One Nation Abortion Bill Defeated in SA Lower House

The legislation would have imposed tighter restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks and 6 days.

Pro-life and pro-choice advocates hold a protest rally outside the New South Wales Parliament in Sydney, Australia, on Aug. 6, 2019. Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images

A bill to restricted late term abortion in South Australia passed the Upper House but was defeated overwhelmingly in the House of Assembly of parliament.

The legislation (pdf) would have imposed tighter restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks and 6 days, with exemptions only to save a woman’s life or in cases of severe fetal abnormalities.

One Nation MP Chantelle Thomas said the bill was important because there was “no upper gestational limit” on abortion in South Australia.

“This means that there is no human rights protection for a human child in the womb throughout all 40 weeks of pregnancy,” she told parliament.

“This is too far from, and out of step with, community expectations. It is why One Nation has a policy position against late-term abortion, because at this point the baby is viable and can live outside the womb.”

The bill passed 10 votes to 9 in the upper house, but faced a road block in the lower house, where it was defeated 36 votes to 9. All One Nation MP’s backed the bill.

Premier Peter Malinauskas and Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis also supported the bill, in contrast to most of their Labor colleagues who opposed it. Among the Liberals, only Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn and MP Sam Telfer voted in favour.

Opposing the bill, Labor Minister Joe Szakacs said he had promised in his maiden speech that every day in parliament he would be supporting “fair, just, safe and legal access to abortion for all women in South Australia.”

“I cannot stand here and on reflection say, ‘When does life begin?’ What I do know is that I do not support the proposition that at conception there is a sanctity that would then preclude lawful, safe and infrequent access to terminations of pregnancy,” he claimed.

“We live in a complex world. What I will not cop from proponents that continually try to roll back safe and legal access to terminations of pregnancy is this idea that this is a woman’s job or a woman gets to do this alone. This is a family issue.”

Speaking after the debate, Hurn told reporters she was not interested in being pigeonholed. She said that it was the first time she had been given the chance to vote on such a bill.

“Every single time that I have been asked about my position, I have reflected on what Tony Abbott has said in the same way that I have seen the Premier has done, which is that abortions should be safe, they should be legal, and they should be rare,” she said.

“That is my view, and none of that changes with the support of this bill that was put forward. What it does do is add an additional safeguard for termination of pregnancy at the six month mark of pregnancy.”

Premier Backs Bill But Says Parliament Has More Important Agenda

Malinauskas said he had had particular concerns around “very late-term abortions.”

However, the premier said he wanted parliament to deal with the issue quickly and decisively, saying it should not dominate the government’s agenda.

“We are not going to have a group of people who seem to be completely obsessed by this issue, and this issue only, hijack the whole parliament when this government’s got a clear agenda to progress the state more broadly, particularly economically,” he told reporters.

“The result was resounding. And people who want to continue to relitigate these issues over and over again are not going to sidetrack the government, they are not going to derail us from being able to do the work that the parliament should be focusing on.”

However, despite the legislation’s defeat in the lower house, pro-life advocate Joanna Howe, a strong supporter of the bill, said she would not give up.

“We refuse to quit. Lives are on the line,” she said on X.