The Abortion Game: Writing a Consciously Political Narrative Nonfiction Work

The Abortion Game: Writing a Consciously Political Narrative Nonfiction Work A PhD research thesis (Creative Writing), with manuscript (creative component) and exegesis (analytical component), submitted for the College of Arts, Victoria University Jacinda Woodhead June 2015 Woodhead | PhD manuscript and exegesis i The Abortion Game: Writing a Consciously Political Narrative Nonfiction Work Abstract In this creative‐writing research project, I set out to create a narrative nonfiction manuscript that investigates the contemporary politics surrounding abortion. The fundamental question driving the creative manuscript was, ‘Why is abortion largely invisible in Australia?’ Abortion is the second‐most common therapeutic surgical procedure in Australia, yet the history, the politics and the practice of abortion remain hidden from view. This invisibility allows us to avoid grappling with and confronting the complicated issues abortion raises. Using techniques commonly associated with fiction writing, such as narrative arc, characterisation, dialogue and scenes, the 69,000‐word manuscript investigates the factors, tiers and characters involved with abortion in Australia. The narrative nonfiction manuscript should be read first. The manuscript is accompanied by a 31,500‐word exegesis analysing the production, lineage and ethical implications of consciously political narrative nonfiction, a term that refers to works that make deliberate political interventions. Similarly to Hartsock (2000), I argue that when writing a consciously political narrative nonfiction work, the writer does not objectify the world as something different or alien from the reader, and instead strives to render characters as complex human beings. The exegesis reviews theories of ethics, objectivity and narrative within a form that is fundamentally journalism, yet can never fit within this narrow definition as it is primarily about mapping the cultural other (Sanderson 2004). The exegesis also scrutinises the usefulness and complexity of immersion as a research methodology. While I initially attempted to immerse myself as a limited participant‐observer in the world of pro‐choice and pro‐life politics, over the course of the research, my methodology resulted in a kind of radicalisation prompted by my fieldwork. For example, after witnessing the ongoing harassment of clinic patients and staff, I found myself openly hostile to the position and tactics of pro‐life activists. While I felt I remained capable of transcribing and depicting the worlds of these subjects, a seditious need grew to challenge their authority and worldview outside the text. This led me to make a political intervention inside and outside the text, and I thus crossed the precipice from observation to active participation. While I acknowledge that this is an unconventional narrative position, one that rejects ideals of journalistic objectivity, I argue that this subject position was born of the research and practice of this project – that is, of actually participating in the world of my subject, abortion. Moreover, this level of participation in the world of the textual subject is a direct result of writing a consciously political narrative nonfiction work, a subgenre that allows for the practitioner’s politics and reactions to situations to help shape the text, and the consequences beyond. Woodhead | PhD manuscript and exegesis ii The Abortion Game: Writing a Consciously Political Narrative Nonfiction Work Statement of Authenticity Doctor of Philosophy Declaration (by creative manuscript) I, Jacinda Woodhead, declare that the PhD exegesis entitled ‘The Abortion Game: Writing a Consciously Political Narrative Nonfiction Work’ is no more than 100,000 words in length including quotes and exclusive of tables, figures, appendices, bibliography, references and footnotes. This exegesis contains no material that has been submitted previously, in whole or in part, for the award of any other academic degree or diploma. Except where otherwise indicated, this exegesis is my own work. Signature: Date: 10 June 2015 Woodhead | PhD manuscript and exegesis iii The Abortion Game: Writing a Consciously Political Narrative Nonfiction Work For my grandmother Woodhead | PhD manuscript and exegesis iv The Abortion Game: Writing a Consciously Political Narrative Nonfiction Work Acknowledgements I would like to thank the many individuals, organisations, activists and writers who helped me in the course of this research. In particular, my supervisors, Dr Barbara Brook, Dr Fiona Capp and Dr Jennifer Lee, and my colleagues, Dr Jeff Sparrow, Alex Skutenko and Bec Zajac – thanks for the patience and the unwavering support. Organisations instrumental to this research included the East Melbourne Fertility Control Clinic, Children by