Anti-abortion MPs are coordinating their attacks on hard-won reproductive health care rights in three states.
Sarah Game, the South Australian Legislative Council independent, elected as a Pauline Hanson’s One Nation MP, is reintroducing a bill to restrict abortion rights, expected to be June 17.
Game wants to restrict abortion access from 24 weeks and 6 days. The Termination of Pregnancy (Restrictions on Terminations after 24 weeks and 6 days) Amendment 2026 is her third attempt.
SA allows abortions after 23 weeks, with the approval of two doctors, where continuing the pregnancy would pose a “significant risk to the physical or mental health” of the pregnant person.
Importantly, Game’s bill would remove serious fetal abnormalities as a valid reason for accessing a late-term abortion and only allow it to be legal when necessary to save the life of the mother.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) said on May 21 that it does not support the bill, saying it “would eliminate access to abortion in a range of serious and complex circumstances”.
It also criticised it for disregarding the “quality of a woman’s life, including situations where continuation of pregnancy poses significant risks to a person’s physical or mental wellbeing”.
RANZCOG said the decision to terminate a pregnancy is “deeply personal and complex” and “these decisions must remain between a woman and her healthcare provider, not be dictated by political intervention”.
RANZCOG noted that medical professionals — not politicians — are best placed to assess the unique factors involved. It said the bill is based on a “fundamental misunderstanding of the reality of pregnancy terminations after 22 weeks and 6 days.
“Procedures after 23 weeks are extraordinarily rare. They represent a tiny fraction of all abortions performed (48, or 1.0% of all abortions performed in South Australia in 2024). Any abortion conducted at this stage is due to the life limiting condition of the fetus and/or serious threats to the pregnant woman’s health and life. It also requires the approval of two doctors”.
Game needs 11 votes for her bill to pass the LC; Labor MLCs Clair Scriven and Tung Ngo, three One Nation MLCs and six Liberal MLCs are expected to support Game’s bill. The bill is expected to be put on June 17.
Labor still gives its MPs a conscience vote – meaning it still does not take a principled stand on this health procedure.
SA Abortion Action Coalition Co-convenor Brigid Coombe told the ABC on May 20: “Understanding the importance of ensuring that anyone who needs an abortion can get one when they need it and the circumstances that they’re in, are the circumstances that should inform the care that’s provided.”
Meanwhile, NSW Libertarian MP John Ruddick wants to criminalise doctors with fines of up to $22,000 and five years jail under the guise of stopping “sex selective abortions” in his Abortion Law Reform Amendment (Sex Selection Prohibition) Bill 2025.
Greens MLC Amanda Cohn, who is also a GP, said there is little evidence that sex-selective abortion — terminating a pregnancy because of the sex of the foetus — actually occurs. “The suggestion that it is being sought by women from particular ethnic and cultural backgrounds is fed by racist and anti-immigration rhetoric”.
PHON’s Barnaby Joyce will speak at an anti-abortion rally, being supported by Family Voice Australia, on June 2 in support of Ruddick’s bill, which will be debated the next day. Pro-choice advocates are rallying at 6pm at Parliament House the same day.
Game has been working with Ruddick, as well as others, in a bid to “end abortion”. She told Abolish Abortion Australia in April: “We believe abortion is murder and we believe that everybody involved in the process of murder should face criminal penalties. I mean, that’s what you should do when you’ve murdered someone.”
In Queensland, Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) is moving a disallowance procedural motion in parliament that allows a member to debate a regulation to block nurses and midwives from prescribing MS-2 Step, an oral medication for early medical pregnancy terminations.
If successful, it would remove nurses and midwives’ ability to prescribe the medication, creating serious barriers for women to access reproductive healthcare, particularly in regional and remote areas of Queensland.
A pro-choice rally is also being organised outside Queensland Parliament on June 2.
[Join the June 2 pro-choice protest in Gadigal Country and Magan-djin/Brisbane.]