The New South Wales lower house will soon vote on a proposed reform to broaden access to abortion by allowing nurses and midwives to prescribe medical terminations up to nine weeks.
Greens MP Amanda Cohn proposed the legislation, which was amended significantly before being passed by the state’s upper house last week.
It will be subject to a conscience vote in the lower house and has won support from both major parties, including from Premier Chris Minns and opposition health spokesperson, Kellie Sloane.
However, it’s proving more divisive for the Liberal Party, with Opposition Leader Mark Speakman not yet indicating how he will vote on the proposed reform. Meanwhile, moderate NSW Liberal MP Chris Rath was forced to apologise after being criticised for inappropriately invoking the Nazis’ genocide of the Jews in a parliamentary debate over the bill.
The bill has also sparked the interest of former prime minister Tony Abbott, who last week told an anti-abortion rally outside NSW parliament house that the legislation was an “assault on our fundamental rights and freedoms”.
Abortion was decriminalised in NSW in 2019, but a NSW Health review found many areas have limited access to abortion services. The report recommended allowing more practitioners, like nurses and midwives, to prescribe medical abortions to broaden access for women.
In 2024, research from the University of Sydney found just three of 220 public hospitals in NSW routinely provided abortions.
A problem for the Liberals
NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman, a moderate, has attempted to distance himself from the federal Liberal Party and Peter Dutton in the wake of the election. But as the disastrous result of the federal election settles in, it’s clear the Liberal Party also grapples with an identity crisis at the state level — and this proposed abortion reform is bringing it out of the shadows.
“Our Liberal values of aspiration, innovation and opportunity are timeless, but we can and must relate them to modern-day NSW, including for women and people from non-English-speaking backgrounds,” Speakman said after the federal election defeat in an attempt to paint his leadership as different to Dutton’s.
But Speakman’s refusal to commit to supporting the proposed abortion reform speaks to a party that remains unclear on how to appeal to women.
Speakman says he wants to relate “Liberal values” to modern-day NSW—where abortion has been decriminalised since 2019—but will not say which way he will vote on a bill that will actually support women to access reproductive care.
In the upper house, just two Liberal MPs, deputy leader Natalie Ward and Jacqui Munro, supported the bill.
As independent MP Alex Greenich put it simply last week, the proposed reform is a “really straightforward” change that will make a “huge difference” to women’s lives. It’s time for Speakman to acknowledge that.