Never Ever Again

​"This 2010 book addresses the need for abortion law change in Queensland and other states

and territories of Australia. In the years prior to 1970, hundreds of Queensland women died

from the complications of unsafe abortion. Abortion remained in a grey area for practising

doctors in Queensland until decriminalisationin 2018.

 

It is a mystery why abortion continues to matter in a world faced with the dire consequences

of overpopulation. Caroline de Costa unravels part of that mystery in this engaging and

beautifully written book which takes the reader on an emotional swing from despair and grief

to chuckles and disbelief. Despair at the carefully crafted stories of women who died from

illegal abortion and the stark ordinariness of their lives: chuckles from the absurdity of

charging a young couple in 2010 for breach of a law passed in 1899, and for details of Dr

Aleck Bourne who performed a test case abortion in 1938 that provided the judicial ruling at

the basis of Queensland’s case law on abortion. Caroline de Costa has written an engaging

tale. Read it, weep and wonder."

 

Review by Dr Jo Wainer, Monash University