Last month I sat on the toilet seat and stared at the cheapest pregnancy test I could find in the supermarket. My mind went blank. I knew before the white strip told me. I was pregnant.
I live in Sydney. Abortion was decriminalized in New South Wales in 2019. Almost five years later, my health care decision has not been legislated under our criminal code. While Australia takes painfully slow steps forward, the US retreats faster than anyone can say “I have a plan”. The Supreme Court's reinstatement of Georgia's six-week abortion ban confirms this week.
I dropped the test in the sink and went out to my laptop. I opened my phone to my period tracking app and tracked my pregnancy. I counted five weeks and six days. I'm not afraid that a prosecutor will subpoena that information to build a criminal case against me. I can book a medical abortion in a week. I do not need to cross state lines to legally access this healthcare. I'm not afraid of my browser history being searched by investigators. Although abortion is no longer affordable, access still feels surreal.
My miscarriage was the result of failed contraception. The decision to terminate my pregnancy was easy for me. I take a drug that causes more birth defects in babies. For lawmakers in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Idaho, South Dakota, or at least 10 other US states, the risk is insignificant. Although some jurisdictions provide bleak exceptions to the life of the mother, none of the existing prohibitions allow termination of pregnancy because of the risk of infant mortality.
Let me be clear: I would make the same choice if this medication were not a factor. My age, my relationship and job status should not define the level of regret or embarrassment I feel about this choice. My abortion is acceptable because it was my decision. The ability to make this decision about my body and future is something I don't want to feel secret or destabilized about. I am grateful.
Last month, South Australian Liberal MP Ben Hood sought to amend the state's abortion law to make it compulsory for women. After undergoing an induced labor, the baby was put up for adoption at 27 weeks and six days. South Australian health data shows fewer than five abortions were performed after 27 weeks in 2023. Hood described late-term abortions as “healthy, viable babies” – failing to account for these results occurring for reasons such as the physical or mental health of the birth parents or fetal anomalies.
In August, United Australia Senator Ralph Bobbett asked the Senate to recognize that “one baby is stillborn every seven days following a botched abortion, and that Australia's health care system enables these inhumane deaths; The Senate should condemn the practice, noting that live births resulting from failed abortions deserve care. Bobbett did not reveal where he got this information. Greens Senator Larissa Waters accused Babbitt of spreading false claims.
With Queensland facing an election, the Liberal National Party's threat to decriminalize abortion is real given that almost every member voted to decriminalize abortion in 2018. A Position Queensland Health Minister and Minister for Women Shannon Fentiman: “Every single member of the LNP this year voted against giving rural women improved access to the contraceptive pill.” This is the future Queensland will face.
In Australia, access to abortion remains a postcode lottery. A woman in remote Western Australia may not have the same access or out-of-pocket expenses as me in inner-city Sydney. If the Albanese government should focus on providing federal funding to make abortion more widely available, instead we see anti-choice rhetoric backfire.
Australian politicians, men in large numbers, are using the US election to fan the flames of a fire we thought was extinguished. Faced with a federal election in the coming months, it must be extinguished.
The shame I was taught to absorb must be transferred to those who have to live with it, to right-wing politicians who have entrenched the belief that my body is theirs to legislate. Trump can “feminize” women, but if women are empowered to make decisions about our sexuality and reproductive lives outside of their vision and control, we are labeled idiots. In Gina Rushton's book The Most Important Job in the World, she writes: “I have reported in every parliamentary debate where physical sovereignty has been discussed by men who have supported motherhood as the most important job in the world. Life is hard for mothers.” It's never about the kids, it's always about power.
Last week I went to a clinic where the doctors were not afraid of facing criminal charges for providing medical care to me. The emotions I feel are overwhelming. The gravity of the decision weighed on me – it's not something I want to repeat. But it is also worth investigating how these feelings might account for the messages I have expressed. The anti-choice movement has misled many into believing that abortion is evil, murder. I worry that the fear, anxiety, shame, and grief I experience is less about my abortion and more about the indoctrinated belief that if I'm going to get through this, I'll have to fight my morality if I'm ever going to be considered. Good” again.
As Trump and JT Vance reframe their abortion policy in the weeks leading up to the election, we're reminded of just how fragile these belief systems are. Anything goes for the gift of power. As I sat thousands of kilometers away and saw two pink lines, I understood that hating myself for making decisions about my own life was a level of internalized misogyny that the anti-choice movement had crafted for me. Australia cannot go in one direction. Instead of giving in to the taboo, I'll use that emotional bandwidth to make sure other pregnant women are supported to do the same.
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Hannah Ferguson Cheek Media Co. is the CEO of, co-host of the news and pop culture podcast Big Small Talk, and the best-selling author of Byte Bag. Her new book, Taboo, comes out on November 12
