The headline act at a Sydney anti-abortion rally being held on Tuesday in support of Libertarian MP John Ruddick\u2019s bill to restrict abortion will not be Ruddick.<\/p>\n
It will be the One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce<\/a>.<\/p>\n Joyce left the Nationals last year, not long after he was rebuked for his statements about abortion<\/a>.<\/p>\n The dramatic rise in the polls of his new party<\/a> has given fresh impetus to a loose network of anti-abortion groups trying to chip away at reproductive rights.<\/p>\n Since abortion was decriminalised in all states and territories<\/a> almost three years ago, there has been a slew of attempts to wind back access.<\/p>\n Bills have been brought by different parties and independents in several states, aiming to reduce access in a variety of ways, including banning late-term abortions (which are rare and often heartbreaking<\/a>), mandating medical care for babies \u201cborn alive\u201d after abortions (experts have called such claims misleading<\/a>), and banning sex-selective abortions.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n Those three themes are echoed by a range of rightwing, religious anti-abortion activists.<\/p>\n They also form part of One Nation\u2019s policy<\/a> to \u201cseek every opportunity to roll back brutal and extreme abortion law\u201d.<\/p>\n Prudence Flowers, a senior lecturer in US history at Flinders University, says the resemblance is not a coincidence.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the reasons these policies are similar \u2026 is that the Australian anti-abortion movement is explicitly looking at historical measures in the US,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason it seems so coordinated is that there is that playbook people can look to.\u201d<\/p>\n In the US, this incremental approach<\/a> to tackle abortion rights from multiple directions culminated in Roe v Wade being overturned in 2022 and continues now with states implementing abortion bans.<\/p>\n Since then, it has become harder<\/a> to get healthcare for miscarriages, to access fertility treatments and for obstetrician\/gynaecologists to practise, and there has been a rise in infant mortality<\/a> and pregnancy-related deaths<\/a>.<\/p>\n Attempts to change abortion law<\/p>\n In South Australia<\/a>, the former One Nation MP Sarah Game has proposed legislation to ban abortion after 25 weeks, even in cases of severe foetal abnormalities.<\/p>\n The three newly elected One Nation representatives<\/a> in the 22-member upper house may help it pass, although it is doubtful it would also get through the Labor-dominated lower house.<\/p>\n In Queensland<\/a>, the Katter\u2019s Australian party MP Robbie Katter has introduced a disallowance motion aimed at stopping nurses and midwives prescribing medical abortions, known as MS-2 Step.<\/p>\n Twenty organisations, including Children by Choice, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Midwives and MSI Australia, released an open letter on Monday saying those practitioners were often the only timely option available to people outside major cities, and that any delay did not prevent abortions but made them \u201charder, later and more complex\u201d.<\/p>\n In NSW, Ruddick is using an Edith Cowan University study that found indirect evidence that some migrant communities prefer boys to girls, using data from 1994 to 2015, to argue for his bill to ban sex-selective abortion.<\/p>\n But a 2020 NSW Health review found sex selection happened \u201crarely\u201d. Of 15,973 abortions in the year to September 2020, 13 were done for sex selection, it reported.<\/p>\n Of those, 10 were \u201clikely to be reporting errors\u201d as they were done at less than nine weeks, when \u201cthere is no readily available and reliable way of determining gender\u201d.<\/p>\n Ruddick insists \u201cgender selection abortions are happening\u201d and the law is needed to send a message it is not acceptable.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a mother still wants to abort because of their child\u2019s sex they can obviously say it\u2019s for any other reason and no one will know, but the law will have a positive ripple effect in cementing into our culture that baby boys and baby girls are of equal value,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s event in Sydney has been organised by the activist Joanna Howe, who is calling it a rally for \u201cRuth and Emma\u201d, the names she attached to an image of what she thought were foetuses, but that turned out to be baby sugar gliders<\/a>.<\/p>\n Howe has worked with state and federal MPs on legislation to reduce access to abortion. She believes all abortion should be banned, and that \u201ceverybody involved\u201d should face criminal penalties.<\/p>\n