In Australia, One Nation leader vows to seek abortion restrictions
Mike Newman, the leader of the One Nation party in the Australian state of New South Wales, said at a rally outside the state parliament that he would seek stricter controls on abortions if his political force succeeds in the March election. Newman is running in the Cessnock electorate in the Hunter Valley region.
As reported by ABC News Australia, the politician spoke alongside anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe, a law professor at the University of Adelaide. She introduced Newman to the event’s participants as the “next premier of New South Wales.”
Support for the bill
After the rally, Newman clarified that he had been referring to abortions for the purpose of sex selection, as well as late-term terminations of pregnancy. He pledged to support in parliament the principles of a bill by libertarian MP John Ruddick, which provides for a ban on abortions for the purpose of sex selection.
This practice is already prohibited by NSW Health policy, but is not explicitly banned by law. Medical professionals may face disciplinary action for violating the current rules. Ruddick’s bill would also make imprisonment possible for them.
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Newman said that if the party comes to power, he intends to put the issue back on parliament’s agenda and secure the adoption of the relevant provisions.
Reaction and statistics
Greens MP Amanda Cohn said that the bill and One Nation’s support for it are aimed at restricting reproductive rights in the state. She called the initiative a veiled attempt to recriminalize abortion in New South Wales.
An NSW Health review covering the period from October 2019 to September 2020 recorded 15,973 terminations of pregnancy. In 13 cases, sex selection was indicated as the sole purpose, but reporting errors were considered likely in 10 of them: the pregnancies were terminated before the ninth week, when, according to the review’s conclusion, no available and reliable method existed to determine the fetus’s sex.
Supporters of the initiative also cite a 2025 study by Edith Cowan University. It identified patterns consistent with higher-than-expected rates of male births in some immigrant groups. At the same time, the authors stressed that the study does not establish a causal link with prenatal sex selection.
