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History
of
the Bessie Smyth Foundation
Establishment
The Bessie Smyth Foundation was established in July 1977
to provide health care and fertility control services to women and to
undertake public research and education which promotes women’s
health. It was set up at a time, in the late 1970’s, when activists
from the feminist women’s health movement had been working at abortion
clinics which were run on a medicalised and hierarchical basis.
Those feminist activists knew from their work with the women they counselled
and from their respect for those women, that there was ‘a better
way in which to deliver an abortion service’. They knew that abortion
services could be run on a wholistic basis, looking at the totality
of women’s lives and not just seeing their need for an abortion
as an opportunity to make profits.
They could also see that injecting some empathy and compassion into
all staff in abortion services would make the woman’s experience
on the day a whole lot better. From the receptionist to the counsellor
to the doctor to the recovery nurse – everyone affects a woman’s
experience of the abortion operation – it is imperative that all
staff in abortion services have appropriate training and an understanding
of the situations women can find themselves in.
Given that the abortion opertion is, in fact, a simple medical procedure
the feminist activists who set up The Bessie Smyth Foundation in the
late 1970’s could see that the operation did not need to be provided
in a highly medicalised setting. They could see that you could both
meet infection control and other standards, yet operate a service which
was ‘homey’ and welcoming in its environment and which recognised
the reality of women’s lives.
In practical terms this meant saying it was OK for women to bring their
children along with them if they had no one to care for the children.
It also meant scheduling appointment times at more reasonable woman-friendly
times such as 9.45 am rather than the medicalised model of first appointment
at 8 am.
Bessie Smyth Foundation’s Powell Street Clinic
The Bessie Smyth Foundation fulfilled the above objectives
by opening up a termination of pregnancy service, known as The Powell
Street Clinic, in Homebush on 4th July 1977.
The Powell Street Clinic was run under a system which was very different
to other abortion services in that it was non-hierarchical (counsellors
had an equal say to the doctors) and the atmosphere was welcoming and
homey.
Each woman was seen by a counsellor for a period of 45 to 60 minutes
– this allowed adequate time for each woman to have all of her
questions and clarifications answered and for her to establish a rapport
with the counsellor and to open up to her if she wanted to. Our experience
is that most women at the time of making the decision to terminate a
pregnancy want support and to not be judged. We provided this in a caring
and supportive environment which allowed each woman to be treated with
respect and dignity.
The counsellor then accompanied the woman through surgery, providing
theatre assistant support to our doctors and continued support to the
client.
Information, information, information
Each
client not only had information about the procedure, the risks and complications
and the aftercare explained to her in detail by our counsellors, she
also was provided with written information as we recognised that sometimes
women were so overwhelmed that they could not really take in, and understand,
the verbal information provided.
Many Languages
We provided all of our information in 13 languages as well as in English.
Our counsellors were trained in the additional skills required to undertake
pregnancy decision-making counselling or abortion counselling by phone
or face-to-face with an interpreter.
In addition to information about the abortion operation we provided
comprehensive information and advice about all methods of contraception
and referral, if necessary, to other services for women.
We provided this service for a little over 25 years from the same premises
in Homebush, working hard over those years to turn the building into
a truly friendly and welcoming environment for our clients and their
support people.
OUR PHILSOPHY WHILST WE MANAGED A TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY SERVICE
The Powell Street Clinic was run with a philosophy that
it was a SERVICE not a clinic! A service to meet the needs of woman
when making a decision about a pregnancy; a service to meet the needs
of women for empathic, non-judgemental, supportive care whilst implementing
their decision if their decision was to have a termination of pregnancy.
The other element of our philosophy was that no woman would be turned
away if she did not have the money to pay for the operation – as
this was well known amongst fellow abortion providers and women’s
health and welfare agencies, it would be true to say that Bessie saw
a higher proportion of low-income and disadvantaged women because of
referral to us by fellow providers and other agencies of such women.
In practical terms, and in fulfilment of our object that we make our
services available and accessible to all women regardless of financial
means, we wrote off each year approximately $10,000 in fees owed to
us by women who had undertaken to pay off by instalment the cost of
their operation. We did not want to turn ourselves into debt collectors
and we recognised that as women are on lower incomes than men and, oftentimes,
had carer and other responsibilities, they were simply not in a position
to pay us back even though they wanted to.
2002 brought big changes for Bessie!
During 2002 we struck financial difficulties precipitated
by ‘bigger picture’ factors which were beyond our control
(see attached pamphlet). This lead to a decision by our Board of Directors
to sell, in August 2002, our business and premises to a British multi-national,
Marie Stopes International.
2002 was a very difficult year for our organisation – we remain
saddened that we are not running a termination of pregnancy service
as we continue to recognise that that is one of the most effective ways
to raise the standard of quality of care in abortion services. In practical
terms it also remains the most effective way in which the feminist women’s
health movement can provide a safe and affordable abortion service to
women.
