Anti-abortion rhetoric is becoming entrenched in Australian right-wing politics

Earlier this week, Queensland Nationals MP Llew O’Brien introduced a so-called “born alive” bill into the House of Representatives.

On the same day, August 17, the Australian Christian Lobby held an event on Parliament House lawns.

Against a backdrop of 10,000 knitted baby booties arranged into a cross , Australia’s most prominent federal anti-abortion politicians spoke in support of the bill.

Born alive bills originated in the United States in the early 2000s and the issue has been raised in most Australian decriminalisation debates since Victoria in 2008.

O’Brien’s resurrection of this topic reveals much about the ambitions of contemporary Australian opponents of abortion.

What does the bill do? In Australia, abortion is regulated at the state and territory level.

This bill would insert the federal government into the equation.

The Human Rights (Children Born Alive Protection) Bill would require the same medical care for a baby born with signs of life following abortion as for any other baby, a situation that is extremely rare .

Any failure to provide such care would be a criminal offence.

Every state and territory in Australia has decriminalised abortion.

The bill would reintroduce the threat of criminal penalties for abortion providers with respect to care provided after an abortion.

It would likely have a chilling effect on doctors’ willingness to provide abortion services.

This is the third time this bill has been introduced in parliament in the past five years, identical to versions from August 2021 and November 2022 .

The 2022 bill went to a Senate inquiry , whose report expressed concerns about its impact on healthcare access, constitutional validity and consistency with human rights.