Barnaby Joyce attends anti-abortion rally ahead of controversial bill
Updated . First published at
Barnaby Joyce has attended a rally in support of a bill to ban some abortions in New South Wales.
Joyce, the Nationals-turned-One Nation MP, spoke at the event held outside NSW Parliament House in Sydney ahead of a controversial vote on a law to outlaw selective sex abortions in the state.
Joyce claimed he was willing to fight on the issue, even if it was politically unpopular. Barnaby Joyce
“You must keep that fire burning for those people who can’t stand up for themselves,” he said.
“And I call them people. They’re not fetuses, they are people.”
He claimed it was the “right thing to do”, saying he was unbothered if his views and attendance at the rally wasn’t politically popular.
He later posted photos of himself in the crowd speaking with other attendees and watching on as others spoke.
Banners depicting two fetuses called Emma and Ruth were hung in front of Parliament House.
“I have lots of flaws, we all do, but it does not make us bad people. We all recognise it, don’t make excuses for it and then move on to not repeat it,” he said in a post.
Joyce claimed people were preferencing having boys over girls. Barnaby Joyce
“You can’t sex select as the reason for a termination. There has to be a line in this and let’s be honest with each other, we all know that.
“This law in NSW must be passed or otherwise we all accept that sex selection is appropriate. Girls are not as good as boys [sic].”
Joyce clarified his “girls are not better than boys” remark to journalists in Canberra today: “I posed the question that they’re obviously not. Have a read of it.
“I said if you support sex-determined abortions, then what’s happening is people are preferencing boys over girls. I actually don’t.”
Barnaby Joyce’s office directed us to comments he made to the ABC at Parliament House today, where he disagreed with the views expressed by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
They warned the draft legislation prioritised “misinformation over medical evidence” and added “ideology cannot be prioritised over evidence-based healthcare”.
His presence was praised by the rally’s organiser Dr Joanna Howe, an anti-abortion activist.
Dr Joanna Howe wants to "eradicate abortion" in Australia. James Brickwood
“I love that Barnaby Joyce spoke for the babies tonight at our Sydney rally. What courage,” she said on Facebook.
Howe, a law professor, claims her movement’s main goal is “eradicating abortion” in Australia, and she has garnered a following in pro-life circles.
A private member’s bill to ban abortions for the purpose of sex selection is due to be debated in parliament on Wednesday.
The practice is already banned in New South Wales based on NSW Health policy and was formally opposed by parliament in 2019 when MPs voted to decriminalise abortion.
However, Libertarian MP John Ruddick, who introduced the bill last year, wants to explicitly outlaw abortions based on selective sex and to prosecute medical practitioners who carry out the practice with fines or prison time of up to five years.
A 2020 report by NSW Health, presented to the NSW Parliament, found “terminations of pregnancy are rarely performed for the sole purpose of sex selection.”
The study said of 15,973 abortion carried out between October 1 2019 and September 30 2020, only 13 - 0.08 per cent - of these were for the sole purpose of sex selection.
“However, of these 13 notifications, 10 are likely to be reporting errors as they were for pregnancies less than nine weeks gestation and there is no readily available and reliable way of determining gender prior to 10 weeks gestation,” the report added.
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