Supporters of bill to decriminalise abortion confident it can pass despite opponents’ campaign

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Supporters of a historic bill to decriminalise abortion in New South Wales remain confident it will make it through parliament unscathed despite the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, caving in to calls for bans on so-called “sex selection” terminations.

The bill’s passage through the lower house last week prompted a backlash from rightwing MPs, religious leaders and conservative figures in the media who have mounted a concerted campaign to derail the legislation ahead of the upper house vote.

Opponents of the bill have seized on the so-called “sex selection” issue ahead of the vote next week, despite expert medical, legal and women’s groups saying there is no evidence the practice is an issue in NSW.

And amid increasing pressure from the right wing of her party, Berejiklian has said she would support an amendment to change the Crimes Act to ban the practice.

Is the 'revolt' against Gladys Berejiklian over the abortion bill real? Read more

“If there were any members of the upper house who wanted to strengthen those provisions, I would be more than comfortable with that,” she told reporters in London this week.

On Thursday the Sydney Morning Herald quoted a Labor source saying the opposition leader, Jodi McKay, would also support such an amendment if it came back to the lower house.

But Guardian Australia understands the bill’s supporters in the upper house have no intention of supporting an amendment around sex selection, and remain confident they have the numbers to see the bill pass without substantial change.

The influential Nationals MP Trevor Khan, one of the bill’s 15 co-sponsors, told Guardian Australia he would not support an amendment around so-called gender selection.

“I can’t speak for my colleagues but what I can say is that on the basis of the evidence that we’ve received at the inquiry I wouldn’t support an amendment on that basis,” he said.

Labor’s Penny Sharpe, another co-sponsor, said she would look at any amendment on its merit and be “informed by the upper house inquiry”.

The issue of sex selection abortions was raised during the debate on the bill in the lower house when the conservative Liberal party MP Tanya Davies sought to include an amendment stating that terminations not “be used for gender selection”.

The amendment was rejected because, opponents said, it was unnecessary and unworkable. Instead, an amendment was passed requiring NSW Health to conduct a review into whether there was any evidence of the practice taking place.

An upper house inquiry into the bill held hearings on Thursday and heard evidence from a number of medical and women’s groups that the practice was not an issue in NSW.

The inquiry received 13,000 submissions, causing state parliament’s web portal to temporarily crash.

The NSW Australian Medical Association vice president, Dr Danielle McMullen, warned any amendment banning sex selection could make a doctor providing an abortion after nine weeks the “party to a crime” as technology allows the sex of a baby to be identified from about this time.

“Therefore if a woman seeks termination of pregnancy after this point, any laws prohibiting gender selection as a reason would require doctors to be mind-readers of sorts to ensure no crime was being committed,” she said.

“This would have the effect of delaying or preventing the delivery of care.”

McMullen said there was no evidence of women approaching their doctors seeking terminations on these grounds.

“If there was evidence that this was happening we’re confident [that] doctors would be within their rights to refuse a termination,” she said.

In moving her amendment Davies relied on a 2018 study from La Trobe University which found that while the ratio of boys and girls born in Victoria was close to natural rates of 105 boys to every 100 girls, there were higher rates of boys born to mothers who had migrated from China and India.

But Claire Pullen, the chair of Our Body, Our Choices, told Guardian Australia the study found “no evidence gender selective abortion was taking place in Australia”.

She said asking doctors to assess whether an abortion was being performed on the basis of gender on those grounds would “essentially require them to undertake racial stereotyping”.

Ann Brassil, the chief executive of Family Planning NSW, said there was “no evidence that gender selection occurs”.

“For us to introduce legislation in relation to gender selection on the basis of no evidence would be irresponsible because we would be in a situation where we’re making it up and we could create enormous harm.

“We completely support the position within the current bill that NSW Health should do a review and we should understand what it is we are talking about.”