Pro-life Australian MP plans to introduce new bill restricting late-term abortion

Australian pro-life MP Sarah Game is introducing a bill meant to restrict late-term abortion beginning at 23 weeks gestation, sparking debate in South Australia and garnering attention from pro-life advocates all over the country.

Key Takeaways:

• MP Sarah Game plans to introduce a bill to further restrict South Australia's current abortion law which even allows abortion after 23 weeks gestation for the "mental health" of the mother.

• The bill will restrict abortion after 22 weeks, six days unless to save the mother’s life or the life of another preborn child, or in cases of severe risk or confirmed case of fetal abnormalities.

• Some argue that it is inhumane to restrict abortion after 23 weeks.

The Details:

MP Game plans to introduce the "Termination of Pregnancy (Restrictions on Terminations after 22 Weeks and 6 Days) Amendment Bill 2025" on September 17, according to an Australian ABC News report. Game plans to bring the bill to a vote before the South Australian state election in March 2026. 

In a Facebook post dated September 5, Game stated: 

75% of late-term abortions involve healthy babies where the mother’s life is not at risk.

I'm seeking to save the lives of those babies with my landmark bill, which is being introduced on September 17th. This legislation will protect the rights of viable, healthy SA [South Australia] children, while ensuring proper maternal care.

Thanks to Dr Joanna Howe (who contributed to the Bill) for attending today’s Parliament House rally, and thanks also to all the women who showed their support by attending.

Currently, South Australian law allows abortions at and after 23 weeks following authorization from two doctors if the continuation of the pregnancy would involve “significant risk to the physical or mental health” of the pregnant woman, ABC News noted. ("Mental health" is often utilized by abortion advocates to create a broad loophole through which to allow abortions for nearly any reason.)

Game’s proposed pro-life bill would remove the mental health allowance and further limit abortions after 23 weeks; the proposed amendments would eliminate the approval clause, limiting abortions after 23 weeks to reasons of saving the pregnant mother’s life or the life of another preborn child, or in cases of severe risk or confirmed cases of fetal abnormalities.

Game’s bill, if adopted, would provide legal recognition for fetal 'viability' (the generally recognized ability to survive outside the womb) as well as other milestones in fetal development. Preborn children have survived as young as 21 weeks gestation with medical intervention, and survival rates for babies beyond 22 weeks continue to increase.

Game said the bill contained the input of obstetricians, neonatologists, psychiatrists, and midwives and would “prevent healthy, viable babies from being aborted after 22 weeks and six days,” according to a report by InDaily. 

The Backstory:

Game has a track record of speaking out in defense of life, with her views reflecting key pro-life convictions that abortion is morally unacceptable and that society has a responsibility to protect preborn children. In 2023, Game was photographed at a pro-life group’s “Love Adelaide” event with Liberal MP Ben Hood and various other state government ministers and MPs.

Hood attempted to introduce a bill in 2024 requiring any woman seeking an abortion at 28 weeks pregnant or later to be induced to give birth to a live baby, instead of terminating the pregnancy. ABC noted, "Mr Hood's bill was narrowly voted down by the upper house in October last year, after a debate lasting three hours."

Game maintained that her bill was “completely different” from Hood’s and that though she’s “fairly confident” she has the numbers, "we won’t find out until we get there”.

Game’s recent move is an attempt to correct existing legal loopholes that presently permit late-term abortion for many reasons not pertaining to the health of the pregnant mother or preborn child.

Pro-life campaigner Joanna Howe lauded the move, portraying it as an effort to stop the termination of “healthy babies,” ABC News reported. Howe, a University of Adelaide professor and pro-life advocate, aided Game in drafting the bill. Howe was banned from parts of SA parliament’s upper house in 2024 due to her pro-life activism. 

Commentary:

Unsurprisingly, pro-abortion advocates have slammed Game’s move for limiting the parameters around killing preborn children.

Australian Upper House MP Tammy Franks — an independent and former Green — criticized Game’s move as a case of "playing politics" with the issue a “few months out from a state election,” ABC News stated. 

InDaily stated that "Franks also raised concerns that late-term abortion bans could encourage less-informed, earlier-term abortions," adding:

She said before abortion was decriminalised in 2021, women were “forced” into early abortions because there were provisions in the old laws that meant women didn’t have medical information to make an informed choice.

“Around that 20,21,22,23,24-week mark, there’s different medical technologies now available to women,” Franks said.

“They should be allowed to wait for that full medical information; their doctors and those people should not be rushed into these really difficult decisions simply by an arbitrary date that a politician says.

“Some of the most heartbreaking stories were women who, while they were waiting for the latest medical advice, watched that ticking clock of the previous time at which they could no longer access termination and were forced to decide whether or not to abort, knowing that there was possibly an incredibly dire prognosis ahead of them.”

The pro-abortion Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has also denounced Game’s bill, claiming that decisions about late-term abortion should rest with pregnant mothers and their doctors, rather than lawmakers.

RACGP South Australia Chair, Dr Siân Goodson, falsely equated abortion services to “healthcare,” claiming, "Abortion services are essential healthcare, and we strongly oppose these plans.” 

Reality Check:

Franks' argument advocating for the intentional killing of children diagnosed with disabilities later in pregnancy is discriminatory and eugenic; that aside, it appears the bill would still allow for this kind of discriminatory killing at 23 weeks or later, with its authors even specifying that the intent is to save "healthy babies" from abortion beginning at 23 weeks.

Abortion at 23 weeks is typically a D&E, or dilation and extraction (dismemberment) abortion, during which the abortionist dismembers the preborn child by first removing the extremities and ends with the crushing of the preborn child's skull. During this type of abortion, the preborn child is often still alive, and has been able to feel pain since at least the end of the first trimester.

2nd Trimester Abortion | Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) | What Is Abortion?

The Bottom Line:

Game’s recently introduced abortion reform bill brings South Australia’s abortion debate to the public spotlight.

Once the Australian parliament takes up Game’s bill, it is likely that the outcome of the ensuing parliamentary debates could have ramifications far beyond South Australia.