Choice, Jessie Street National Women’s Library, Friends of the Fertility Clinic, Marie Stopes International Australia, Victorian Trades Hall, the State Library of Victoria, Radical Women, the Campaign for Reproductive Rights, the Sex Party, the Greens, Melbourne Feminist Action, the National Union of Students, the John & Shirley McLaren Collection at Victoria University, Reproductive Choice Australia, Albury Choice, Right to Privacy Albury, the Englehardt Street Clinic, Albury Wodonga News Weekly, Meanjin, Overland, the Australian Christian Lobby, and Victoria University. Special thanks to Dr Pieter Mourik and Elizabeth Mourik, Dr Jo Wainer, Dr Susie Allanson, Dr Leslie Cannold, Dr Mark Schulberg, Dr Darren Russell, Colleen Hartland, Elizabeth O’Shea, Dr Cathy Oke, Dr Caroline de Costa, Dr Kate Gleeson, Cait Calcutt, Prof Barbara Baird, Susie Reid, Debbie Brennan, Chris Johnson, Stephanie Convery, Margarita Windisch, Elizabeth Reichardt, Clare Strahan, Ian See, Graham Preston and Anne Rampa and their families, Ann and Josephine from Rachel’s Vineyard, my mum, and all the doctors I spoke with along the way. I must also thank my writing group – Jo, Nean, Melissa, Ilka, Simon and Benjamin – for their feedback and for not minding me workshopping a manuscript about abortion in a writing group focussed on children’s literature. Much gratitude, too, to Sophie Splatt, Simon Mitchell and Stephen Wright for their close readings and insights. Finally, thank you to all my interviewees, and to all my comrades, most especially Benjamin and Bert. Manuscript note: some names in this book have been changed. Woodhead | PhD manuscript and exegesis v The Abortion Game: Writing a Consciously Political Narrative Nonfiction Work Contents THE ABORTION GAME: WRITING A CONSCIOUSLY POLITICAL NARRATIVE NONFICTION WORK I ABSTRACT II STATEMENT OF AUTHENTICITY III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS V THE ABORTION GAME: HOW IT’S PLAYED WITH WOMEN’S LIVES PROLOGUE 2 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO ABORTION POLITICS AND PROJECT 6 CHAPTER TWO: THE EAST MELBOURNE CLINIC 19 CHAPTER THREE: THE CLINIC DEFENDERS 37 CHAPTER FOUR: THE PRO‐CHOICE BUSINESS 63 CHAPTER FIVE: RELIGIOUS WEDGES 85 CHAPTER SIX: THE DEEP NORTH 106 CHAPTER SEVEN: THE ABORTIONISTS 133 CHAPTER EIGHT: WOMEN’S BUSINESS 158 CHAPTER NINE: IN THE END 174 NOTES 181 EXEGESIS: THE ABORTION GAME: WRITING A CONSCIOUSLY POLITICAL NARRATIVE NONFICTION WORK INTRODUCTION 192 CHAPTER ONE: THE TRADITION OF CONSCIOUSLY POLITICAL NARRATIVE NONFICTION 201 CHAPTER TWO: ETHICS AND OBJECTIVITY WITHIN CONSCIOUSLY POLITICAL NARRATIVE NONFICTION 219 CHAPTER THREE: SUBJECTIVITY IN IMMERSION AND PARTICIPATION METHODOLOGIES WHEN MAKING POLITICAL NARRATIVE NONFICTION WORKS: A FRAUGHT SPACE 238 CHAPTER FOUR: BEATEN UP BY BIKIES IN A CAVE IN KENYA, OR HOW TO WRITE AN ETHICAL ENDING 251 CONCLUSION 265 WORKS CITED 270 Woodhead | PhD manuscript and exegesis vi The Abortion Game: Writing a Consciously Political Narrative Nonfiction Work The Abortion Game: How It’s Played with Women’s Lives Prologue ‘Dear Peter Knight,’ I wrote. The cursor waited, blinking and hostile, while I struggled to fill in the rest of the letter. What to ask? I had never tried to interview someone in prison before. I studied the online maps of Barwon Prison. The aerial layout, with its rotor-shaped buildings and cog- like flow, looked like a diagram for something unrealised yet profound. On Monday 16 July 2001, Knight walked into a clinic that performed abortions and shot another person. It was Australia’s first, and so far only, anti- abortion murder. As maximum-security prisoners don’t have access to the internet, my first attempt at contact was sent not to Peter Knight but to the Department of Corrections. It was more direct, I told myself: prison officials would open, read and most likely withhold my letter anyway. I’d already interviewed a broad range of people with radical views, I told the Department of Corrections email recipient. But Peter Knight’s case holds a unique and extreme place in the struggle for abortion rights in this country. On that Monday morning in 2001, when patients had been registered, anti- abortion protesters had disbanded and the lone security guard had left his post, a man walked into East Melbourne’s Fertility Control Clinic, the oldest abortion clinic in Australia, with a large duffel bag.1 Steve Rogers, the security guard, was still there although it was 20 minutes after his shift had ended. Rogers was 44 years of age. He lived in Melton, in Melbourne’s west, with his wife and seven children; his father had died a fortnight before. He had worked at the clinic for only two months. He was an atheist.2 Exiting the bathroom, Steve Rogers confronted an unaccompanied man – a conspicuous presence in a women’s fertility

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