Speaker 1: From Schwarz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: In Australia. Abortion has been decriminalized since twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: meaning that women around the country can get an abortion
Speaker 1: without facing legal consequences, but that hasn't stopped abortion being
Speaker 1: weaponized against women in the courtroom. Writer and producer Madison
Speaker 1: Griffiths has been covering reproductive rights for years, so it
Speaker 1: came as a shock to her to learn that, in
Speaker 1: spite of Australia's relative reproductive freedoms, women's abortion records were
Speaker 1: turning up in custody disputes and even sexual abuse trials. Today,
Speaker 1: Madison Griffiths on women's right to choose and how the
Speaker 1: law is fighting to keep up with this new frontier
Speaker 1: of domestic abuse.
Speaker 2: It's Wednesday, June eighteenth.
Speaker 3: So, Madison, you've been reporting on reproductive rights for a
Speaker 3: while now, could you maybe start by telling me a
Speaker 3: bit about Louisa and how you came across her story?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? So. I came across Louisa incidentally.
Speaker 5: I was conducting research on another story pertaining to women's experiences,
Speaker 5: and a woman I interviewed for that line of inquiry
Speaker 5: sent me a separate email and she was outlining that
Speaker 5: a friend of hers, who I would later discover with Louisa,
Speaker 5: had been treated incredibly poorly in the family courts. So
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty one, Louisa was required to enter the
Speaker 5: family law court in Brisbane in a bid to fight
Speaker 5: for custody of her then seven year old daughter against
Speaker 5: her ex husband. Women and no strangers to unfair ministrations
Speaker 5: in family court processions.
Speaker 4: But what struck me uniquely about.
Speaker 5: Louise's particular story was that her past abortions were admitted
Speaker 5: as evidence as part of her subpoena medical records, and
Speaker 5: they were explicitly mentioned in the court processions as well.
Speaker 1: So I was very intrigued, So tell me more about
Speaker 1: what was said about those past abortions, the way in
Speaker 1: which they were being used as evidence in this case.
Speaker 5: So they were introduced in the court processions by the
Speaker 5: independent children's lawyer, so not necessarily by her ex husband's
Speaker 5: defense counsel, which I thought was particularly interesting. They were
Speaker 5: mentioned while her ex husband was being cross examined in
Speaker 5: a very elusive way, I guess to check or to
Speaker 5: query her ex husband as to whether or not he
Speaker 5: was aware that once upon a time in the past,
Speaker 5: she had made these choices, and there is a particular
Speaker 5: vein of paranoia when it comes to the family court
Speaker 5: and who exactly has power, and women, particularly those who
Speaker 5: raised concerns or allegations of sexual abuse, are scrutinized profusely
Speaker 5: for doing so, seen often as vindictive or as if
Speaker 5: they are concocting fictitious harms to gain exclusive custody of
Speaker 5: their child or children. And given such allegations were introduced
Speaker 5: in Louis's case, I believe, you know, this is my opinion,
Speaker 5: that they were mentioned to cast doubt.
Speaker 4: On her honesty. So I did find that really strange.
Speaker 1: HM, that's interesting. Do we know any more about I
Speaker 1: suppose the process that allows something like a termination to
Speaker 1: be used in this context.
Speaker 5: So that's where I went to abortion providers and legal
Speaker 5: experts to find out if the accessing of this information
Speaker 5: had I guess, a routine choreography, if that makes sense,
Speaker 5: if there was a way to access this and how.
Speaker 5: It is difficult to pinpoint exactly how this information was
Speaker 5: first access It is possible that documentation eluding or you know,
Speaker 5: directly referencing her abortion was incidentally submitted. So sometimes when
Speaker 5: medical records are subpoened more broadly, they aren't necessarily seeved through.
Speaker 5: I did speak to various doctors who made a concerted
Speaker 5: effort to omit parts of individuals medical records that they
Speaker 5: did not themselves seem relevant. But this is not necessarily
Speaker 5: common practice. However, with this particular case, with Louise's case,
Speaker 5: the court did sanction as psychiatrists to provide an affidavit,
Speaker 5: which is not uncommon at all, which is often very
Speaker 5: very common in family court cases. And I received the
Speaker 5: transcript of that medical legal report from Louisa. He he
Speaker 5: addressed Louise's terminations directly with her, and in my opinion,
Speaker 5: this was riddled with judgment. They were unfounded assumptions in
Speaker 5: his affidavit about how a lot of women apparently experience
Speaker 5: guilt and depression pertaining to past abortions later in life regret,
Speaker 5: and I quote he had said to her that some
Speaker 5: women find themselves wishing to have.
