Anti-abortion activists are trying to limit access in NSW – and they are just getting started

The man who wants to ban “sex-selective abortions” is the first person who will tell you it won’t work.

New South Wales Libertarian party MLC John Ruddick has introduced legislation that would see health practitioners sent to prison or fined thousands if they carry out a termination because of the sex of a foetus.

But the experts, the evidence, and history show that laws like these tend to target immigrants, increase stigma and wind back reproductive rights.

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In NSW, it’s entirely a woman’s choice if she wants an abortion up to 22 weeks, but this law would mean health practitioners would have to question her about her reasons, which could put her off seeking help, and the practitioner off providing the abortion.

Ruddick concedes it’s not an enforceable law.

“If a mother still wants to abort because of their child’s sex they can obviously say it’s for any other reason and no one will know,” he says.

So what’s the point of having this debate?

It will send a message, he says.

He says the message will be that girls and boys are equal when it comes to abortion (or as One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce awkwardly put it: “This law in NSW must be passed or otherwise we all accept that sex selection is appropriate. Girls are not as good as boys.”

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (Ranzcog) president, Nisha Khot, said the bill was “predicated on misinformation”, that there are already restrictions on sex-selection abortion for non-medical reasons and that the “underlying aim is to restrict access to abortion”.

Is sex-selective abortion happening in NSW?

“There is no evidence that sex selection is occurring in NSW,” the state health minister, Ryan Park, said on Wednesday.

A 2020 NSW Health review found it was exceedingly rare. Of 15,973 abortions in the year to September 2020, 13 were listed as having been done for sex selection – but, the review noted, 10 of those were likely to be “reporting errors”.

That leaves, possibly, of 15,973, just three.

Ruddick likes to rely on a different study – an Edith Cowan University study using data from 1994 to 2015 that showed “indirect evidence” but not “causality” that it was happening, specifically with Indian and Chinese immigrants.