Western Australia Campaign

WA‘s horror Abortion Bill passed  unamended 

On September 20^th, 2023, the WA Abortion Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 passed unamended after Labor members blocked all amendments. 

It is tragic that even the four provisions included in South Australia’s Termination of Pregnancy Act 2021, along with amendments sought by the AMA, were totally rejected by Labor members, with the exception of Labor pro-life member, the Hon Kate Doust and the Hon Martin Pritchard, who supported a ban on sex selection abortions. 

Tragically, this follows the pattern of Labor not allowed any amendments to its legislation to pass, since its 2021 election win, when it won control of both house of parliament. 

One of the more bizarre twists in the debate occurred when the MP responsible for handling the abortion bill, Hon Sue Ellery, representing the Minister for Health in the upper house, suggested that an abortion was no different to a tooth extraction!  Yet, at other times in the debate, she referred to abortions being ‘very difficult decisions’.      

WA now has the most liberal abortion law in the world.  The new law:

• allows abortion to birth if two doctors agree that in all the circumstances it is appropriate 
• allows sex-selection abortions 
• allows abortion of healthy babies to birth for psycho-social reasons 
• allows babies to be aborted simply because they are suspected of having Down Syndrome 

• does not require babies born alive after a late term abortion to be given appropriate medical or palliative care 
• does not make it obligatory for doctors to provide a woman seeking or enquiring about an abortion with information as to where she might access counselling either before or post abortion 
• bans the Chief Health Officer from collecting information as to the reason an abortion was performed. 

The WA government has refused to listen, even to medical professionals, dismissing amendments sought by the AMA to require a late term abortion to be agreed to by two WA doctors, one of whom needs to be an obstetrician or gynaecologist. 

Thank you to all of our supporters who wrote to their Legislative Councillors and who prayed for a better outcome.  The Hon Nick Goiran (Lib) and the Hon Kate Doust (Lab) deserve our thanks for ably presenting the truth about abortion, which is now in the parliamentary Hansard record.  You can email your thanks via the respective links above. 

While we have lost this battle of getting amendments into the legislation, the debate has highlighted things which the abortion industry tries to keep from public view, namely that as a result of late term abortions, sometimes a live baby is born.  The reality of sex selection abortions has also been brought into the public light.   

The Next Steps: 

As Christians we now need to redouble our efforts to support the pregnancy support centres that operate in our state, so that they are so well resourced that any woman facing an unexpected pregnancy will feel so generously supported both financially and emotionally, that abortion becomes unthinkable.    Ask your church to partner with and support one of the pregnancy support centres both financially and in prayer. 

In addition, we need to make women hurt by abortion aware of the help that is available from post abortion grief counsellors. 

Every human life begins at conception.  That is an indisputable scientific fact.  Thus, every abortion ends an unborn baby’s life.   They can not speak up for themselves.  They rely on us to speak for them. 

So let’s continue to take the opportunities as they arise in our work places, in our churches  to speak up for those who can not speak up for themselves.  Let us not become weary in doing good! 

Remember it took William Wilberforce and his friends more than 40 years to abolish slavery.  We may have lost a battle, but the war is far from over! 

Peter Abetz
Director | WA