South Australia shuts down bill banning late-term abortion

A bill that would have protected preborn children from abortion after 23 weeks of pregnancy has been defeated in South Australia.

Key Takeaways:

• Abortion is legal throughout the entire country of Australia, though individual states have enacted their own regulations and restrictions.

• Abortion is currently legal through 23 weeks of pregnancy in the state of South Australia, though abortions can be committed after that point if there is a risk to the physical or mental health of the mother.

• A new bill would have eliminated the "mental health" loophole, only permitting late-term abortions if the mother's life was at risk, to protect the life of another preborn child, or if the baby had fatal fetal anomalies.

• The bill was defeated in the South Australian parliament.

The Details:

A bill championed by pro-life activist and professor Dr. Joanna Howe failed to pass the Upper House, in an 11-8 vote. MP Sarah Game introduced the bill, and said abortion is not the medical standard of care when there is a medical emergency during pregnancy.

“Let’s be clear about what good medical practice looks like,” she said. “In a genuine emergency, where a mother’s life is at risk – for example, with extreme pre-eclampsia, or even in non-emergency situations where her physical health is threatened – the safest and most effective treatment is to end the pregnancy by delivering the child alive.”

Under Game's legislation, mental health would not be an acceptable reason to undergo a late-term abortion. The bill failed, however, with pro-abortion politicians using inflammatory language to deride the effort afterwards, referring to it as a "forced-birth" bill.

“The forced-birth bill has been defeated: 8 votes in favour, 11 against,” MP Robert Simms said. “This should be the end of the matter. Women’s reproductive rights are not the plaything of the far right.”

But this remark ignores the fact that a preborn child at 24 weeks and beyond could be delivered and treated with human dignity; he or she need not be intentionally killed in order to preserve a woman's "reproductive rights."

Howe, who endorsed the bill, said she was "devastated" it failed, and vowed to continue fighting for the preborn.

Dr Joanna Howe

@ProfJoannaHowe

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BREAKING: I am devastated to report that our bill to protect healthy babies older than 23 weeks from being killed via a late term abortion has failed tonight. I honestly cannot believe that there are politicians who are so evil as to think this is okay. In the coming days and Show more

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12:13 PM · Nov 12, 2025

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Why It Matters:

Under current South Australian law, abortions can be committed after 23 weeks if two doctors agree the pregnancy poses “significant risk to the physical or mental health” of the pregnant woman. Yet "mental health" is a catch-all term often used by abortion advocates to create a loophole which allows abortion for virtually any reason.

And as Game noted herself, abortion — the intentional, targeted taking of a preborn child — is not medically necessary.

The Pro-Life Reply to: "Is Abortion Ever Medically Necessary?"

In instances where a woman faces life-threatening complications during pregnancy, the baby can be delivered without being killed first, particularly in the second and third trimesters. Even if the preborn child does not survive the premature delivery, it is not an abortion if the intent is not to kill the baby, but to save the mother. It is an early induced delivery in an emergency situation.