The Sydney Feminists

Image description: A woman in a flowing, white shirt and black leggings walking through a field of very tall grass.  It may not always seem like it, particularly in the current global political climate, but women have made incredible strides since the beginning of second-wave feminism in the 1960s. In the workplace, at home, and on the streets, women have claimed their place and asserted their rights. What might have been unthinkable in our grandmother's youth is completely commonplace in our own. Thanks to the countless women who came before us and fought the good fight, women  are running companies, countries, and breaking glass ceilings left, right and centre - but still, some obstacles remain. One of the most prominent, lingering taboos for women as far as mainstream feminism is concerned is the right to choose a childfree life. In both the public and private spheres, women who choose not to have children are still very much viewed as an anomaly. And if a wom...

Dear Auntie, What’s a good comeback for someone who says, “only women who are raped deserve to have an abortion”?  Thanks, M Well for starters, that’s a horrible thing to say. That’s like saying “only people who have their nose broken from an assault deserve to have it fixed” or “car accident victims only warrant medical help if another driver smashes into them on purpose”. A woman shouldn’t need to be degraded and violated to warrant a termination. People have accidents. Sometimes they’re freak accidents. Others are accidents waiting to happen. Or worse yet, people hurt other people on purpose . The reason behind someone’s need for medical care shouldn’t dictate their right to it.  Furthermore, people can have an unwanted pregnancy for a plethora of agonising reasons and they should never be taken lightly .   I could go on and on about people’s right to safe abortion ... and I will. People against abortion often disregard the lac...

In this piece, I will test the first of the  two premises   that underpin the wave of restrictive abortion legislative currently proliferating conservative America.   The first premise is that a fetus is a person, which leads to the second premise that killing a person is wrong.  If legislation is built on premise one, it relies on the following being true: that fertilistion is the point at which a ‘person’ comes into being (in a legal sense), and this is the only morally relevant consideration across all possible circumstances that a person could seek an abortion.  So, all cases of abortion are murder and the rights of a mass of cells trump those of the person who keeps them viable, even in cases of rape or incest. Good health and social policy should first do no harm and then preserve the freedoms of those the policy affects. Where restriction of freedoms is deemed necessary, a pragmatic  approach is always best where freedoms are limited o...