NSW Finance Minister Damien Tudehope will lead a push to ban sex selection terminations when a controversial bill to decriminalise abortions is debated in the upper house next week.
"As I have made clear from the outset, I am strongly of the view that this bill in its current form is not in step with the views of the community."But he declined to elaborate on the thrust of the amendments and what, if any, obligations his proposal would place on doctors to ascertain the reasons behind a woman's decision to seek an abortion.
While the issue of sex selection was the subject of fierce debate in the lower house last week, where the bill was passed 59 votes to 31, an attempt to insert a ban into the bill was unsuccessful.The debate exposed deep fault lines in the Liberal Party, with many Coalition MPs critical of the government's role in facilitating the bill.
Danielle McMullen, vice president of the NSW Australian Medical Association, told an upper house inquiry into the proposed laws that the issue was a "red herring" designed "to derail decriminalisation of abortion more broadly".
LisaVisentin How about inclusions for inauspicious delivery dates? If you are going to talk about adding random things to apply...
LisaVisentin Keep your rosaries off my ovaries Tudehope!
LisaVisentin Doesn’t make sense. How do you enforce this?
LisaVisentin Why do these rancid old men think they have any right to tell women what they can do with their bodies.
LisaVisentin He couldn't lead a choko vine over a bush dunny