The problem with talking about IVF is that anyone who knows anything about it has lived their experience with some degree of trauma.

So reports appearing this week proposing increased access to IVF as a means to solve Australia’s declining fertility “problem” hit in the tenderest part of the body. It’s the bit that may not hold a baby but carries a deep awareness of patriarchal values. Greg Hunt – former health minister in the Coalition government – is heading a “sweeping review” of the conspicuously unsexy “national fertility policy” and announcements have been made.

Hunt was always a progressive holdout in the increasingly conservative western centre-right movement where he has spent his political career; I, as a feminist, wholeheartedly support the practical recommendations of his review. He’s identified that the 40 state and territory IVF-related laws intersect to structuralise discrimination as well as inefficiency. The review recommends establishing uniform national fertility law, guaranteeing equal rights for same-sex and single-by-choice birthing parents and ditching the ridiculous must-be-unpregnantly-banged-for-a-year current definition of “infertility” (yes, true). It also proposes an expansion of reproductive health services and removing economic barriers to accessing reproductive care.

This should be unqualified good news – especially in a week where Hunt’s old American confreres in the Republican party have used their Senate numbers to block a bill package by........

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