How common is sex-selective abortion in Australia, really?

The Good Brigade/Getty Images New South Wales parliament is debating a bill this week that seeks to ban abortions performed on the basis of fetal sex. If passed, health practitioners who perform such abortions would face professional misconduct charges and lose indemnity insurance coverage for the procedure. At first glance, this might appear to be a defensible measure to address a practice that sits uneasily with gender equality. But there’s little evidence sex-selective abortions are occurring in Australia. The South Australian Law Reform Institute has warned such prohibitions would restrict and delay access to time-sensitive care. They would also prove unworkable and unenforceable. When and how can you determine fetal sex? Fetal sex can be determined through non-invasive prenatal testing . This blood test is taken from the pregnant person between ten and 14 weeks’ gestation, and costs around A$500 to $800 out of pocket. Around 25–30% of pregnant people use this type of testing. Fetal sex can also be determined through routine ultrasounds performed at around 20 weeks’ gestation. When can you get an abortion? Australia progressively decriminalised abortion between 2002 and 2023. It’s now legal in all states and territories. Decriminalisation shifted decision-making power from doctors to pregnant people, recognising them as the authorities on their own pregnancies. Pregnant people are no longer required to account for their decisions to medical professionals. However, gestational limits apply in most states and territories (aside from the Australian Capital Territory), ranging from 14 to 24 weeks. Beyond those limits, medical signoff is still required. What does the law say about sex-selective abortion? The law varies by state . South Australia explicitly prohibits it. During its decriminalisation debate, NSW passed a statement of parliamentary opposition to the practice. No other state or territory has specific provisions. How common is sex-selective abortion? The evidence base for the bill is thin. The SA Law Reform Institute found “little, if any, evidence that abortions purely on the basis of gender are a real issue in Australia”. A 2020 NSW review similarly found sex-selective abortions “are rarely performed for the sole purpose of sex selection”. Proponents cite a recent study as evidence of the practice among people with specific migrant backgrounds. The study’s own authors, however, describe their findings as “indirect evidence” of a skewed sex ratio at birth. They note only that this “may be indicative of prenatal sex selection” and explicitly state it “does not establish causality”. It’s actually an anti-abortion strategy Sex-selection amendments are a well-documented anti-abortion strategy designed to foment stigma and discourage health practitioners from providing abortions. This bill is one of several currently before state parliaments to limit access to abortions. It’s part of a coordinated effort to erode abortion access and contest the principle that abortion is health care. Legislation is only part of the strategy. The parliamentary process is also used as a mechanism to advance narratives that frame abortion as morally indefensible. The goal is to undermine not just access, but the legitimacy of abortion itself. The language of the second reading speech reflects this. The speech contains no reference to fetuses or embryos, only “unborn babies” and “girls”. There are no “pregnant people” or even “women”, only “mothers”. Doctors who perform abortions are “abortionists.” Advocates are the “pro-abortion lobby”. This is the lexicon of the anti-abortion movement. It constructs a worldview in which the fetus has independent moral status, the pregnant person exists only as a mother, and abortion is something only the unscrupulous would defend. The bill’s stated justification rests on one study’s indirect and observational findings about “two migrant communities”, who are portrayed as culturally at odds with Australian values of gender equality. The bill positions abortion restrictions as a protective, progressive measure, obscuring Australia’s uneven and incomplete record on gender equality . What could the bill mean for pregnant people and providers? In practice, the bill reintroduces medical gatekeeping for pregnant people. It will return pregnant people to a regime in which their reasons for terminating a pregnancy are subject to medical and legal scrutiny. This burden is likely to fall unevenly on racialised communities : in practice, people from some ethnic communities may face greater scrutiny of their decisions from health providers. It also imposes greater professional and personal risks on abortion providers. Australia already faces a shortage of abortion providers . Exposing health practitioners to professional sanction and voiding their indemnity insurance deters providers. The internatio