Maintaining exceptionality: Interrogating gestational limits for abortion

Abstract

Gestational limits on abortion are often seen as a condition for decriminalisation. Focusing on the final reports of three institutional law reform inquiries into abortion in Australia, this article argues that gestational limits were recommended through foreclosing the subject position of the unwillingly pregnant woman who experiences gestational time as a threat to her bodily integrity and imagined future. Structural features of law reform commissions tethered models of decriminalisation to the era of criminalisation. Abortion was also rendered meaningful in the reports through discursive tropes that centred foetal viability and constructed later abortion in terms of a delay that required explanation, with the medico-judicial categories used to explain this delay – which distinguished between ‘medical’ and ‘psychosocial’ abortions – recentring the decision-making authority of doctors. Gestational limits on abortion rearticulate the exceptionality of abortion, reinscribing the illegitimacy of abortion and the people who have them, at least at later stages of pregnancy.

Is third‐trimester abortion exceptional? Two pathways to abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy in the United States

“…As such, there is value to a social conceptualization of abortion not by gestation or trimesters but, rather, as care that can be needed throughout pregnancy. In this way, I join other critiques of the social and legal organization of abortion care by gestation 32–34 . Conceptualizing abortion throughout pregnancy can facilitate framings that center pregnant people instead of external measurements of pregnancy (e.g., gestational duration).…”

“…In this way, I join other critiques of the social and legal organization of abortion care by gestation. [32][33][34] Conceptualizing abortion throughout pregnancy can facilitate framings that center pregnant people instead of external measurements of pregnancy (e.g., gestational duration). In so doing, it can shift discussion away from normative expectations about when people should seek abortion and why to, instead, highlight how and when pregnant people's reproductive and bodily autonomy is supported and compromised.…”

Systemic delays to abortion access undermine the health and rights of abortion seekers across Australia

“…These consequences are forced on abortion seekers by systems that are unable to provide timely, compassionate abortion care. Re‐centring power away from pregnant people and into doctors' hands and subjecting pregnant people ‘to increased legal and medical oversight and surveillance’ 17 re‐introduces the gatekeeping and barriers to healthcare that decriminalisation was hoped to minimise.…”

“Almost like it was really underground”: a qualitative study of women’s experiences locating services for unintended pregnancy in a rural Australian health system

“… 6 By 2021, all states and territories had at least partially decriminalised abortion. 7 Temporary inclusion of “tele-abortion” in 2020 as a subsidised service under the Australian government’s Medicare Benefits Scheme meant general practitioners were able to offer medical abortion via telehealth at a minimal cost during the COVID-19 pandemic. 8 , 9 This resulted in a 189% increased uptake in remote areas compared to the previous year.…”