Courts are 'homophobic, misogynist'

Courts are 'homophobic, misogynist'

BY PAM CURRIE

BRISBANE — Jennifer Morgan's fight began six years ago when a doctor at a Brisbane clinic told her to forge a male partner's signature on a consent form so as to qualify for artificial insemination. She refused.

By going to court to gain access to the program, Morgan, a mother of three and a lesbian rights activist, took on both the medical and legal professions. "The court was very hard", Morgan told an August 23 Green Left Weekly forum on women's reproductive rights.

"I was cross-examined by a criminal barrister, called a liar and a troublemaker", she said. "They try to make out that if you're a political woman and you struggle for your rights, you aren't a real woman and you don't genuinely need the service.

"In the Supreme Court, they were discussing what I was capable of, whether I was heterosexually frigid. I felt like I was being raped. The courts are the most homophobic, misogynist places and your only voice is a barrister who just doesn't get it.

"When the court decision went in my favour, the clinic still victimised me. It took three hours to convince a female doctor to treat me. The night before the treatment, she was receiving threatening phone calls from the clinic directors."

The other speaker at the forum, Democratic Socialist Party activist Lisa Young, reinforced Morgan's points, telling the audience of 30 that the treatment of Morgan was typical. "Politicians and those who run our society will do everything they can to keep women in the home, doing the housework", she said, and anyone not fitting the image of the happy, heterosexual married-with-children couple is dealt with harshly.

From GLW issue 418