Bertram Barney Wainer (30 December 1928 – 16 January 1987) was an Australian doctor who successfully campaigned for legal access to abortion for women in the state of Victoria.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland (his father had died before his birth),[1] he left school at thirteen and migrated to Australia eight years later with 2s 6d in his pocket.

For Wainer it marked the beginning of a long struggle to overturn laws that made abortion an offence punishable by up to fifteen years in jail.

[2][3][4] A few weeks after this Wainer surrendered himself to police and "confessed" to performing an abortion, thus testing the new legal framework and bringing publicity to the decision in the Davidson case.

An inquiry which commenced in early 1970 headed by William Kaye QC revealed an institutionalised and systematic graft dating back to about 1953, and resulted in Ford and another Superintendent, Jack Matthews, being jailed for five years.

[7][8] Wainer opened the Fertility Control Clinic in East Melbourne in 1972: the first in Australia where public access to abortion could be obtained with no upfront fees.