Speaker 4: Kept one of the babies they didn't keep.
Speaker 5: I found this incredibly prejudicial, that you know, a psychiatrist
Speaker 5: was spouting this stuff, which is you know, completely wrong,
Speaker 5: especially in twenty twenty one when this took place.
Speaker 1: But I suppose the subtext is that if you've had
Speaker 1: an abortion, there is some judgment being cast on whether
Speaker 1: or not if you're going through a custody battle, you
Speaker 1: are now a fit mother.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, that is the implication.
Speaker 5: Whether or not that was intentional, it's too dangerous an
Speaker 5: implication to play with so recklessly. I believe it is
Speaker 5: deeply prejudicial, but it is also factually incorrect. The vast
Speaker 5: majority of people who terminate pregnancies are also in fact
Speaker 5: already mothers, and abortion advocates resist the differentiation of abortion
Speaker 5: havers and child havers. There is nothing incompatible with motherhood
Speaker 5: and parenthood and terminating a pregnancy. So I did find
Speaker 5: this particularly frustrating, given there have been so many junctures
Speaker 5: in which this has been challenged and proven incorrected.
Speaker 2: After the break using their abortion history to portray someone
Speaker 2: as reckless, hypersexual and crazy.
Speaker 1: Madison. How common is it for abortion records to turn
Speaker 1: up as evidence in court?
Speaker 5: There are no official statistics that I was able to
Speaker 5: access regarding this. I did speak to a few abortion providers.
Speaker 5: The impression that I received was it is fairly uncommon
Speaker 5: for abortion records to turn up in court generally across
Speaker 5: the board. You know, not necessarily in family court cases.
Speaker 5: There are certainly instances in which abortion records are relevant,
Speaker 5: for sure, particularly in sexual assault cases, where they work
Speaker 5: as proof of a sexual contact having been made. So
Speaker 5: it's not necessarily that abortion should not be ever mentioned
Speaker 5: in court, or that it's too sensitive or too prejudicial
Speaker 5: in and of itself. However, after I became aware of
Speaker 5: Louisa's incident, I did start asking around to see if
Speaker 5: an individual's abortion had ever been used against them in
Speaker 5: broader court processions, and that is when I received a
Speaker 5: message from Olivia. And Olivia had been encouraged by her
Speaker 5: legal counsel to introduce her singular abortion as evidence, so
Speaker 5: proof of having terminated pregnancy at seventeen years old. This
Speaker 5: was introduced during a sexual assault trial.
Speaker 4: The prosecution encouraged this.
Speaker 5: Olivia felt relatively comfortable with this, if not comforted by this,
Speaker 5: as it was a tangible material proof of a sexual
Speaker 5: occurrence that had happened. But given the nature of how
Speaker 5: the abortion was introduced alongside her sexual.
Speaker 4: Health history or sexual history per se, she.
Speaker 5: Believes used against her to suggest a hyper sexualization that
Speaker 5: was in her or embedded in her. She feels as
Speaker 5: if the abortion was registered in the mind's eye of
Speaker 5: the jury as mere proof that she is reckless and
Speaker 5: quote unquote crazy. There is no proof that is what
Speaker 5: was considered by the jury, But I believe Oliba has
Speaker 5: every reason to be dubious when it comes to how
Speaker 5: this was postured in the court. So whilst it is
Speaker 5: relatively uncommon, I will be unsurprised to find if it
Speaker 5: happens a lot more than we anticipate it does.
Speaker 1: And can you tell me any more about what doctors
Speaker 1: have told you about being placed in that position and
Speaker 1: the moral and ethical equations that they're having to make.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Doctor Sue Brumby, she was a abortion provider I
Speaker 5: spoke to for this, and she really stressed that she
Speaker 5: finds this form of emotional domestic abuse. I think any
Speaker 5: people that work in the sector are dubious about how
Speaker 5: these elements of a woman's private past sexual history can
Speaker 5: be used against them. I think particularly abortions conflicts as well,
Speaker 5: because it has a rich and patriarchal and it has
Speaker 5: a really complex relationship with the law. So for it
Speaker 5: to reappear in this context feels like a terrible loophole
Speaker 5: and kind of goes against a lot of advocacy endeavors
Speaker 5: and medical endeavors to destigmatize and make more accessible a
Speaker 5: procedure that is legal and is incredibly common.
