The February 2022 floods in northern NSW saw women experiencing higher rates of unplanned or unwanted pregnancies, new research has found.
According to a report from the University of Newcastle, women in the Northern Rivers were subjected to high levels of violence and sexual assaults, resulting in unplanned pregnancies.
The researchers – Associate Professor Wendy Foote, Professor Margaret Alston, Dr David Betts and Dr Tracy McEwan – said the emergency centres established in response to the floods did not adequately consider the safety of women and children.
They suggested separation of men and women and children in emergency centres, as well as more triaging, would have avoided the increased rates of gender-based violence and sexual assaults.
MSI Australia, a leading reproductive healthcare clinic in Australia, provides contraception and abortion care to people and communities who have been affected by climate-related disasters.
Head of Policy and Research at MSI Australia Bonney Corbin told Women’s Agenda unplanned and unwanted pregnancies can often go unnoticed during times of crisis, including during climate-related disasters.
“There’s an assumption that we don’t have sex when we’re displaced, but the evidence shows that both rape and sexual activity increases in times of emergency,” Corbin said.
“When we are displaced, we lose routine, and we’re more likely to forget where we are at in our menstrual cycle. Pregnancy can go unnoticed.
“Dissociation following sexual violence and rape can mean that victim-survivors delay making choices about their pregnancy.”
Following the February 2022 floods in northern NSW, MSI Australia clinics were providing care to some women who did not realise they were pregnant until they were beyond nine weeks in pregnancy gestation. This meant they could no longer access medical abortion care and were only able to access surgical abortion.
The financial impacts of a climate-related disasters can also impede a person’s ability to access abortion care, as well as a range of other compounding factors that arise during times of crises.
“Some people realise they are pregnant and want to have an abortion, but are in financial distress with other priorities of food and accommodation, so can’t afford to pay out of pocket abortion costs,” Corbin said.
“Following the floods we provided care to women who had delayed accessing an abortion by a number of weeks.”
It is never a victim’s job to prepare for or prevent rape from happening, Corbin said, but the solution to unplanned and unwanted pregnancies is access to the “full spectrum” of healthcare: products, information and services.
“People need access to long-acting reversible contraception all year round, so that they already have access to contraception when disaster hits,” Corbin said.
“Access to health services is important but it isn’t enough. We need access to the spectrum of health products, and information that people need for reproductive autonomy.
“In the aftermath of a disaster, people need immediate access to health products including condoms, menstrual management, dental dams, pregnancy tests.”
A study from the United Nations Population Fund in 2022 found nearly half of all pregnancies around the world are unplanned or unwanted. This equates to around 121 million pregnancies every year, due to gender inequality, lack of sex education, poverty, limited healthcare services and more.
Rates of unplanned pregnancies spike in times of crisis – not just environmental crises, but also times of war, conflict, food insecurity and more. It is expected that in Afghanistan alone, by 2025, there will be an estimated 4.8 million unintended pregnancies.