The Racket
How Abortion Became Legal in Australia
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.
About this Title
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: a story that 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 that still divides Australians.
About the Author
Gideon Haigh has been a journalist for almost twenty-five years. In 2007, his Asbestos House: The Secret History of James Hardie Industries won Premiers' awards in New South Wales and Queensland and the Blake Dawson Waldron Prize for Business Literature. He works mainly for The Monthly and The Guardian.
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