for termination of pregnancies.[29]

In December 1976 six PSI feminist staff members left: Margaret Hooks, Rosie Elliott, Kris Melmoth, Margaret Taylor, Libby Waddy, Lyn Syme.[29][33] Did PSI Director Dr. Geoff Davis think the game was then over?

Game on: Our Bodies, Their Power

By late 1976–77 the demand for Control's part-time abortion referral service had waned as PSI dominated the market and information more accessible via the women's health services.[29] Some of the newly resigned PSI staff members Margaret Hooks, Rosie Elliott, Kris Melmoth, plus Control member Lynne Hutton-Williams reasoned they could not criticise PSI services without developing alternatives, particularly for women seeking second trimester abortions or abortion under general aneasthetic.

The group therefore approached the Control collective to help it vet and work with abortion doctors in the greater Sydney area using criteria that included their willingness to incorporate counselling as an essential part of their services.[29] Key PSI activist Margaret Hooks notes in her diary: "I felt so helpless against the mammoth task we had set ourselves, taking on an industry backed by multi-nationals, the state criminal world how dare we be so presumptuous." The women also provided additional staff so that Control's service could provide information, counselling and on site accompaniment on a full-time basis, particularly for those women seeking general aneasthetics and later stage abortions.[18][29]

March-June 1977 a group of the women then wrote a detailed twelve page pamphlet, Our Bodies, Their Power,[29] detailing the many issues of concern about PSI Australasia practices. Planned publication by the National Times proved complex and instead a pamphlet was widely distributed widely from June 1977 on and numerous media interviews were undertaken. Control was subsequently sued for libel by Dr Davis. The suit was later dropped.

In April 1977, these former PSI health workers conducted a Control hosted counsellor training course to bring on board additional counselling staff.[29] boosting Control's staff to seven, with some of counsellors being placed directly in the private surgeries of select abortion practitioners.[18] Some new key Control staff joined at this stage, Jenny King, Sue Powell, Jacki Robinson, Margaret Sutherland, Louise Templeman. Key activist Dr Margaret Taylor started work at the new Liverpool Women's Health Centre[38] and Margaret Hooks left for the UK in late 1977.

Until late 1977 the Control staff were volunteers, mostly living on unemployment, student, single mother's benefits. By late 1977, with most staff working full time and well beyond, Control was able to pay small amounts to staff derived and shared from the hourly rate counsellors worked for clinics. Control also purchased a transporter van to pick up interstate and international women from the airport.

Interstate and international abortion services

Overall, between ACT, NZ, Queensland, about a quarter of abortions in NSW were from outside the state in these years.[36] Such was the increase in referrals, that Control needed to spin off from Women's House and relocated to new premises above the Dymmocks Bookstore at 424 George Street in Sydney.[18][39]

Queensland: Control's relationship with Children By Choice remained difficult as CBC kept their relationship with PSI intact. Some Brisbane feminists set up a Control feminist pregnancy advisory and abortion referral centre in Brisbane in October 1977 which referred women to the two Sydney feminist clinics, not PSI.[40] During 1978, Sydney and Brisbane Control women worked together to establish a local anaesthetic clinic at the NSW–QLD border town of Tweed Heads, to which they hoped to refer most of the Queensland women. To avoid Tweed Council political storms in the establishment phase, this was a well kept secret. Sydney Control members negotiated with a Sydney medical entrepreneur to establish the clinic in return for making it a best practice service. Beryl Holmes, co-founder of CBC wrote: "Consequently, when Children by Choice was approached by the (Tweed Heads) doctor for referral, they reacted in their usual manner to such offers: that is, if the facility proved to be satisfactory, they would refer to it. They were unaware that the doctor was attempting to by-pass Control. By the time the situation was clarified, the clinic at Tweed Heads was ready to open, although it did not meet the feminist counsellor requirements. CBC felt that women should not be involved in the extra expense of going to Sydney because of ideological differences between the two groups. Because they believed that women should make their choice of where to go for abortion, they decided to tell the women of this clinic and of its strengths and weaknesses. It was a difficult period within the women‟s movement."[40] The clinic closed within weeks. Control women did not document their response to this serious failure.

New Zealand: The Auckland Medical Aid Centre (AMAC) was the first abortion clinic in New Zealand. It opened in 1974 and by 1975 had seen 4,005 women. The New Zealand Police raided AMAC in 1974, leading to the prosecution and acquittal of one of its doctors, Jim Woolnough, and the resulting Hospitals Amendment Act 1975 limited abortion to licensed hospital, which forced AMAC to close for some months.[41] Parliament also set up a royal commission to consider it, along with contraception and sterilisation. Abortion became more difficult and women started coming to Australia for terminations. By May 1977, Air New Zealand became caught up in the drama, being accused of running an abortion referral agency.[42]

On 15 December 1977 the New Zealand Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act passed in NZ Parliament by 40–26 vote.[43] The NZ Sisters Overseas Service (SOS) sprang into action, to assist NZ women forced to come to Australia for an abortion. Most came to Sydney.[18] These referrals were initially almost captured by PSI, but (it may be that) interventions by Family Planning Association and the women's health services prevented this outcome. Instead and SOS worked closely with Control, who recruited NZ women Rachel Parsons as a full time Control member to help the process. Control workers picked up and dropped off New Zealand women from the airport, took them to hotels and clinics and tried to fix all issues arising, sometimes even opening night clinics to manage big lists after plane cancellations. SOS figures from January 1978 from the major Australian clinics indicated that at least 16 New Zealand women a day were having abortions.[44] Women were advised to raise (at least) $510 for all costs and one in ten women needed financial help. By 1979 changes to the NZ 1977 Act made it more workable, and facilities offering abortions began to open. By 1981 flights to Australia virtually ceased.[44]

