NSW Abortion Amendment

Last week, the Greens’ abortion bill was gutted by the Legislative Council, leaving only one significant provision.

The bill, which was introduced by Greens MLC Amanda Cohen, expanded access to abortion through a number of measures, including by allowing nurse-practitioners to prescribe early-term abortion medication. It also removed reporting requirements around abortion.

The bill also had two significant impacts on religious freedom:

• Giving the NSW Health Minister the power to force hospitals to perform abortions. This includes some faith-based hospitals
• Requiring medical professionals who have a conscientious object to abortion to refer patients directly to another practitioner who will perform the abortion – forcing them to be complicit in a procedure that they object to.

The bill was introduced by the Greens into the Legislative Council (upper house), and both Labor and the Coalition gave their members a conscience vote.

This set up an interesting legislative process. The bill would be considered in the Legislative Council, and would be passed, rejected or amended. The bill would then move to the Legislative Assembly (lower house) for a second analysis and vote.

This meant that, until the bill was considered by the upper house, it was a Greens bill and we did not know how the major parties would respond with their conscience vote. However, once it had passed the Legislative Council, whatever form of bill arrives at the lower house would be the direct responsibility of the Government.

Faith leaders, advocacy groups and Freedom for Faith have all been working with the Government and Opposition MPs to inform individual votes and to shape party culture. Over the past couple of weeks, we had received encouraging feedback that the parts of the bill that impinged on religious freedom would not pass the Legislative Council.

Last Thursday, the final vote in the Legislative Council ran the way we expected. The bill was largely gutted by amendments from the Shooters Fishers and Farmers party, which were supported by the majority of Labor and Coalition MPs.

All threats to religious freedom were removed. The main remaining provision is the expansion of access to early abortion medication.

Many Christians have grave concerns about the remaining bill and its impacts on women and children, and we do not want to minimise the impact of this provision. Pro-life organisations and faith leaders will continue to campaign for the rejection of the remainder of the bill.

However, we are glad to see that 90% of the Greens’ demands were rejected from the start by both major parties, including every element that undermined freedom of religion and conscience.