This book would not have happened without the Somers friends who encouraged me to be brave and realise I wanted to really write it. And it was Maria Tumarkin’s excellent Creative Non-Fiction course put on by Writers Victoria which helped kickstart it. That course also led me to my fabulous writing group—Debi Hamilton, Frank Golding, Kath McKay and Anastasia Kanjere. Thank you for providing a structure and a space for me to build this book, one chapter at a time, and for unfailingly helpful questions, feedback and advice. Thanks also to Madeline Hamilton, for reading early fragments and encouraging me to take it further, and to the amazing Monica Dux, for taking a chance on my writing in Mothermorphosis, and for wise advice and playing fairy godmother to the project ever since.
Colleagues and the head of the Law School at La Trobe, Patrick Keyzer have been incredibly supportive in helping me find a middle space between what I had experienced and my legal academic writing, particularly Laura Griffin, Kirsty Duncanson and Fiona Kelly. Thank you to the various ‘Shut up and Write’ groups at La Trobe, Melbourne Law School and RMIT who egged me on, provided valuable feedback about the title and other key decisions about the book, and who allowed me to literally shut up and write.
For bringing it to publication and making it a better manuscript, thank you so much to Dina Kluska, Sally Heath and Louise Stirling at MUP, Sarina Rowell for sensitive and careful copyediting, Klarissa Pfisterer for working with us to develop such a beautiful cover, Nicholas Purcell for the profile photography, Paul Smitz for your proofreading, Hilary Harper, for reading closely and for her own beautiful writing, and my literary agent Clare Forster for wonderfully astute advocacy and advice.
Last but not least, thank you to my beautiful children—to Ali, for shining such light into our lives and persistently harassing me about ‘finishing my chapter’, and to Zainab, for teaching me about life, death and being a mother.
Notes
Chapter 1 Sunday 27 December 2009
1 JM v QFG, GK and State of Queensland [1997] QADT 5 (31 January 1997); MW & Ors v Royal Women’s Hospital & Ors Mw, Dd, Ta & Ab v Royal Women’s Hospital, Freemasons Hospital and Victoria [1997] HREOCA 6 (5 March 1997). The Queensland decision on direct discrimination was, however, overturned by the Queensland Supreme Court in October 1997, and the decision on indirect discrimination was remitted back to the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission: QFG and GK v JM (Ambrose J, Supreme Court of Queensland, 24 October 1997).
Chapter 6 Frida and me
1 Hayden Herrera, Frida Kahlo: The Paintings, Bloomsbury, 1992.
Chapter 10 The ‘born alive’ rule
1 Attorney General’s Reference No 3 of 1994 [1998] AC 245.
2 Attorney General’s Reference No 3 of 1994 [1998] AC 245, 269.
3 Adrian Lowe, ‘Mother vows to fight on for law change over road death of unborn child’, The Age (25 January 2010), 5.
4 Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s15.
5 [2003] NSWCCA 399.
6 R v King [2004] NSWCCA 444 (7 December 2004) at [30] per McColl JA.
7 R v King [2004] NSWCCA 444 (7 December 2004) at [31] per McColl JA.
8 R v King [2004] NSWCCA 444 (7 December 2004) at [32] per McColl JA.
9 R v King [2004] NSWCCA 444 (7 December 2004) at [39] per McColl JA.
10 R v King [2003] NSWCCA 399 (19 December 2003), [14] Tupman DCJ quoted in [10] and [14] of Spiegelman CJ’s judgment.
11 R v King [2003] NSWCCA 399 (19 December 2003), [96].
12 Adrian Lowe, ‘Mother vows to fight on for law change over road death of unborn child’, The Age (25 January 2010), 5.
13 ibid.
Chapter 20 Heartbeat
1 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X04023824.
Chapter 22 Close up with hope
1 Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart—Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Shambhala, Boston 2000, pages 44 and 41.
2 Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart—Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Shambhala, Boston 2000, page 53.
Chapter 23 The charnel ground
1 Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart—Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Shambhala, Boston 2000, page 124.
Chapter 29 Zoe’s Law
1 In Victoria, the charge is referred to as ‘dangerous driving causing serious injury’: Crimes Act 1958 (Vic), s 15, as amended by Abortion Law Reform Act 2008 (Vic) s 10(2). For NSW, see: Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), s 4, as amended by Crimes Amendment (Grievous Bodily Harm) Act 2005 (NSW).
