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South Australia’s newly composed upper house — including three One Nation members — has pro-life advocates confident a bill to protect unborn babies after 25 weeks will clear its first hurdle.

One hundred and five unborn babies have been killed through late-term abortion in South Australia since the state legalised abortion up to birth in 2022 — a figure cited Wednesday as MLC Sarah Game tabled legislation to protect the unborn from 25 weeks onwards.

The Termination of Pregnancy (Restrictions on Terminations after 24 Weeks and 6 Days) Amendment Bill 2026, introduced to the SA Legislative Council, would permit abortions from 25 weeks only in cases where the mother’s life is at risk.

“Since the enactment of abortion up to birth in July 2022, there have been 105 babies killed through late-term abortion,” said Professor of Law Dr Joanna Howe of Australia Life. “These poor babies have been injected with potassium chloride in the heart and delivered intentionally stillborn. This is not healthcare. It’s murder and it has no place in a just and humane society.”

Australian Christian Lobby’s SA Director Ashlyn Vice said official records have confirmed what pro-life advocates have long argued: the assurances given when abortion up to birth was legalised have not been kept.

“South Australians were promised late-term abortions would not happen for mental health reasons of the mother,” she said. “And yet, today, official records reveal feticide procedures are indeed being performed where there is no threat to the mother’s physical health and where the baby is fully capable of life outside of the womb.”

Dr Melissa Lai, senior neonatologist and president of Pro-life Health Professionals Australia, reinforced the medical case. “At 25 weeks’ gestation, for a normally developed baby, resuscitation and intensive care support is offered as standard care, with average survival over 82% across all tertiary nurseries in the Australian and New Zealand Neonatal Network,” she said.

“There is, in fact, no medical reason to terminate these infants in-utero by feticide, in order to save a mother’s life.”

Coalition of Support

Seven organisations — Australia Life, the Australian Christian Lobby, Love Australia, FamilyVoice, Tradies For Babies, Family First, and Bird Flip — have united behind the bill and will campaign for its swift passage.

Jodie Pickard, founding director of Love Australia, placed the legislation in a longer arc of advocacy. “Love Australia has been advocating for life since the first introduction of the horrendous abortion to birth bill in 2019,” she said. “We strongly support this bill and we urge all members of parliament to vote for these reasonable and urgent reforms.”

The bill also removes serious foetal abnormality as a valid reason for late-term abortion. Dr Howe said the legislation would “provide protection for all children, irrespective of any kind of disability that they have”.

To mark the bill’s introduction, a trilogy of paintings by local artist Elspeth McKellar from pro-life group Bird Flip was displayed on the steps of parliament Wednesday at 5pm.

Entitled Human Error, McKellar described the work as exploring “the fracture through the motif of the human hand: a symbol of creation, connection, labour and identity”.

“One work depicts the shackled hand of an enslaved man,” she explained, “while another presents the hand of an unborn child confronted by instruments of destruction”.

 

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How Opponents Framed It

Reporting on the bill, the ABC described it as a “roll-back” and labelled all pro-life advocates “anti-abortion campaigners” throughout its article. The outlet led with the bill’s political mechanics — upper house composition, vote counts, and the winter break deadline — before any mention of the unborn children it would protect.

The ABC quoted Greens MLC Melanie Selwood accusing Sarah Game and her supporters of representing “the far right” and pursuing “extreme agendas”.

The national broadcaster also quoted SA Abortion Action Coalition co-convenor Brigid Coombe who helped lead the 2021 decriminalisation campaign. Coombe told the ABC she was “extremely disappointed” the bill was before parliament and told MPs to become “well educated on the complex reasons why the law should remain as it is”.

The 105 unborn babies killed since 2022 did not appear in the ABC’s report, nor did Dr Lai’s evidence that feticide is never medically necessary to save a mother’s life.

Path Through Parliament

The bill needs 11 votes in the upper house to pass. Three members who voted against Game’s previous bill — Greens MLC Tammy Franks, Connie Bonaros of SA Best, and former Liberal Jing Lee — are no longer in parliament. Labor’s Reggie Martin does not hold a floor vote after being elected upper house president. The upper house now includes three new One Nation members, an avowedly pro-life party.

Should the bill clear the upper house, it would face a lower house comprising 34 Labor MPs, five Liberals, four One Nation MPs, and four independents — and would mark the first time an abortion restriction has advanced that far since rights were expanded in 2021.

Dr Howe said supporters intend to take the debate directly to marginal-seat MPs.

“We are extremely confident that once this debate occurs, on our own terms in the marginal seats of these MPs, we will be able to activate and educate local communities to persuade their local MP to vote for an upper gestational limit of 25 weeks for abortion,” she said.

Game hopes to bring the bill to a vote before parliament’s winter break at the end of June.

“We hope this is third time lucky for SA babies,” Dr Howe said.

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Image courtesy of Dr Joanna Howe / Facebook.