Women dressed as handmaids have protested on the steps of the South Australian parliament before a vote on a bill preventing termination of pregnancies from 27 weeks and six days.
Liberal MP Ben Hood has introduced a private member's bill in the Legislative Council to amend the changes to SA's abortion laws, which passed parliament on a conscience vote in 2021 under the former Marshall Liberal government.
MPs are due to vote on the bill on Wednesday night, with both the Liberals and Labor allowing their MPs a conscience vote.
The controversial proposal has drawn criticism from opponents inside and outside parliament, and it has been labelled an "extreme right-wing culture war bill" by SA Health Minister Chris Picton.
The South Australian Abortion Action Coalition staged a demonstration against the bill outside parliament on Wednesday that attracted about 100 chanting protesters.
It included eight women dressed as handmaids, inspired by Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale.
The long red dresses and white bonnets symbolised the dystopian society depicted by Atwood in which women's reproductive lives are controlled by the state of Gilead, the coalition said.
Coalition co-convenor Brigid Coombe said abortion care always needed to be addressed as healthcare.
"Legislating circumstances around how people's healthcare should be provided shows an enormous misunderstanding of how healthcare is provided," she said.
"Imposing a violent method of controlling women's reproductive autonomy is not the way to go about it."
She said Mr Hood's bill was a "political stunt" that would not succeed.
"The Lower House has a lot of people who are very upset about it," Ms Coombe said.
"However, it changes the narrative, and that is why we are here today."
The current law sets out conditions for "terminations by medical practitioner after 22 weeks and six days".
Mr Hood says his bill seeks to protect viable unborn children in the late stages of pregnancy without taking away a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy.
His bill proposes that in cases where pregnant women seek a termination of a child after 28 weeks, women could end their pregnancy through early delivery, allowing the baby to receive medical care and have the chance to live.
"All late-term abortions involve the mother being induced and the baby being delivered," Mr Hood said.
"This bill seeks to ensure that healthy, viable babies past 27 weeks and six days will be delivered alive and not be killed in-utero and birthed stillborn."
In 2023, there were 47 pregnancies terminated after 22 weeks and six days, according to the South Australian Abortion Reporting Committee, accounting for less than one per cent of all pregnancies terminated in the state last year.
More than 1000 people who support the bill gathered on the steps of parliament in September.
