Reproductive rights at home? Prohibiting telehealth abortion in South Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, as governments urged citizens to limit their movements and socially isolate as a protective strategy, the home became a place layered with new meanings. Feminists have long challenged characterisations of the home as a sanctuary. Such characterisations and feminist claims against them took on new complexity and significance during the pandemic. This article investigates access to abortion care in South Australia under COVID-19 restrictions, as a case study of the contest over the safety of the home. It examines the pre-existing legislative requirements placed on those in need of abortion that, in the context of the pandemic and newly available access to telehealth medicine, both illuminated and increased the exceptional status of abortion as a form of healthcare and complicated the gendered meanings of safety and home.