2 Brodie Donegan, ‘In the eyes of the law, her daughter’s death doesn’t count’ (18 September 2013), Mamamia, http://www.mamamia.com.au/social/zoes-law/
3 Fred Nile (27 May 2013), ‘Religion, marriage & euthanasia’, Q&A (transcript). Australian Broadcasting Corporation; ‘Stop Muslim immigration, NSW Christian Democrats say’, ABC News, Australia, 11 March 2007, http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/fred-nile-under-fire-for-facebook-post-about-charlotte-dawson-abortion-20140224-33bol.html.
4 Crimes Amendment (Zoe’s Law) Bill 2013 (NSW), proposed s 41AA(1).
5 It was only in 2016 that the law was amended to clarify that this law excluded women who had taken legally prescribed drugs. Nina Martin, ‘Alabama lawmakers limit drug prosecutions in pregnancy’, ProPublica (4 May 2016), https://www.propublica.org/article/alabama-lawmakers-limit-drug-prosecutions-in-pregnancy.
6 Victoria Law, ‘Alabama case illustrates difficulties women behind bars face when seeking abortion’, Rewire (5 August 2015), https://rewire.news/article/2015/08/05/alabama-case-illustrates-difficulties-women-behind-bars-face-seeking-abortion/.
7 Kristin Savell, ‘Is the “born alive” rule outdated and indefensible?’ (2006), 28 Sydney Law Review, 625, 664.
8 State v Rowland, No. 041901649 (Utah Dist. Ct.-3d Apr. 7, 2004) (Fuchs J).
9 Nina Martin, ‘A stillborn child, a charge of murder and the disputed case law on “fetal harm”’, ProPublica (18 March 2014) https://www.propublica.org/article/stillborn-child-charge-of-murder-and-disputed-case-law-on-fetal-harm. See also the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision in Ex parte Ankrom No. 1110176, 2013 WL 135748 (Ala. January 11, 2013).
10 Bei Bei Shuai v State, 966 N E 2d 619 (May, Najam, Riley JJ) (Indiana Court of Appeals, 2012). After significant public protests, in August 2013, the prosecutor offered Ms Shuai a plea bargain. She pleaded guilty to criminal recklessness and was immediately released, having already served more than the maximum sentence. National Advocates for Pregnant Women, ‘Thank you! Bei Bei Shuai is free!’ (6 August 2013), http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/blog/2013/08/thank_you_bei_bei_shuai_is_fre.php.
11 Barry M Lester and Jean E Twomey, ‘Treatment of substance abuse during pregnancy’ (2008), 4 Womens Health 67, 74. Similarly, the Intergovernmental Committee of Drugs found that punitive attitudes were an ‘impediment’ to responding more effectively to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders: Lucinda Burns et al. (eds), ‘Fetal Alcohol Disorders in Australia: An update’ (Monograph of the Intergovernmental Committee of Drugs Working Party of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, June 2012) [2012], 76.
12 Angela Carder’s family, via her estate, successfully appealed the decision after her death, in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals 573 A.2d 1235 (1990).
13 Texas Health and Safety Code s 166.049.
14 http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/hundreds-farewell-crash-victim-shona-caley-and-her-unborn-child-at-corrigin-funeral/news-story/08b1cd0892a0215130d36dd515203652; http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/marco-silvestri-jailed-for-crash-that-killed-unborn-baby-20141022-119rpg.html; http://www.news-mail.com.au/news/unborn-baby-killed-car-crash/2638355/; http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/babies/sophies-law-mother-fights-for-unborn-babies-to-be-protected-after-a-car-crash-claimed-her-daughters-life-days-from-birth/news-story/cf6f9424b2522fec0b05ba32bd3cd494; http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/unborn-baby-killed-queensland-traffic-crash/2370046/.
15 http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/central-coast/we-owe-it-to-zoe-to-fight-for-criminal-law-change/
news-story/7e1365ac002321acf979911ad75473dd.
16 https://www.change.org/p/attorney-general-please-bring-in-sophie-s-law-to-protect-all-unborn-babies-post-30-weeks-gestation; https://www.9now.com.au/a-current-affair/2016/clip-cijyzzrok00bxb5p5r9mm81nj
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