“How can you say this would not lead to racial profiling?” Roach asked BuzzFeed News. “We know that most of the world has a gender bias toward males and we understand that is a complex social issue, but [under this proposed amendment] you’d be profiling anyone walking in to your room according to their race or religion, which is completely unworkable and incredibly damaging to the doctor-patient relationship.”

While difficult to police, sex selective abortion is not allowed under the Australian government's National Health and Medical Research Council Ethical Guidelines on the use of Assisted Reproductive Technology in Clinical Practice and Research. The guidelines do not support sex selection of embryos, except for rare circumstances to reduce the risk of transmission of a serious genetic condition.

Roach stressed that prior to the introduction of this bill “abortion healthcare was being delivered within a safe, ethical and regulated healthcare framework, and removal of abortion from the Criminal Code does not change that fact”.

“Legislating medical practice is restrictive for patients and doctors and if doctors are providing appropriate care under the current framework, why wouldn’t that continue?”

Meanwhile, BuzzFeed News understands an amendment might be introduced in the upper house to create a separate criminal offence for anyone who pressures a woman into having a termination.

Roach argued such an amendment is “redundant” as intimidation is already a criminal offence in NSW.

“It is illegal to coerce someone full stop,” he said. “Coercion of women is something that occurs and it is unacceptable, whether it is financial, sexual or reproductive, but that is something that is covered by the criminal code, so why are they choosing this one part of medicine to make this point?

“The downside of putting that into this bill is that, again, you potentially make the doctor an instrument of the law who then becomes responsible for identifying domestic violence and coercion.”

Roach said the intention of the bill is to remove abortion from the criminal code, support women in their right to access healthcare, and “reassure doctors” they are practicing within the law.

“Currently doctors practice within a highly regulated ethical and moral clinical framework, and to legislate the way doctors practice risks limiting access to healthcare for women and changing the way doctors practice, while undermining the confidence of the public in the medical system and the doctors who provide care.”

One of the amendments that was successful in the lower house (passing 49-41) — even though it was opposed by the bill’s 15 co-sponsors — was a statutory requirement for doctors to gain “informed consent” before performing abortions.

All four doctors interviewed for this article said this amendment was meaningless as doctors already obtain informed consent for any procedure.

University of Sydney associate professor and academic gynaecologist Dr Kirsten Black said the amendment was “completely redundant” and, like many of the other amendments, perpetuated the idea that doctors weren’t “acting in good faith”.