The Racket: How Abortion Became Legal In Australia
By Gideon Haigh
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
A generation ago in Australia, abortion was a crime. It was also the basis of one of the country's most lucrative and longest-lasting criminal rackets.
The Racket describes the rise and fall of an extraordinary web of influence, which culminated in the landmark ruling that made abortion legal, and a public inquiry that humiliated a powerful government and a glamorous police force. With forensic skill and psychological subtlety, Gideon Haigh brings to life a story of corruption in high places and human suffering in low, of murder, suicide, courtroom drama, political machinations, and of the abortionists themselves: among them a multi-millionaire philanthropist, a communist bush poet, a timid aesthete and a bankrupt slaughterman.
It is the story, too, of Bertram Wainer, abortion's crash-through-or-crash campaigner, and the moral issue he bequeathed which still divides Australians.
Gideon Haigh
Gideon Haigh has been a journalist since 1984, written forty-two books, edited seven others, and contributed to more than a hundred newspapers and magazines. He works for The Australian and The Times.
Read more from Gideon Haigh
The Brilliant Boy: Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cricket War: The Story of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Asbestos House: the secret history of James Hardie Industries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shelf Life: Journalism 2000-2021 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn the Ashes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSecond XI: Cricket In Its Outposts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ashes 2023: a cricket classic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSecond XI: Cricket in its Outposts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The All-rounder: The inside story of big time cricket Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ashes 2009: Good Enough Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Momentous, Uneventful Day: a requiem for the office Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Vincibles: A Suburban Cricket Season Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Racket
Related ebooks
Double for the Toff Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On the Surface Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Irish Slip Step: Dancing through Life, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Stories: Track One Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSMOKE RINGS RISING: Triumph of a Drug-Endangered Daughter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKarma House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJohnny Pye and the Fool Killer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secrets of Nine Irish Sons I: The Beginning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Disappearance of Toni Sharpless Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Murder on Camac Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dusty Mile Duet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPee-Shy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Memoir of Marilyn Monroe Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Home Soon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFreud on Coke Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Valis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Family Plots Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAbductions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Blood of Father Time, Book 2: The Mystic Clan's Grand Plot Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTake These Jokes, Please! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mulligans of Mt. Jefferson: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life and Times of Jodi Worren Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Agent's Secret Child Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAirport Socks: Pages from a Daughter's Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJunie Moon Changes Course Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Death of Anyone Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDistant Memory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfect Teacher: John Fulghum Mysteries Vol. IV Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On the Wings of Hope Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChristmas Lights Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social Science For You
Questions for Couples: 469 Thought-Provoking Conversation Starters for Connecting, Building Trust, and Rekindling Intimacy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Racket
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An excellent and well-researched account of the history of abortion in Australia. The author focuses on Victoria as the precedent-setting Menhennitt ruling was made in the Victorian Supreme Court in 1969. The extent of police corruption did not surprise me as much as the medical corruption; as Haigh says: "Illegality served not the ends of morality but the needs of greed".