After a 72-hour debate, delays and the threat of a leadership spill, New South Wales became the final state in Australia to decriminalise abortion last week. Arguably Australia’s most radical abortion law, the Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 allows “terminations” for any reason up to 22 weeks and full-term abortion with the consent of two doctors.
Only 25 of the possible 102 amendments to the bill were accepted. Among those that failed were pain relief for babies of more than 20 weeks’ gestation, and the banning of sex-selective abortions and the selling of body parts. One accepted amendment was the bizarrely titled “Care of persons born after termination” which requires doctors to treat those babies that survive a late-term abortion.
