A bill to prohibit sex-selective abortion has been defeated 21 votes to 16 in the NSW Upper House, a day after thousands of Sydneysiders rallied outside parliament in support of what had been described as “the last opportunity” to pass a pro-life bill in NSW before the state election in March next year.
The Abortion Law Reform Amendment (Sex Selection Prohibition) Bill 2025, introduced by Libertarian MLC John Ruddick, sought to prohibit abortions performed on the basis of an unborn child’s sex.
Its second reading was defeated in the Upper House on 16 September.
The bill was founded upon a study published last year by researchers from Edith Cowan University and Curtin University, which found birth ratios among some migrant populations in NSW and Western Australia exceeded the biological norm of 1.05 and were significantly male-biased.
Prominent pro-life activist Dr Joanna Howe conceded before the vote that the bill was “a few votes short,” but called on the crowd to continue to fight for unborn babies who cannot fight for themselves.
“I love how every single one of you have come out tonight. It shows everyone in parliament that we are never going away, and we are going to keep doing this until every last one of them is saved,” she said.
Dr Howe earlier told The Catholic Weekly the growing crowds, rally after rally, were indicative of the electoral importance of abortion leading up to the election.
“Abortion is back on the map,” she said.
“We are awake to the fact that abortion is legal up to birth, and babies have no human rights protection through all 40 weeks of pregnancy, and people are angry about that.
“They want to see it end.”
The rally also attracted attention after One Nation’s NSW leader Mike Newman stumbled over his words while calling for abortion to be stopped.
“We want to make sure that same-sex, sorry, abortion is stopped,” he said.
Newman later said he had “made a mistake” and clarified that One Nation did not support an outright ban on abortion, but wanted to stop late-term and sex-selective abortions.
Shaun Freeborn, a member of Tradies for Babies, a pro-life network of tradies across Australia, told the crowd the celebration of abortion in society was “like taking crazy pills”.
“I don’t understand how we live in a society where I have to tell other blokes that killing a baby is bad,” he said.
“We are living in a time and world of moral stupidity, where we are surrounded by people and public figures who call killing babies healthcare.”
For Veronica Chacty, a student at the University of Notre Dame, supporting a bill prohibiting sex-selective abortion was simply “common sense”.
“I’m a medical student, so I want to support a world where healthcare actually protects lives,” she said.
“Our current healthcare system treats [unwanted] unborn children like an inconvenience, rather than actual people whose lives are precious and should be treated with the utmost care.”
Christian Wood, a member of Seven Hills’ Servants of Jesus community, told The Catholic Weekly the large crowd was testament to the pressure on politicians to enact change.
“We’re here tonight to fight for this bill and ultimately be a voice for the voiceless.”
