The Preterm Foundation was a pioneering not-for-profit family planning clinic in Sydney Australia from 1974 to 2015, offering women a comprehensive range of counseling, contraception and first-trimester pregnancy termination services.
[2] Founding Board members included Australia Party founder and entrepreneur Gordon Barton, Forum magazine publisher Clyde Packer and barrister-businessman and renowned Anglo-Australian cricketer Geoffrey Keighley.
Nolan later said she believed the press was "tipped off by a hostile doctor", angered that his fees were being undercut by Preterm's more affordable cost of around $50 for pregnancy termination.
Staff were busier than expected during the first week of operations, terminating 50 first-trimester pregnancies at a cost of $50 per patient - just a third of the average $150 then being charged by private Sydney abortion doctors at the time.
[4][1] Six months later, Preterm was performing 80-90 abortions per week at a cost of $70, up to 75 percent of which could be covered through a combination of federal government benefits and health funds.
The woman was made to rest for an hour to evaluate blood pressure and assess for abdominal pain, before being released with a prescription for antibiotics and being given contraceptives or an intrauterine device.
[7][8][9][10] Local news media said the police "arson squad" investigated, focusing on "a group opposing the right of women to have abortions" that had previously picketed the clinic.
[1] After the fire, Preterm was unable to resume abortion services at its Camperdown premises and it took 18 months for the clinic to become operational again,[9] first at St Ann's private hospital in Killara[6] and later at a location in Surry Hills.
The sacking earned the ire of the Australian Social Welfare Union, which threatened to contact its member agencies and advise them not to refer women to Preterm unless the workers were reinstated.
[16] In the 1980s, when religious faith groups turned their activism to anti-abortion protests, Preterm was seen as the arch-nemesis of the Sydney right-to-life movement and became the object of multiple demonstrations.