Noisy demos in front of Parliament House do work, say the politician and the activist behind a bill to stop sex-selective abortions in New South Wales.
“When there’s a rally out in front of Parliament House, everyone inside Parliament has a little sneak peek to see how big it is. If you’ve got 150 people there, that’s one thing. If you’ve got 5,000 people there, that’s quite another thing,” John Ruddick MLC told The Catholic Weekly. “Look what ended the lockdowns, the stupid COVID lockdowns – it was people taking to the streets.”
Ruddick, the sole member of the Libertarian Party in the NSW Parliament, will introduce his private member’s bill, the “Abortion Law Reform Amendment (Sex Selection Prohibition) Bill”, on Wednesday, 22 October.
Outside, Dr Joanna Howe, the feisty pro-life crusader from South Australia, will be leading a twilight rally to support the bill. She believes that these demonstrations are an essential part of the political process.
“Every great social change is precipitated by people coming out in large numbers like that. That is just such an important part of driving change,” she said. “In my view, if you’re, pro-life, and you don’t attend the rallies, then you’re not really pro-life.
“Rallies are fundamental to communicating that we care about this issue. Politicians aren’t going to believe that you’re committed on abortion if you don’t take a few hours out of your year to attend a pro-life rally.”
Sex-selective abortion is aborting an unborn child simply on the basis of its sex. A couple may prefer a son instead of a daughter or they may only want a boy and a girl.
This is such a huge problem in China and India that it is often called “gendercide”. Normally about 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. But because boys are preferred in China to carry on the family name and take care of the parents, under China’s infamous one-child policy, couples often aborted or killed their girls. As a result, the national sex ratio at birth soared to 121 boys to 100 girls in 2004. It has since subsided.
This son preference has set up a demographic catastrophe in China – a whole generation of boys will not be able to find marriage partners.
Similarly, in India, son preference was so strong that girls are routinely aborted, despite laws banning the practice. In the state of Punjab, the overall sex ratio rose to 125.3 boys to 100 girls in 2001. For a third child, it was incredibly high – 193 boys to 100 girls.
Other countries have similar problems.
What has energised the Ruddick bill is what he calls “the rolled gold Olympic champion of studies” a peer-reviewed study published in May in the journal PLOS Global Public Health. It was written by academics at Edith Cowan University and Curtin University in Western Australia. Using data gathered from 2.1 million registered births over 21 years in WA and NSW, they found that “the sex ratio at birth exceeded expectations for children born to Indian, Chinese and Vietnamese mothers”.
The problem is particularly acute for the third birth in a family. Rather than have a third daughter, some Australian couples choose to have an abortion. For the third child of mothers from China, the sex ratio is 134 boys to 100 girls.
So it’s an open and shut case, say Ruddick and Howe: Australian doctors are performing sex-selective abortions.
Ruddick’s bill aims to stop that by fining convicted doctors $21,000 or five years in jail or both – and their employers $42,000. There would be no penalty for the mother.
“Now that we’ve got the evidence from the Edith Cowan University study, I really do not know what arguments abortion supporters can use against the bill, except for racism,” said Ruddick.
In fact, the Human Rights Law Centre has argued that “a sex selection ban is likely to result in the stigmatization and racial profiling of People of Colour”.
Joanna Howe, who has an Indian background, dismisses this.
“Even though certain cultures might be in favour of something like female genital mutilation, it has no place in Australia.
“So this isn’t about stigmatising any particular culture; it’s recognising that when we know something is happening that is really bad, we actually need laws to prevent it.”
Abortion is controversial, but Ruddick and Howe believe that sex-selective abortion is so repugnant, so antithetical to Australian values, that this bill has a chance.
“I think that killing a a baby on the basis of their gender is something that is capable of achieving broad agreements,” says Howe. “This is a sensible first bill in order to achieve greater community understanding on the issue of abortion.”
She wants to make abortion a central issue in the 2027 NSW state election.
“My personal view is that abortion should be the litmus test for every person’s vote, because, like Mother Teresa says, until we end abortion, there will be no peace in this world. It is the greatest evil, the biggest moral crisis. It’s the leading cause of death. We have to force the major parties to take a moral position on abortion.”
The rally will take place on Macquarie Street, in front of Parliament House, from 5.30 to 6.30 pm on Wednesday, 22 October. “Bring your kids, friends and family,” says Howe.
