Late on Wednesday night, the South Australian Legislative Council voted 10-9 against a divisive bill championed by anti-abortion politicians and activists.
Ben Hood MLC’s bill would have amended the Termination of Pregnancy Act 2021 to prevent abortion later in pregnancy. From 28 weeks gestation, a person needing to end a pregnancy would be offered the option of having labour induced, with attending doctors required to act with the intention of delivering a live baby, regardless of the outcomes for the health of the pregnant person or the infant. On top of this “forced birth” component, Hood’s initial commentary about the bill emphasised how “simple” it would be for the premature infant to be placed for adoption.
Hood and his supporters also engaged in a broader attack on abortions after 22 weeks and six days, the legal point in South Australia after which two medical practitioners must approve an abortion.
South Australian print and broadcast media outlets, particularly The Advertiser, were filled with extraordinarily stigmatising visuals and rhetoric about healthy viable babies killed for the convenience of the mother. A large pink “campaign” truck with massive images of a squalling newborn drove around Adelaide, while multiple suburbs were letterboxed with misleading claims. The South Australian Abortion Action Coalition highlighted the misogyny that underpinned this predictable anti-abortion narrative and fought to defend the dignity and rights of all later-abortion patients and to support their healthcare providers.
Hood’s bill had approximately three weeks of public exposure. It was condemned by, among others, national and state groups with legal, medical, and sexual health expertise, including the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, the Law Society of SA, SHINE SA, and a group of midwives from SA universities.
Hood declined to name most of the people he consulted in drafting the bill, relying primarily on anti-choice activist Joanna Howe, a University of Adelaide professor of law with expertise on labour migration. Howe was instrumental in the unsuccessful “Born Alive” legislative campaigns in Canberra and Queensland and has a close relationship with Liberal Senator Alex Antic and the Australian Christian Lobby. Last night constitutes her third political defeat even as her social media profile has grown to the tens of thousands.
The divisions in the Legislative Council over Hood’s bill revealed stark changes in the composition of the state Liberal Party. In 2020 and 2021, it was prominent moderate women in the Liberal party who led a cross-party group in reforming abortion law, notably attorney-general Vickie Chapman MP and minister for Human Services Michelle Lensink. They were supported by premier Steven Marshall and Health minister Stephen Wade, among others.
Antic, a conservative Liberal, publicly lambasted Chapman and Marshall for their work to decriminalise abortion, intervening during the state debates. Since then, he has led a factional campaign to enact a hostile takeover of the state Liberal party, starting at the branch level. Ben Hood, who was appointed to the Legislative Council to fill a vacancy and has never been popularly elected, is part of this right faction. So too are newly appointed Heidi Girolamo and newly elected Laura Henderson, two of the MLCs who voted for Hood’s bill. Greens MLC Tammy Franks argued that Hood’s bill, which would never have passed the lower house, was simply his attempt to raise his political profile in the lead-up to Liberal preselection.
The vote itself was filled with drama. In the final hour of proceedings, Jing Lee contacted her Liberal colleague Lensink, who was absent as she was undergoing chemotherapy, to withdraw her agreement to pair. The newly elected Sarah Game, of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, also agreed and then withdrew an agreement to pair. Lensink called an Uber to get to Parliament before the final vote.
Liberal Dennis Hood (no relation to Ben), who had spoken in favour of the bill, eventually agreed to pair, as Lensink had done for him when he had cancer treatment. Shouting at Dennis Hood from anti-abortion people in the public gallery interrupted the “sacred moment” of the division. The convention of pairing absent members is difficult in a conscience vote but its refusal had not been seen in the Legislative Council in recent memory and its withdrawal at the last minute stands out.
At midnight, Howe posted an update across her social media platforms attacking Dennis Hood, oblivious to his loyalty to the necessary traditions of parliamentary democracy. A follow-up piece in The Advertiser described this respect for parliamentary processes as “abject betrayal”. Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham has tweeted his support for Dennis Hood’s actions.
The vote in the SA Legislative Council was extraordinarily close given the immense flaws in Hood’s bill and the rushed period of consultation and debate. Queensland is also facing a renewed fight over abortion, as Robbie Katter MP has indicated he would immediately seek to amend the current abortion legislation if the LNP wins the coming state election. These events illustrate the fragile nature of hard-won rights for pregnant people and for the provision of abortion health care.
It is not only the extreme abortion politics of the Hood bill that mark it as Trumpian. The centrality of misinformation, lies, disrespect of those in times of health crisis, and the seeming triumph of social media influence over relevant professional opinion and community consultation are hallmarks of culture war approaches to reproductive rights. So too is the reliance on “messaging bills”; measures not expected to pass but which appease and energise conservative voters. The extraordinary flaunting of parliamentary process by politicians and supporters of the bill is an ominous harbinger of strategies to come.
A gathering to oppose the Hood bill on the steps of Parliament House on the afternoon of the vote featured a bevy of Handmaids in red robes and white bonnets, silent with eyes downcast, calling to mind the dystopian world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
