Access to abortion in Australian has been the subject of significant legal reforms to the point that in some jurisdictions, most legal barriers to access have been dismantled. Nevertheless, research reveals that many Australian women will not be in a position to fully realise their reproductive rights until the non-legal barriers to access are adequately addressed. Between March 2017 and November 2020, the authors conducted qualitative research into the barriers faced by Australian women when accessing, or attempting to access, abortion services. Three of the primary non-legal barriers to access raised repeatedly in our research are financial barriers to access, geographic barriers to access; and deficiencies in practitioner attitudes, education and training. Part I of this article focuses on these barriers to abortion access while Part II considers the significant new challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic for women’s access to reproductive health services. The paper concludes that the pandemic and the measures introduced in response have amplified pre-existing barriers and generated a disproportionate and intersectional impact on the most marginalised and disempowered women in society.

在澳大利亚，获得堕胎一直是重大法律改革的主题，以致在某些司法管辖区，大多数法律上的获取障碍已被消除。然而，研究表明，在适当解决非法律获取障碍之前，许多澳大利亚妇女将无法充分实现其生殖权利。在2017年3月至2020年11月之间，作者对澳大利亚妇女在获得或试图获得堕胎服务时面临的障碍进行了定性研究。在我们的研究中反复提到的三个主要的非法律获取障碍是财务获取障碍，地理获取障碍；以及从业者态度，教育和培训方面的缺陷。本文的第一部分重点介绍了获得堕胎的障碍，而第二部分则考虑了COVID-19大流行为妇女获得生殖健康服务带来的重大新挑战。本文的结论是，大流行和采取的应对措施已经扩大了先前存在的障碍，并对社会上最边缘化和无权的妇女产生了不成比例的交叉影响。