Face of Nation : NSW upper house committee has under a week to report its findings from an inquiry examining a bill to decriminalise abortion in the state.
The parliamentary committee held hearings in Sydney on Wednesday and Thursday before the bill is sent to the Legislative Council where it’s due to be debated next week. The committee must report back their findings by Tuesday.
The private member’s bill, which passed the lower house last week, allows terminations up to 22 weeks and also later if two doctors, considering all the circumstances, agree the termination should occur. Australian Medical Association NSW’s vice president Danielle McMullen on Thursday argued against introducing an amendment to the bill banning sex-selection abortions.
Such an amendment could make any doctor providing abortion services after nine weeks “party to a crime” as technology allows the sex of a baby to be identified from about this time, Dr McMullen told the inquiry. Premier Gladys Berejiklian has opened the door to explicitly banning abortions based on gender if it will help ease community concerns.
Representatives from Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, Women’s Health NSW and Family Planning NSW say the organisations fully support the bill in its current form. Obstetrician and gynaecologist Simon McCaffrey believes women will be worse off if the bill passes the upper house.
He told the inquiry that pregnancies terminated without specialist oversight between 14 to 22 weeks “abrogates” the specialist’s duty of care to women. Sinead Canning from NSW Pro-Choice Alliance urged upper house MPs due to debate the bill next week to do so with “compassion” and to “please reflect on what they intend to say”.
