2026/01/21 by Judith Brett · 1 voice
Medicine · Social Sciences · #Reproductive Health and Contraception #Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies #Race, History, and American Society
paper · doi:10.1080/1031461x.2025.2586824
openalex publication_date 2026/01/21 · openalex created_date 2026/01/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
By International Women’s Day 1975, a narrative was well in place that women’s liberation started in Australia in 1970. This article explores a little-recognised precursor: humanism and the commitment to civil liberties in the abortion law reform movement. It does this by looking at three women abortion law reform campaigners active in the 1960s, before Women’s Liberation reached Australia. The three women are: Beryl Henderson (b. 1897), who was a member of the founding executive committee of the British Abortion Law Reform Association when it was formed in 1936 and in 1968 began the Canberra branch of the Abortion Law Reform Association; Julia Freebury (b. 1923), an indefatigable worker for abortion law reform in New South Wales; and Beatrice Faust (b. 1939), founder of the Women’s Electoral Lobby, who in 1966 set up a sub-committee on abortion law reform in the recently formed Victorian Council of Civil Liberties.