Australian women with disabilities face “reproductive violence”, including forced sterilisations, abortions and contraception, an inquiry will hear.
Organisations set to give evidence to the Senate inquiry into universal access to reproductive healthcare on Friday have said in their submissions that carers and a discriminatory healthcare system are violating women’s rights.
Forced sterilisation is not prohibited in Australia, while women with disabilities are vulnerable to family violence including being forced to have abortions or use contraception.
The Victorian Women’s Health Services Network said women with disabilities were “refused the right to consent to medical treatment including abortion, and are more likely to experience reproductive coercion than women without disabilities”.
Victorian organisation Women’s Health in the South East said forced sterilisation was often performed to prevent pregnancy, that it breached “every international human rights treaty to which Australia is a party” and “constitutes torture”.
The Family Planning Alliance said parents, guardians and doctors are making decisions on behalf of women with disability, with “no strategies in place to improve their understanding of their reproductive choices and rights”.
The Public Health Association of Australia said people with disabilities should be given disability-specific information about contraception use and managing menstruation, and should have their right to be pregnant and parent protected.
Women With Disabilities Australia told the inquiry in February that widespread discrimination and ableist attitudes resulted in “multiple and extreme” violations of rights.
Carolyn Frohmader, WWDA’s executive director, said the right “for everybody to make their own choices about their body, to have full control over their body, their sexuality, their health, relationships, if and when to get married or not, if and when to have children or not, without any form of discrimination, coercion or violence” was a fundamental human right.
“[Everyone should have the right to] be free from anyone else making personal decisions about sexuality and reproductive matters, and to access sexual and reproductive health information, education, services and support,” she said.
“These egregious forms of reproductive violence have no place in a civilised world, and yet remain lawful in this country.”
She said Australia was “a wealthy country that still allows practices such as forced sterilisation, forced abortion, forced contraception and menstrual suppression”.
“This is nothing short of shameful,” she said.
The latest statistics on forced sterilisation from the Australian Guardianship and Administration Council show there were nine forced sterilisations in 2020-21.
Frohmader said women with disabilities were put on long-acting reversible contraceptives (Larc) for years or decades longer than they should be, which can lead to osteoporosis.
“One woman, 47 years old, complaining constantly of lower back pain, is given Panadol. She had been on a Larc for 25 years and, of course, had never had a bone density test,” she said.
“After agitation, advocacy and intervention from our organisation, of course we got her a bone density test, and she was absolutely riddled with osteoporosis.”
The Australian Lawyers for Human Rights women and girls’ rights co-chair, Tania Penovic, said there was anecdotal evidence that women who were assaulted or raped, or deemed incapable of looking after a child, were forced to have abortions.
Decisions on behalf of women with cognitive disabilities could be made by a “substitute decision-maker” or through a guardianship arrangement.
In January, the royal commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability published a report on supported decision-making, where the person with a disability has trusted advisers to help them make choices.
It proposed a framework around universal principles including dignity and risk, co-leadership and equal rights to make decisions, support and safeguards.
ALHR highlighted the “urgent need” to prevent forced sterilisation and contraception.
It called on Australia to “introduce national uniform legislation to ensure that the use of sterilisation, abortion and the administration of contraception can only be carried out with prior, free and fully informed consent”, and to “take immediate steps to replace substitute decision-making with supported decision-making and repeal all legislation that authorises medical intervention without the free and informed consent of the persons concerned”.
The committee will report in May.
