The presiding Judge Levine's ruling, based on the Victorian Menhennitt ruling, established that an abortion would be lawful in NSW if there was "any economic, social or medical ground or reason upon which a doctor could base an honest and reasonable belief that an abortion was required to avoid a serious danger to the pregnant woman's life or to her physical or mental health".
[5] The rapidly growing Sydney Women's Liberation Movement felt need for a reliable New South Wales clearing house for information on fertility planning and safe abortion services.
Among the first organisers around access to safe and legal abortions were Communist Party of Australia campaigners Joyce Stevens,[6] and Gloria Garton.
This was followed by a Hyde Park rally, after which some feminist activists returned to Women's House and laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Control Abortion Referral Service.
The three commissioners Justice Elizabeth Evatt (Chair), Archbishop Felix Arnott and journalist Anne Deveson presented their final report in November 1977.
"[19] Nearly three years later, in May 1977 Control was one of the many groups Australia-wide to make a submission on the quality of abortion services to the Commission, a submission signed by six Control workers who had recently resigned en groupe from the staff of then-leading abortion provider Population Services International (PSI) to protest the poor quality of conditions provided to women patients at its clinics.
[21] Volunteer counsellors based at Sydney Women's Liberation House responded to inquiries both by phone and in person, 6-9pm, Monday to Friday.
The first LCWHC administrator, Judy McClean and the first doctor Stephania Seidlecki [26] asked the hospital if LCWC "could refer any women to them if something went wrong, and they agreed it was a good idea.
[30][31] In the changed political climate following the November 1975 dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and in the midst of a public health crisis caused by a NSW doctor's strike[32] the police raided the Liverpool Women's Health Centre,[33] arresting a woman doctor on the charge of conducting an illegal abortion on a minor and a counsellor on the charge of aiding and abetting a crime.
[4] In this post-Levine ruling era, new free-standing clinics not attached to or dependent upon hospitals began opening in Sydney and the price of abortion with private practitioners dropped from $350 to under $120.
Newcastle gynaecologist Dr Lachlan Lang trained Preterm and LCWHC doctors in no-touch vacuum extraction technique under local anaesthetic.
In March 1975 Population Services International (Australasia) (PSI) opened a clinic in Arncliffe, Sydney, which did abortions up to 20 weeks LMP, under general anesthetic.
PSI Director Dr Geoffrey Davis, who had also practiced in Sydney in the 1960s, made a concerted effort to recruit feminist staff, seeking to leverage the referral power of the growing women's health movement.
[42] On 6 March 1975, Davis wrote a signed letter to PSI international headquarters, including the words: "Rader Rollen fur den Zeig, as we used to remark while warming ourselves round the burning Reichstag.
She told the Sydney Morning Herald that a doctor "who had run a lucrative abortion business in Arncliffe" had been making repeated threatening phone calls to her home.
The group therefore approached the Control collective to help it vet and work with abortion doctors in the greater Sydney area using criteria that included their willingness to incorporate counselling as an essential part of their services.
[37] Key PSI activist Margaret Hooks noted in her diary at the time that she felt "so helpless against the mammoth task we have set ourselves, taking on an industry backed by multi-nationals, the state criminal world - how dare we be so presumptuous."
Planned publication by the National Times proved complex and instead the pamphlet was widely distributed beginning in June 1977, and numerous media interviews were undertaken.
By April 1977, the original, older Control collective members had all but one moved on, and the former PSI health workers conducted a Control-hosted counsellor training course for additional counselling staff.
[37] This raised Control's staff to seven: Lynne Hutton Williams, Rosie Elliott, Jenny King, Sue Powell, Jacqui Robertson, Margaret Sutherland and Louise Templeman.
[46] Such was the increase in referrals, that Control needed to move from Women's Liberation House and relocated to new premises above the Dymmocks Bookstore at 424 George Street in Sydney.
Beryl Holmes, co-founder of CBC wrote: "Consequently, when Children by Choice was approached by the (Tweed Heads) doctor for referrals, they reacted in their usual manner to such offers: that is, if the facility proved to be satisfactory, they would refer to it.
[23] These referrals were initially almost captured by PSI, but (it may be that) interventions by Family Planning Association and the women's health services prevented this outcome.
[39] Over Christmas 1976 the ACT Right to Life discovered PSI Director Dr Geoff Davis had leased Canberra clinic premises and was seeking staff through the Commonwealth Employment Service.
In 1977, Leichhardt Women's Community Health Centre established the Bessie Smyth Foundation counselling and abortion facility (often called the Powell St Clinic) in the Western Sydney suburb of Homebush.
It operated five days per week including night sessions, with five collective members usually on duty - one in the surgery, another at reception and 3–4 counsellors, who both provided pre-procedural counselling and post-procedural recovery services.
Some highly capable nurses who had to ensure non-medical staff did the right thing, women like Meredith Brownhill, Rosemary King and Tess Shannon.
After 25 years providing 42,000 safe, affordable abortions and countless counseling and support services, plus training for health professionals and student placements, Bessie was sold to British multinational, Marie Stopes International.
[68] With the funds from the sale of their Powell St. clinic, the Bessie Smyth Foundation continued to provide counselling and support services for destitute women.
[47] In August 2015, Preterm closed down operations after 40 years, apparently the victim of high costs associated with maintaining its licensing and accreditation.