{"id":715483,"date":"2026-06-04T20:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T20:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/715483\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T20:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T20:58:16","slug":"how-common-is-sex-selective-abortion-in-australia-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/715483\/","title":{"rendered":"How common is sex-selective abortion in Australia, really?"},"content":{"rendered":"

New South Wales parliament is debating<\/a> a bill this week that seeks to ban abortions performed on the basis of fetal sex. <\/p>\n

If passed, health practitioners who perform such abortions would face professional misconduct charges and lose indemnity insurance coverage for the procedure. <\/p>\n

At first glance, this might appear to be a defensible measure to address a practice that sits uneasily with gender equality.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s little evidence sex-selective abortions are occurring in Australia.<\/p>\n

The South Australian Law Reform Institute<\/a> has warned such prohibitions would restrict and delay access to time-sensitive care. They would also prove unworkable and unenforceable.<\/p>\n

When and how can you determine fetal sex?<\/p>\n

Fetal sex can be determined through non-invasive prenatal testing<\/a>. This blood test is taken from the pregnant person between ten and 14 weeks\u2019 gestation, and costs around A$500 to $800 out of pocket. <\/p>\n

Around 25\u201330%<\/a> of pregnant people use this type of testing. <\/p>\n

Fetal sex can also be determined through routine ultrasounds performed at around 20 weeks\u2019 gestation. <\/p>\n

When can you get an abortion?<\/p>\n

Australia progressively decriminalised abortion<\/a> between 2002 and 2023. It\u2019s now legal in all states and territories.<\/p>\n

Decriminalisation shifted decision-making power from doctors to pregnant people, recognising them as the authorities on their own pregnancies. Pregnant people are no longer required to account for their decisions to medical professionals.<\/p>\n

However, gestational limits apply in most states and territories (aside from the Australian Capital Territory), ranging from 14 to 24 weeks.<\/p>\n

Beyond those limits, medical signoff is still required.<\/p>\n

What does the law say about sex-selective abortion?<\/p>\n

The law varies by state<\/a>. <\/p>\n

South Australia<\/a> explicitly prohibits it.<\/p>\n

During its decriminalisation debate, NSW passed<\/a> a statement of parliamentary opposition to the practice. <\/p>\n

No other state or territory has specific provisions.<\/p>\n

How common is sex-selective abortion?<\/p>\n

The evidence base for the bill is thin. The SA Law Reform Institute<\/a> found \u201clittle, if any, evidence that abortions purely on the basis of gender are a real issue in Australia\u201d. <\/p>\n

A 2020 NSW review<\/a> similarly found sex-selective abortions \u201care rarely performed for the sole purpose of sex selection\u201d.<\/p>\n

Proponents cite a recent study<\/a> as evidence of the practice among people with specific migrant backgrounds. <\/p>\n

The study\u2019s own authors, however, describe their findings as \u201cindirect evidence\u201d of a skewed sex ratio at birth. They note only that this \u201cmay be indicative of prenatal sex selection\u201d and explicitly state it \u201cdoes not establish causality\u201d. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually an anti-abortion strategy<\/p>\n

Sex-selection amendments are a well-documented anti-abortion strategy<\/a> designed to foment stigma and discourage health practitioners from providing abortions.<\/p>\n

This bill is one of several<\/a> currently before state parliaments to limit access to abortions. It\u2019s part of a coordinated effort<\/a> to erode abortion access and contest the principle that abortion is health care. <\/p>\n

Legislation is only part of the strategy. The parliamentary process is also used as a mechanism to advance narratives that frame abortion as morally indefensible. The goal is to undermine not just access, but the legitimacy of abortion itself. <\/p>\n

The language of the second reading speech<\/a> reflects this. The speech contains no reference to fetuses or embryos, only \u201cunborn babies\u201d and \u201cgirls\u201d. <\/p>\n

There are no \u201cpregnant people\u201d or even \u201cwomen\u201d, only \u201cmothers\u201d. Doctors who perform abortions are \u201cabortionists.\u201d Advocates are the \u201cpro-abortion lobby\u201d. <\/p>\n

This is the lexicon of the anti-abortion movement. It constructs a worldview in which the fetus has independent moral status, the pregnant person exists only as a mother, and abortion is something only the unscrupulous would defend.<\/p>\n

The bill\u2019s stated justification<\/a> rests on one study\u2019s<\/a> indirect and observational findings about \u201ctwo migrant communities\u201d, who are portrayed as culturally at odds with Australian values of gender equality. <\/p>\n

The bill positions abortion restrictions as a protective, progressive measure, obscuring Australia\u2019s uneven and incomplete record on gender equality<\/a>. <\/p>\n

What could the bill mean for pregnant people and providers?<\/p>\n

In practice, the bill reintroduces medical gatekeeping for pregnant people. It will return pregnant people to a regime in which their reasons for terminating a pregnancy are subject to medical and legal scrutiny. <\/p>\n

This burden is likely to fall unevenly on racialised communities<\/a>: in practice, people from some ethnic communities may face greater scrutiny of their decisions from health providers.<\/p>\n

It also imposes greater professional and personal risks on abortion providers. Australia already faces a shortage of abortion providers<\/a>. Exposing health practitioners to professional sanction and voiding their indemnity insurance deters providers.<\/p>\n

The international literature<\/a> is clear: bans on sex-selective abortion do nothing to address the underlying causes of son preference. Those causes are social, economic and cultural. <\/p>\n

What sex-selective abortion bans do is restrict reproductive autonomy \u2013 itself foundational to gender equality. This bill will not advance gender equality. It will restrict abortion access and expose providers to sanction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New South Wales parliament is debating a bill this week that seeks to ban abortions performed on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-715483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715483","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=715483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}