Speaker 1: Right, But we have recently seen some of that advocacy payoff.
Speaker 1: This month there were amendments to the Family Law Act,
Speaker 1: So tell me about the changes that that will bring.
Speaker 5: This is being introduced in a bid to just ensure
Speaker 5: that sensitive information such as a woman's past termination history
Speaker 5: and counseling records, but primarily her counseling records, is safeguarded
Speaker 5: from entering custody battles. So it does state that the
Speaker 5: protections relate to communications occurring when a person seeks treatment
Speaker 5: or support from health services. And the definition here of
Speaker 5: health is particularly and deliberately broad, so that is psychological
Speaker 5: and physical and sexual health. If the court believes it's
Speaker 5: such evidence being submitted will cause harm or the child
Speaker 5: involved in the proceedings will find this harmful, the documents
Speaker 5: will then not be admitted in proceedings. If this amendment
Speaker 5: Act had been introduced prior to Louisa's custody battle, I
Speaker 5: personally believe the outcome would have been significantly different. Louisa
Speaker 5: lost custody of her child. Louisa is unable to see
Speaker 5: her child. So for a woman to raise allegations such
Speaker 5: as the ones Louisa raised of sexual abuse, commonly the
Speaker 5: family court will and does, in my opinion, punish this
Speaker 5: woman for doing so. And in this instance Louisa has
Speaker 5: been doggedly punished, I believe.
Speaker 3: And to come back to the issue of her terminations,
Speaker 3: and I suppose, more broadly, the issue of terminations being
Speaker 3: used in court proceedings, I mean, no matter what they are,
Speaker 3: I mean, what does the fact that that is happening
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five, what does that say to you
Speaker 3: about the stigma that is still attached to having a
Speaker 3: termination at all?
Speaker 5: I believe it reintroduces a brand new element of weaponization
Speaker 5: that I think Australia has felt relatively politically immune to.
Speaker 5: I know in my reporting that Roe v. Wade, the
Speaker 5: overturning of Roe v. Wade in the States did have
Speaker 5: a philosophical and political flow on effect. It certainly did
Speaker 5: raise the question of abortion on home soil in a
Speaker 5: way that felt more urgent and pressing. But we haven't
Speaker 5: necessarily been met with the underside of abortion being weaponized
Speaker 5: in this way.
Speaker 4: I think when people look at abortion more broadly.
Speaker 5: The issues and the very real issues have to do
Speaker 5: entirely with access. What is so terrifying about this instance
Speaker 5: is there is a twenty year gap between these terminations
Speaker 5: occurring and then being reintroduced, both in Louisa's life but
Speaker 5: in Louisa's legal processions regarding the custody of her child.
Speaker 5: So this raises a terrifying precedent when it comes to
Speaker 5: the choices we make about our bodies and how those
Speaker 5: choices can, in another context be used against us to
Speaker 5: completely corrode our ability to move forward with our lives,
Speaker 5: which is the great beauty and joy of women being
Speaker 5: afforded the right to choose in the first place. I
Speaker 5: did find it a deeply upsetting irony that this resurfaced
Speaker 5: in this.
Speaker 1: Way, Madison, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. Ruby.
Speaker 2: Also in the news today, Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi has
Speaker 2: welcomed remarks from his British counterpart that the UK is
Speaker 2: determined to proceed with the Orchesteele. Speaking to concerns of
Speaker 2: a US commitment to the Orchestile, British Prime Minister Kirstama
Speaker 2: says the UK Labor government held a review of the
Speaker 2: security arrangement last year and says there are clear benefits.
Speaker 2: The comments come amid the G seven summit in Canada,
Speaker 2: where a planned meeting between Albanesi and US President Donald
Speaker 2: Trump was canceled, with the White House stating the President
Speaker 2: had to return to Washington amid the escalating war in
Speaker 2: the Middle East, and G seven leaders have delivered a
Speaker 2: statement saying Israel has the right to defend itself, calling
Speaker 2: Iran the quote principal source of regional instability and terror.
Speaker 2: Israel launched a shock attack on Iran on Friday, as
Speaker 2: Washington and Tehran were in the midst of nuclear negotiations,
Speaker 2: and has so far killed more than two hundred people,
Speaker 2: mostly civilians. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 4: Thanks Blistening