AP

Abortion: The Situation in NSW, May 2025

Every so often those of us who have a life outside parliament are treated to a glimpse of how our modern democracy works. That is enough to remind us of Christ’s response to the church at Laodicea (Rev.3:16). Abortion was allowed up to birth in NSW in 2019, so there seemed little room to extend the law.

True to form, however, the Greens moved a bill to achieve four things:

• Allow nurses and midwives to prescribe abortion medication up to 22 weeks (even though, as one nurse pointed, they are forbidden by law to prescribe antibiotics);
• Weaken provisions for the right to conscientious objection to abortion for all medical personnel;
• Force all hospitals to provide abortions or lose government funding;
• Remove data reporting (so no one could know what is going on).

At one stage the situation looked dire, but in the end, three of the four motions were defeated, and first one changed the time for allowing abortion medication by nurses and midwives from 22 weeks to nine.

            One of the features of the campaign against the bill was how strong it was. Thousands assembled outside Parliament House in Macquarie Street to rally against the bill. This was mainly organised by the South Australian legal academic, Dr Joanna Howe. So fearsome was her presence that both the Premier (Chris Minns) and the Leader of the Opposition (Mark Speakman) accused her of spreading misinformation and of ‘brazen bullying’.

            Before one pulls out a handkerchief and weeps tears of sympathy, it is worthwhile to stop and think to oneself: Is this not just democracy, with lobby groups at work, and peaceful pressure being put on those who are supposed be our elected representatives? Are not Mr Minns and Mr Speakman grown men who should be used to criticism?

            About the same time the Queensland Law Reform Commission gathered over a hundred health and welfare experts to call for the smacking of children to be made a crime. Associate Professor Divna Haslam, of the Queensland Child Death Review Board made the oft-repeated argument that pets have more legal protection than children. They certainly do, as do wild animals. The eggs of the wedge-tailed eagle are protected by law in all Australian states and territories. The child in the womb now has virtually no protection in any state or territory.

            The ABC tried to create a crisis over women in rural areas having trouble accessing abortion, and dressed it all up in the language of Cultural Marxism that the people in power are ‘not necessarily single mothers or women of colour or Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community leaders’, but often men with medical backgrounds. It is not often that one comes across a statement loaded with so many assumptions and sweeping generalisations.

            Abortion is not health care but the destruction of human life. There were two pleasing things about the recent NSW bill. First, that so much opposition was aroused to it. We do not appeal to the 51%; we may only be a remnant on this issue. But Elijah found out that he was not alone for there were 7,000 men who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19). We too are seeing that – slowly perhaps – a growing number of people are concerned about bowing the knee to Moloch.

            Secondly, while the bill was not entirely defeated, it was gutted. Abortion by medicinal means is more hazardous than many realise, but at least the time limit for the involvement of nurses and midwives was brought down from 22 weeks to 9. This is no cause for rejoicing. Killing is still killing.

            The hymnwriter Frederick William Faber can provide suitable encouragement for us:

For right is right, since God is God; 

And right the day must win; 

To doubt would be disloyalty, 

To falter would be sin.

– Peter Barnes