Lost

Illegal abortion stories


With a foreword by Helen Garner, this book contains a collection of personal stories from women who had illegal abortions. The stories were told to Dr Bertram Wainer, the abortion reform doctor and campaigner, in response to an advertisement he placed in a Melbourne newspaper in 1985. There are also accounts from doctors and nurses who had either provided illegal abortions or worked in hospitals where the women who had had illegal abortions were cared for. Each brief story, told with raw frankness, describes the illegal and dangerous nature of abortion at the time.