Anti-abortion activists are trying to limit access in NSW – and they are just getting started

New South Wales Libertarian Party MLC John Ruddick wants to ban sex-selective abortions in the state. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian View image in fullscreen New South Wales Libertarian Party MLC John Ruddick wants to ban sex-selective abortions in the state. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian Analysis Anti-abortion activists are trying to limit access in NSW – and they are just getting started Tory Shepherd Obstetricians and gynaecologists say anti sex-selective abortions bill ‘predicated on misinformation’ and ‘underlying aim is to restrict access to abortion’ Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The man who wants to ban “sex-selective abortions” is the first person who will tell you it won’t work. New South Wales Libertarian Party MLC John Ruddick has introduced legislation that would see health practitioners sent to prison or fined thousands if they carry out a termination because of the sex of a foetus. But the experts, the evidence, and history show that laws like these tend to target immigrants, increase stigma and wind back reproductive rights. In NSW, it’s entirely a woman’s choice if she wants an abortion up to 22 weeks, but this law would mean health practitioners would have to question her about her reasons, which could put her off seeking help, and the practitioner off providing the abortion. “If a mother still wants to abort because of their child’s sex they can obviously say it’s for any other reason and no one will know,” he says. He says the message will be that girls and boys are equal when it comes to abortion (or as One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce awkwardly put it: “This law in NSW must be passed or otherwise we all accept that sex selection is appropriate. Girls are not as good as boys.” 3:30 ‘I’m seeing what I saw in the US’: hundreds attend anti-abortion rally in Sydney – video Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (Ranzcog) president, Nisha Khot, said the bill was “predicated on misinformation”, that there are already restrictions on sex-selection abortion for non-medical reasons and that the “underlying aim is to restrict access to abortion”. “There is no evidence that sex selection is occurring in NSW,” the state health minister, Ryan Park, said on Wednesday. A 2020 NSW Health review found it was exceedingly rare. Of 15,973 abortions in the year to September 2020, 13 were listed as having been done for sex selection – but, the review noted, 10 of those were likely to be “reporting errors”. Ruddick likes to rely on a different study – an Edith Cowan University study using data from 1994 to 2015 that showed “indirect evidence” but not “causality” that it was happening, specifically with Indian and Chinese immigrants. The authors of that study recommended that the way to prevent sex-selective abortion was to stop using non-invasive pre-natal testing to reveal sex unless it was for medical reasons and urged culturally acceptable discussions of reproductive decision making. A 2025 US study published in Social Science & Medicine found the bans stigmatised Asian immigrant mothers and amplified racial stereotypes, which in turn caused maternal stress and poorer birth outcomes. And the bans “did not significantly alter the infant sex ratio”. The authors did not suggest that the practices were absent, but that “their prevalence has been overstated and mischaracterised”, and that evidence did not support the claim it was widespread “even among groups historically associated with son preference”. When Joyce stood up at an anti-abortion rally on Wednesday in Sydney, he was flanked by two giant posters, “Emma” and “Ruth”. Emma and Ruth were the names given by Joanna Howe, an anti-abortion activist to what she thought at the time were tiny human foetuses, no more than nine weeks old. She now knows they were sugar glider joeys, but nevertheless used paintings of “them” at the Sydney protest, and made them far closer to fully grown, with hair, and clearly depicted fingers and toes. That hasn’t stopped state and federal politicians working with Howe and others on almost a dozen pieces of anti-abortion legislation, including Ruddick’s. Such legislation has been criticised by Ranzcog and others as misinformation and as not being based on evidence. When the Guardian asked Howe about her use of the images that appeared to be of sugar gliders, Howe said: “Even if … the picture of Ruth and Emma is sugar gliders, like, does it really even fucking matter?” The end goal of multiple attempts to change legislation, Ranzcog, the Australian College of Midwives, MSI Australia and others have said, is not about saving girls like “Ruth” or “Emma”, it’s to make as many inroads as possible to abortion access. Howe herself said on Tuesday this was just the start, and her next move would be to target late-term abortions. “Every year in this state, we will introduce a bill until we protect all the babies,” Howe said. Explore more on these topics New South Wales politics abortion New South Wales Health Women analysis Share Reuse this content