When restrictive new abortion laws were passed in this country, a grass roots group of women immediately mobilised. Produced by Claire Crofton.

When restrictive new abortion laws are passed, a group of women decide to act.

"I was given a number and (told) 'try these people' and I rang them."

It's June 1978, and Judy* has a lot on her mind. In her second year of nursing college and dealing with a difficult break up, she was struggling with the typical challenges of being a teenager, but was also beginning to feel ill. Judy was taken into hospital with stomach pains, diagnosed with appendicitis, and rushed into surgery. When she came around from the anesthetic, she was told something shocking. She's pregnant.

"I was not sexually active, so how did it happen?"

Judy racks her brains. She looks back through her calendar and works out the date she must have got pregnant. But Judy can't remember much about that night, which is weird - she's never had a memory blackout before. So she asks her flatmate; did anything strange happen that night? Her flatmate remembers that Judy was brought home by security guards that night when she was found wandering the grounds of the nurse's accommodation in a total daze. Again, really odd, and really out of character.

But then.... it dawns on Judy.

"It turns out that a young man I knew at school had coerced me into going over and saying goodbye to him because he was going back to Canada, and I was roofied (drugged) and raped."

Judy confronted her rapist last year and today, she feels like she's finally getting some closure. But in 1978, she was lost and confused. She had no support. She felt totally judged.

"I'm pregnant and everyone's saying 'well how did you get pregnant? Who was it?' 'Ah I don't remember' and of course immediately, in that day and age, I was just a dirty bitch. And the whole family, everybody other than my nursing friends, all were like, 'ew, you're worse than the worst. Worse than a slut because you can't even remember having sex."

Judy felt her future closing in on her.

"It got to the point that I couldn't cope. I mean honestly, it was like what am I gonna do? You know, I'll get kicked out of nursing, I've got nowhere to go, except home, and that's not really what I want to do because my mother was really terribly judgmental."

Judy felt stuck. Just months earlier, the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act of 1977 had come into effect, and getting an abortion in New Zealand had become pretty much impossible…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details