The achievements of The Bessie Smyth Foundation in
the 25 years that we owned and managed The Powell Street Clinic
- The
fact that the Women’s Liberation Movement had a reputable and
high standard business and premises to sell is, in itself, a huge
achievement;
- In
the 25 years we owned and managed The Powell Street Clinic we provided
over 42,000 safe and affordable abortions to women of all ages in
the reproductive years; to women of many cultures; to women of all
income brackets;
- We
provided those 42,000 women with high quality, individualised care
and support in a non-directive and non-judgemental manner;
- We
provided training and employment for numerous doctors and counselling
staff in that 25 years – doctors trained by The Bessie Smyth
Foundation were sought after by fellow providers – all of the
doctors working for us last year, who wanted to stay in the field
of abortion, quickly found employment with fellow providers; all of
our counsellors were sought after and quickly snapped up once the
sale was concluded;
- We
provided an income for many, many women over the years who worked
as counsellors at Bessie;
- We
provided supervision and placements for a number of university students
over the years;
- We
maintained a commitment, in the face of adverse policy changes from
federal and state governments over the years, to access to abortion
for the marginalised and the disadvantaged in our society – this
included our willingness to see women who were ‘illegal’
migrants (illegal by the federal government’s definition that
is); women who were sex workers; women on methadone programmes; women
exiting the prison system or still in the prison system; women with
drug or alcohol-related problems – and all of these women were
treated with dignity and respect;
- We
maintained the most extensive and comprehensive referral information
for our clients – whether it was to drug and alcohol agencies
or to women’s health centres or to welfare agencies our Resources
Room housed a huge amount of referral information;
- We
maintained and updated our resources regularly such as our risks and
complications information sheet; our aftercare information sheet;
our multilingual information; information about the procedure; information
about methods of contraception;
- We
maintained membership of the National Association of Testing Authorities
(NATA) and compliance with their guidelines so to be eligible to undertake
a selected number of pathology tests; we maintained membership of
the Infection Control Association so to stay on top of changes to
infection control procedures and to contribute to debates in the field
of infection control;
- We
maintained links with the women’s health centre movement via
the peak body Women’s Health NSW; with the community sector movement
via membership of the NSW Council of Social Services; with fellow
abortion providers through links with the Abortion Providers Federation
of Australasia; with the international women’s health movement
via organisations such as the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive
Rights based in Amsterdam, the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective
and the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network;
and with developments in the politics of abortion and abortion service
delivery via participation in the group, Women’s Abortion Action
Campaign, and other abortion rights initiatives over the years such
as the Liverpool Abortion Defence Campaign (1976 to 1978), the Right
to Choose Coalition (1982-1988) and the NSW Abortion Rights Coalition
(approx 1988 to 1994). In terms of developing resources for women
of all religions we maintained links with the US-based abortion rights
group, Catholics for a Free Choice.
2003
brings renewal and a sense of purpose!
We have relocated to Auburn and our current service provision is as
follows:
- Pregnancy
decision-making counselling;
- Pre
and post-abortion counselling – either face-to-face or by phone;
- Picking
up women either from their home (if they live in the metropolitan
area and have no supports around them) or from Strathfield or Central
Railway Station if coming in from rural areas; then transporting them
to the clinic they have booked into; staying with them to be there
to support them and help them interpret and understand what is happening;
assisting women find affordable accommodation if an overnight stay
is required; transporting the woman back to the railway station to
catch the return train home the next day;
- Negotiating
reduced fees with abortion clinics for women who contact us because
they cannot afford the price quoted by the clinic;
- Negotiating
with a clinic that our staff can go into surgery with a woman, if
she requests it, and can stay there to support her during the procedure;
- we
are providing a consultancy by phone or face-to-face to community
workers; health professionals; student groups; stakeholders in the
abortion service field to update their knowledge in regard to the
following:
- current issues in abortion service delivery;
- methodology issues;
- public health aspects of abortion;
- quality counselling and quality care in abortion services;
- ascertaining women’s needs so to ensure abortion services are
run in a woman-centred and non-judgemental way;
- continued debate about methods of contraception and the role of
the drug companies and international trade agreements in distribution
of drugs.
- we
will provide resources and training upon request;
- we
will continue to work with providers and networks to ensure women’s
access to safe and affordable abortion;
- we
have been developing resources throughout 2003 to improve knowledge
in the general community about the range of abortion services available
and what requirements they may have for women to access their service
and about the issue of abortion overall.
In
the longer term we hope to transform our current level of services to
a fully funded counselling, information and advocacy service for all
NSW women, modelled on the Queensland agency, Children by Choice, which
has been providing Queensland women with phone and face-to-face counselling
around pregnancy options, information and advocacy for more than 30
years.
A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR PHILANTHROPISTS AND SUPPORTERS OF
A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE ABORTION
For those who are interested to be involved in this project
to establish a telephone and face-to-face counselling information and
advocacy service, Bessie is providing a unique opportunity for benefactors
and others interested in women’s access to quality abortion services
to be involved from the ground level. Please contact us for more information.
Legal status of The Bessie Smyth Foundation
The Bessie Smyth Foundation is a company limited by guarantee
and we lodge documents (as all companies are required to) with the Australian
Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Both ASIC and the Australian
Taxation Office recognise our organisation as a non-profit company,
however, at this point in time we do not have tax deductibility status.
We hope to achieve that status later this year after changes to our
Memorandum and Articles of Association at our Annual General Meeting
in December.
If you require any further information about the Bessie Smyth Foundation
please do not hesitate to contact us.
Prepared
by Margaret Kirkby, Coordinator
The Bessie Smyth Foundation
39 North Parade
Auburn NSW 2144
PH: 61-2-9649-9744
FAX: 61-2-9649-8144
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