As the abortion debate flares up again across Australia, conservatives are rejoicing – and copying the US playbook | Wisdom flowers

The news in 2022 that the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned Roe vs. Wade and abolished the constitutional right to abortion sent shockwaves around the world.

This sparked joy among Australian abortion opponents, who have long looked to the US for guidance and inspiration.

As a Cherish Life Queensland leader put it, “If the US can do it with God’s help, so can we.”

At the end of 2024, the abortion problem suddenly erupted in Queensland and South Australia. A subset of local conservatives, energized by the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the example of Donald Trump, are adopting the culture war tactics that dominate U.S. politics.

Abortion and Australian politics in 2024

In the 2020 Queensland election, the Liberal National Party promised a review of legislation that decriminalized abortion two years earlier. But the party has spent most of the 2024 campaign carefully avoiding the issue.

Until MP Robbie Katter from Katter’s Australia Party put a stop to the plan.

On 8 October he announced that if the LNP won, as was widely predicted, he would immediately introduce a private members’ bill to repeal the state’s abortion law.

The LNP leader David Crisafulli, the voted against decriminalizationHe emphasizes that changing the law is “not part of our plan.”

But last week Crisafulli was asked 132 times about abortion and the issue of conscience voting and refused to give a clear answer.

In the final debate between the heads of state and government on Tuesday evening, Crisafulli finally said that there would be no change to the abortion law and that he was “pro-choice”.

But that’s probably not the end of the issue – opposition to abortion runs deep in the LNP.

The party policy in 2018 was that abortion should remain a criminal offense. Although it was a conscience vote, the three LNP members who voted for decriminalization were subsequently threatened with “punishment”.

There are several new anti-abortion candidates running for the LNP this year. Particularly well known is former Liberal senator Amanda Stoker, who has repeatedly spoken at the March for Life rally in Brisbane.

The uproar over the future of reproductive rights in Queensland came alongside controversy over anti-abortion legislation introduced in South Australia by state Liberal MP Ben Hood.

His bill would require anyone who needs to terminate a pregnancy after 28 weeks to induce labor and deliver the child alive, regardless of the health consequences for the pregnant person or the child.

Leading medical and legal bodies condemned the bill, which critics called a “forced birth” measure. On October 16th it narrowly lost in the upper house.

Senator Jacinta Price also called for abortion to be put back on the national agenda and condemned abortions after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Your stance is contrary to abortion laws in all Australian jurisdictions.

Public and party opinion

This sudden rise in anti-abortion politics does not reflect Australian attitudes.

A 2024 poll found that 75% of Queenslanders thought decriminalizing abortion was the right thing to do.

This view was shared across party political and geographical lines and was held by 73% of LNP voters and 78% of regional Queenslanders.

Historian Cassandra Byrnes shows that this pro-choice stance has deep roots. A majority of the public rejected the police raids on abortion clinics that took place under Nationals premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

A 2020 poll of South Australians found 80% supported decriminalization. And 63% thought late-term abortion should be available “if the woman and her health care team decide it is necessary.”

The LNP’s opposition to decriminalization also differed significantly from the approach in other states.

Notably, in both New South Wales and South Australia prominent Liberals, including premiers, voted to decriminalize abortion.

In South Australia, two senior Liberals, Human Services Minister Michelle Lensink and Attorney-General Vickie Chapman, led the cross-party group pushing through legal reform.

Importing the Culture Wars

As Australian states and territories debated decriminalization, abortion opponents relied heavily on tactics, pseudoscientific evidence and outright misinformation emerging in the United States.

For example, in 2008, a Victorian group controversially distributed graphic photographs of aborted fetuses as well as US diagrams and descriptions of subsequent abortion procedures.

Now, as Australia’s conservatives seek to reopen the debate, US influence underpins the rhetoric and formulation.

For decades, U.S. abortion opponents focused on eliminating abortion rights and undermining access. They have never accepted that abortion is health care.

Since 1995, the focus has been on the statistically rare abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. This focus was imported wholesale into Australia.

The anti-abortion activism surrounding Hood’s bill reflects these approaches. Abortion opponents waged a broad and stigmatizing campaign against abortions after 22 weeks and six days, the legal point in South Africa that requires two doctors to authorize an abortion.

For decades, this was the standard tactic US Republicans used to introduce extreme, unenforceable bills. The purpose was not to change the law, but to reinforce their rhetoric and arguments and motivate conservative voters.

Opposition to abortion is also part of a broader rightward shift taking place in some liberal branches of the state.

In South Africa, conservatives launched a power grab after abortion was decriminalized in 2021. This included a significant recruitment campaign among Pentecostals.

A similar recruitment focus on conservative religious faith groups also occurred in Victoria, sparked by LGBTQI+ victories.

In South Africa, the party takeover is openly led by Senator Alex Antic. He made a name for himself through his hostility to Covid-19 vaccines and his opposition to transgender and abortion rights.

Antic praises Trump and seeks connections to conservatives who are or were close to him, including Steven Bannon and Donald Trump Jr.

In Queensland, Crisafulli’s desperate efforts to avoid being tied to abortion offer a local version of the themes of the 2024 presidential election.

As Republicans have faced significant voter backlash over abortion, Trump has charted an uncertain course.

He takes sole responsibility for ending Roe v. Wade while denying any connection to the current abortion bans in many states.

Like Crisafulli, Trump was unclear about what his victory would mean for reproductive rights.

Political commentator Mark Kenny concludes that an “ideological battle” is developing among Australian Liberals.

As in the United States, these politicians’ unwavering opposition to abortion has proven to be a key means of clarifying their priorities to voters and differentiating themselves from others in their party.