{"id":263590,"date":"2025-11-05T05:22:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T05:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/263590\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T05:22:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T05:22:06","slug":"liberal-women-react-with-horror-to-abortion-comments-from-coalition-colleagues-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/263590\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberal women react with \u2018horror\u2019 to abortion comments from Coalition colleagues | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Concerns from conservative Coalition MPs including Andrew Hastie and Barnaby Joyce about paid parental leave applying to late-term abortions elicited \u201ca bit of horror\u201d from women in the party, according to Jane Hume, as Sussan Ley<\/a> and senior figures rejected the claims from rightwing figures.<\/p>\n

Ley branded as \u201cinsensitive\u201d concerns raised by some colleagues about the potential for women to seek late-term abortions<\/a> in order to access paid parental leave. The shadow minister for women, Melissa McIntosh, said: \u201cI\u2019ve never heard of a woman doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hume told Sky News: \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be using straightforward legislation as some sort of Trojan horse for personal opinions on this. I thought it was an unnecessary distraction and perhaps a bit of an error of judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The public tit-for-tat between conservative and more moderate MPs culminated in the extraordinary situation where right-wing senator Alex Antic directly rebuked Ley by name, rejecting her criticism.<\/p>\n

The debate comes from federal parliament\u2019s consideration of \u201cPriya\u2019s law\u201d, an amendment to the Fair Work Act that would protect employer-funded paid parental leave for parents of a child who is stillborn or dies.<\/p>\n

The bill has passed parliament with bipartisan support from the Coalition<\/a>, but a number of rightwing members in the House of Representatives last week and in the Senate on Monday \u2013 including Hastie, Joyce, Tony Pasin, Henry Pike, Matt Canavan, Alex Antic, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Sarah Henderson \u2013 initially raised or backed concerns about abortion.<\/p>\n

Hastie, a Liberal leadership aspirant seen as a potential successor if Ley loses her position, praised the bill\u2019s \u201cnoble\u201d intent but said \u201cI do have a question about the unintended consequences of this bill and it applies to late-term abortions \u2026 It\u2019s no secret that I am opposed to late-term abortions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pasin, a Hastie ally, said he was concerned the bill would \u201ctreat an intentionally late-term aborted child in the same way as it would a natural stillbirth or a baby who dies shortly after birth\u201d and claimed parental leave \u201cshouldn\u2019t be available to people who don\u2019t wish to become parents\u201d.<\/p>\n

Medical experts pointed out the vast majority of later terminations are forced by major health issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cLosing a baby after 20 weeks is losing a baby. We should treat anyone who loses a baby with compassion, instead of playing politics with people\u2019s emotions and people\u2019s distress,\u201d said Dr Nisha Khot, the president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.<\/p>\n

Antic, Nampijinpa Price and Henderson voted for an unsuccessful One Nation amendment that would withhold paid parental leave in the case of an \u201cintentional termination\u201d; the Coalition\u2019s Senate contingent backed Canavan\u2019s unsuccessful amendment to exempt intentional terminations except in the case where a termination was to protect the health of the mother. The bill eventually passed without amendment.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the bill\u2019s passage on Monday, the workplace relations minister, Amanda Rishworth, said the law \u201cis not about late-term abortion\u201d and she was \u201cdisappointed that some senators tried to make it something that this is not\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018Insensitive\u2019<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Ley was asked about Hastie\u2019s comments on ABC radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be supporting women through tragic events where a baby is lost. Losing a baby is one of the most difficult things that can ever happen to a mother and to a family. As a mother and a grandmother, this is very personal. So any commentary about this bill applying in other contexts is insensitive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ley said she was \u201cnot talking about individuals in my party room or individual comments\u201d, but added: \u201cThe last thing I\u2019m going to do is issue judgments on mothers and [I\u2019m] certainly very supportive of the bill, as is my team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hastie\u2019s office was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

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In a Senate statement on Wednesday, Antic said speeches from Hastie, Joyce, Pasin and Pike were given \u201crespectfully\u201d and defended their right to raise the issue. He rebuked Ley\u2019s criticisms after mentioning her by name.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can it be \u2018insensitive\u2019 to raise the issue of a clear loophole in a federally mandated scheme in a parliament which votes on the scheme? That is their right, that is my right, and indeed that is the very purpose of debate in this parliament,\u201d Antic said.<\/p>\n

McIntosh defended the right of MPs to raise concerns about conscience issues, though welcomed the passage of Priya\u2019s Law.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think about the families, and we\u2019ve all got friends and families who\u2019ve lost children so late, and I can imagine how much it stirs emotional turmoil in people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that was their decision. And I hope we can move on from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed on the issue raised by Hastie, Joyce and others, McIntosh added: \u201cHave you ever come across a story where a woman has done that?<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that Andrew Hastie is a man of faith, so that\u2019s their position, but that bill did go through, and I hope it does bring some comfort to families that would be very traumatised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hume, demoted to the backbench but a former minister for finance and women\u2019s economic security, was also critical of the comments. She said she and many inside the Liberal party supported a woman\u2019s right to choose.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that there was a bit of horror from many of the women in our party that this intervention was at all necessary,\u201d Hume told Sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very serious and deeply personal issue. I don\u2019t think we needed to politicise this whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Concerns from conservative Coalition MPs including Andrew Hastie and Barnaby Joyce about paid parental leave applying to late-term…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-263590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}