A pro-life rally will take place outside New South Wales Parliament House next week ahead of an upper house debate on legislation seeking to ban sex-selective abortion in the state. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
The rally on Tuesday, beginning at 6pm, will support a private member’s bill introduced by Libertarian MLC John Ruddick, which is due to be debated in the Legislative Council the following day.
The bill would prohibit abortions sought solely on the basis of the unborn child’s sex.
Organiser Joanna Howe told The Catholic Weekly the rally aimed to demonstrate public support for the legislation.
“If we don’t turn up in large numbers – between 10 to 20,000 people – politicians will know they can continue to trample on the human rights of unborn babies, because born people will not make it their mission to save them and speak for them,” Dr Howe said.
Speakers at the rally will include Dr Howe, Mr Ruddick, Bishop Tony Percy, Australian Christian Churches president Pastor Joel Chelliah, and Dr Melissa Lai, president of Pro-life Health Professionals Australia.
Mr Ruddick said he believed the vote in the Legislative Council would be close, but the bill had “a good chance” of passing.
The proposed legislation comes amid debate over whether sex-selective abortion occurs in Australia.
Last year academics from Edith Cowan University and Curtin University published a peer-reviewed study in PLOS Global Public Health examining sex ratios at birth in NSW and Western Australia over a 20-year period, with particular attention to overseas-born mothers from countries associated with strong son preference.
The researchers said they identified birth-ratio patterns “consistent with male-biased SRB [sex ratio at birth]” among some groups, particularly migrants from countries “with a strong son preference, such as India and China”.
Mr Ruddick said the bill was intended to affirm equal dignity regardless of sex.
“The passage of this bill will send a clear and unequivocal message to expectant mothers: in Australia we uphold the human dignity of all people, and we are absolutely committed to the principle that the inherent value of a baby girl is equal to that of a baby boy,” he said in his second reading speech last year.
The bill is strongly opposed by abortion-rights advocates.
FULL STORY
NSW to debate ban on sex-selective abortion (By Michael Cook, The Catholic Weekly)
