New South Wales (NSW) Premier Chris Minns says anti-abortion campaigners are using “American-style misinformation” in the state’s abortion debate.
His comments followed reports that prominent anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe warned she would lead a grassroots campaign to oppose the leadership of NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman if he supported the Greens-led bill to expand abortion access.
“We should not import the tactics of American political culture to Australia,” Minns said in Parliament on May 13.
“These are American-style misinformation campaigns designed to divide and mislead.”
Speakman confirmed he received an email from Howe on May 12.
“I received the email. I won’t cave to brazen bullying,” Speakman also said in the Parliament.
What the Bill Proposes
The bill, introduced by Greens MP Dr. Amanda Cohn, aims to make abortions more accessible across NSW.It allows nurse practitioners and endorsed midwives to prescribe and provide medical abortion drugs to women up to nine weeks pregnant.
Currently, only doctors can prescribe the medication, MS-2 Step, limiting access in regional parts of the state. Cohn argued that the bill was essential to “end abortion deserts” in rural NSW.
“This bill is about access,” she said. “It’s about ensuring women outside our cities can get safe, legal, timely reproductive healthcare.”
The bill also gives the health minister power to compel public hospitals to provide abortion services.
It originally required practitioners who objected to abortion to refer patients to other providers. That provision has since been removed.
After heated debate, the NSW Legislative Council passed a watered-down version of the bill last week.
Debate in the Legislative Assembly continues today, and if passed, the bill will become law.
Howe’s Personal Conviction
Howe, a law professor at the University of Adelaide, says her anti-abortion stance stems from personal experience.She said her shift from pro-choice to pro-life began at age 21 after a friend asked, “If an in-utero baby isn’t a human being, then what is it?”
She began researching the issue in private while working at the Australian Workers Union.
“I was shocked by the medical literature and images of aborted fetuses. In coming face to face with the humanity of these babies, I knew I could no longer be pro-choice,” she said.
It took nearly 20 years for her to speak publicly.
“I knew that to do so would be likely career suicide,” she said, citing pressure from activist groups and media bias.
She said her turning point came in 2021, when South Australia legalised abortion up to birth. “I had to put aside my fears and career ambitions for a cause that was far more important.”
“To my great surprise, my career has gone gangbusters,” Howe said.
Her university supported her stance and promoted her to professor.
Abbott Joins the Anti-Abortion Protest
A large protest against the bill took place outside Parliament last week. Organised by Howe’s coalition, it drew religious leaders, health professionals, and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott.Abbott told the crowd that Cohn’s bill was an attack on religious freedom.
“What this legislation is attempting to do is to force every health professional and support every health institution into facilitating abortion,” he said.
He added on Sky News Australia that, “It’s designed to force Christian people out of the healthcare system unless they sacrifice their principles. It’s really about cancelling faith in our public life.”
Dissent Inside Parliament
Labor’s Penny Sharpe said she supported abortion access but disagreed with legislating how services should be delivered.“The issue of access is real,” she said. “But legislating this will not fix the problem. We do not legislate to require health ministers to provide cancer services or heart services in this way.”
Some MPs who voted for the original 2019 decriminalisation of abortion opposed this new bill for similar reasons.
Liberal MP Chris Rath compared abortion to Nazi genocide during the debate, saying, “It is bizarre that abortion is increasingly being categorised as a human right to healthcare.”
He later retracted the statement and issued an apology, calling it “insensitive language.”
