From Stigma to Standard Care: How Aunty Jane Is Rewriting Abortion Access in Australia

Abortion is legal across Australia, so why are so many women still turned away, forced to travel hours, or pay hundreds of dollars for essential care? In this episode, a registered nurse and co-founder of Aunty Jane, Alison Lima, pulls back the curtain on Australia’s abortion system, the quiet gatekeeping happening behind clinic doors, and the tele-abortion model rewriting what compassionate, accessible abortion care can look like.

Care should never be one-size-fits-all. Whether it’s using AI to bridge language gaps or leveraging abortion funds to ensure no one is left behind, we’re exploring how to center the human experience in reproductive health. At the end of the day, Aunty Jane exists to fill a gap and our greatest dream is to one day see that gap closed for good.

Let’s dive in!

Key Takeaways:

• Why even after decriminalisation, Australian women still face so many legal, geographic, and systemic barriers to abortion care
• How a rural emergency nurse became the co-founder of Australia’s first nurse practitioner–led tele-abortion service and why this business was born from urgent need, not ambition
• How Aunty Jane’s no-scan protocol safely removes mandatory ultrasounds and in what ways has ultrasound historically been used to gatekeep abortion care
• Why only a small percentage of GPs and pharmacies in Australia provide medical abortion and what that means for cost, access, and equity
• How tele-abortion works step-by-step at Aunty Jane from first consult to 24/7 nursing support and a 14-day follow-up focused on both clinical and emotional care
• How abortion, fertility, periods, and menopause are deeply interconnected and why siloing abortion outside women’s health conversations reinforces stigma and shame
• How clinicians in abortion care protect their emotional and physical safety while still using storytelling and social media to de-stigmatise abortion as routine healthcare
• How AI triage tools and translation could transform support for people having abortions without replacing the human care that matters most

Resources:

Alison Lima: LinkedIn

Aunty Jane Health: LinkedIn

Aunty Jane Health: https://www.auntyjanehealth.com/

Maaike Steinebach LinkedIn

Website Femtech Future: https://www.femtechfuture.com

Instagram Femtech Future: @femtech_future

Your body, your story, your choice. You deserve more than gatekeeping and whispers. If Alison’s story changed how you view abortion care in Australia, don't let the conversation end when the audio stops.

Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. Start a dialogue in your own circle. Help us move abortion care out of the shadows and into the heart of healthcare exactly where it belongs. This isn't just a podcast; it’s a call to treat reproductive care as the routine, compassionate service it is. We stand with the women and clinicians who refuse to wait for permission to do what is right.

Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time!