Australian Capiatl Territory (ACT): Some of these referrals were from the ACT, where women also had restricted abortion access, as the Canberra Hospital had limited bed space. ACT women were referred to Sydney.[34] Over Christmas 1976 the ACT Right to Life discovered PSI Dr Geoff Davis had leased Canberra clinic premises and was seeking staff through the Commonwealth Employment Service. Their protests lead to establishment of a Standing Committee of Inquiry to investigate abortion in the ACT. In the end, the standing committee recommended no freestanding clinics, that the Menhennitt ruling should apply and there should be a separate clinic in the hospital grounds for abortions up to 11 weeks with obligatory counselling one week before hand. This inquiry caused difficulties for all, as on 6 May 1977 Control former PSI staff testified in camera to the ACT Legislative Assembly standing committee against PSI practices.[1] Likewise, so did Right to Life supporting ACT parliamentarians, who also agitated against the PSI expansion, providing detailed evidence of PSI financial transactions.[45]

The Bessie Smyth Foundation feminist abortion clinic

In 1977 Leichhardt Women’s Community Health Centre established the Bessie Smyth Foundation counselling and abortion facility in the Western Sydney suburb of Homebush. It was the first fully feminist run abortion clinic.[46] Delivered in a setting intended to be homely rather than clinical, it provided abortions up to 12 weeks LMP under local aneasthetic for $120. The first workers included Senior RN Anna Sheahan, Dorothy Colless, Jeannie Rudd and Terri Jackson. The second worker intake three months later included Gail Hewison. Bessie was described as "the standard-setting Sydney feminist abortion centre"[47][37] where counselling and democratic work practices were the key.[48][49] The feminist Bessie and Control collectives worked closely together over many years.

Bessie owned and managed the Powell Street clinic until August 2002 when the business and premises became financially non-viable. After 25 years providing 42,000 safe, affordable abortions and countless counselling and support services, plus training for health professionals and student placements, Bessie was sold to British multinational, Marie Stopes International, trading under Marie Stopes Australia.[50][37]. Ironically, the original UK Marie Stopes Foundation was taken over, under direction of Tim Black by the European branch of Population Services International (PSI) in 1976, a and re-founded as Marie Stopes International, trading from 2000-2020 as Marie Stopes Australia. In 2020 its name changed to MSI Reproductive Choices.[51] With the funds from the sale of the Powell Street Clinic, the foundation continued to provide counselling, referral, information and support services for destitute women. In 2008, operations ceased, although the foundation was retained, in case an opportunity should emerge for the establishment of a new women’s reproductive health service.[37]

Darling St. Women's Health Centre feminist abortion clinic

Over the years very many women worked with Control over the years 1973–1983. Its impact on their lives was huge. But women involved in abortion have worked hard and kept silent. It's women's business and many secrets have not been told. Perhaps most interesting is the process and politics of collectives.[46]

Control did not leave many documented traces of its work. Some of the vital members of this women's collective were the highly capable nurses who had to ensure non-medical staff did the right thing, women like Meredith Brownhill, Rosemary King and Tess Shannon. Then there were the doctors, most often men, who worked with the collective for relatively low returns yet made the whole process possible. Doctors like Vijay Magan, Geoff Barratt, Jim Ward and Brian Jorgenson (now all deceased). Likewise there were all the women who learnt on the job how to manage the finance, medical administration and develop strategy.

Over 1977–78 and on the Control collective expanded to include 17 staff, between part- and full-time employees, and by January 1979 it had opened its own feminist clinic in Darling Street, Balmain, the second Sydney clinic run for women and by women.[18][49] Lynne Hutton Williams was a key driver of this development.

The new Darling St. clinic performed abortions up to 15 weeks, using local or general anaesthetic, at competitive pricing. It operated five days per week including night sessions, with five collective members usually on duty - one in the surgery, another at reception and 3–4 counsellors, who both provided pre-procedural counselling and post-procedural recovery services. By March, the Control clinic did about 50 abortions weekly.[18]

Meanwhile, the Control abortion referral service had expanded beyond Sydney, opening affiliates in Adelaide and Brisbane. After feminist activists in Townsville, North Queensland, began organizing for the repeal of restrictive abortion laws and women's access to safe, legal abortions,[52] two feminists who had previously worked as counsellors with Control Sydney and Control Brisbane spearheaded the opening in September 1979 of an abortion referral service modeled on Control and based in the Women's Information Center on the city's main street.[53]

As the 1980s progressed and more liberal interpretation of abortion laws won through, as private hospitals and doctors increasingly performed abortions, as information became more accessible all the Sydney free standing standing clinics contracted and eventually closed. So did Control and the Darling St Womens Health Centre. But Leichhardt Women's Community Health Centre and Liverpool Women's Health Centre remain and flourish, both born out of this extraordinary 1970s struggle for women's right to choose.

Information from a feminist perspective from 1990 on can be found in Abortion Care is Health Care, published 2023 by Barbara Baird.[54]

References

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  38. ^ Stevens, Joyce (5 October 1977). "MEDIBANK ABORTIONS THREATENED". Tribune (Sydney, NSW). p. 5.
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  52. ^ "North Queensland women get together". Tribune (Sydney, NSW). 7 March 1979. p. 3. Retrieved 18 December 2023.
  53. ^ McCormack, Anna (26 September 1979). "TOWNSVILLE'S ABORTION REFERRAL SERVICE". Tribune (Sydney, NSW). p. 16. Retrieved 18 December 2023.
  54. ^ Baird, Barbara (2023). Abortion Care Is Health Care. Melbourne, Victoria: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 9780522878400.
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