The Abortion Debate Isn’t Over
Nation First explores why One Nation’s pro-life policies may be closer to mainstream Australian opinion than many media reports suggest.
Dear friend,
This article first appeared at ConfidentialDaily.com
For years, abortion has largely been treated as a settled issue in Australian politics.
Most major political parties preferred not to talk about it. Most journalists assumed the debate was over. Most Australians probably assumed that whatever abortion laws existed in their state were broadly similar to those elsewhere in the country.
Then Pauline Hanson’s One Nation walked straight back into the argument.
The media has launched a coordinated attack on One Nation’s pro-life policies while often failing to explain what those policies actually are.
One Nation is not proposing a blanket abortion ban but is focusing on issues such as late-term abortion, sex-selective abortion and protections for babies born alive.
Polling suggests many Australians oppose late-term abortion and support safeguards that receive little attention in mainstream coverage.
Broad polling questions about abortion access can conceal significant public concern about the outer limits of abortion laws.
Australians deserve an honest debate about abortion laws rather than being told the issue is already settled.
In recent weeks, the party has come under fierce attack for its pro-life policies. Journalists, commentators and political opponents have accused One Nation of trying to roll back abortion rights and import American-style politics into Australia.
The backlash has been intense.
But amid all the outrage, something important has been missing from the discussion.
What exactly is One Nation proposing?
And do Australians really disagree with it as strongly as the media claims?
Those questions matter because much of the current debate has been built around a simple assumption: that Australians overwhelmingly support abortion and that any attempt to revisit abortion laws is automatically outside the mainstream.
Yet when you look beyond the headlines, the picture becomes far more complicated.
In fact, on some of the issues now being used to attack One Nation, there is evidence that many Australians may be closer to One Nation’s position than they realise.
One Nation’s policy is not a blanket ban on abortion.
The party acknowledges that human life begins in the womb and seeks to roll back what it describes as Australia’s most extreme abortion laws. Among other things, it wants to reduce gestational limits, ban sex-selective abortion, provide counselling and support for women considering abortion, protect babies born alive during abortion procedures, restore doctors’ conscience rights, ban the use of organs from aborted babies and improve abortion data reporting.
Whether you agree with those proposals or not, they are very different from the caricature often presented in media coverage.
The current controversy began because abortion laws in some Australian states allow abortions far later in pregnancy than many people realise.
Critics of One Nation argue these laws are necessary and should remain unchanged.
One Nation argues they have gone too far.
That disagreement is legitimate. It is precisely the kind of issue that should be debated openly in a democracy.
Instead, much of the public discussion has focused on portraying One Nation itself as beyond the pale.
The assumption underpinning that approach is that Australians overwhelmingly support the existing framework and would reject any attempt to introduce additional safeguards.
The polling suggests otherwise.
One of the most significant surveys conducted on these issues was carried out by YouGov Galaxy among Queensland voters.
The results paint a very different picture from the one usually presented in newspaper headlines.
Seventy-six per cent opposed abortion after 23 weeks of pregnancy.
Eighty-three per cent opposed sex-selective abortion.
Seventy per cent believed babies born alive following a late-term abortion should receive the same medical care as any other premature baby.
Eighty-eight per cent supported independent counselling for women considering abortion.
Seventy-four per cent supported conscience protections allowing doctors and nurses to refuse participation in abortion procedures.
Those are not fringe positions.
Nor are they confined to Queensland.
A Victorian poll conducted in 2023 found almost 70 per cent of respondents supported babies born alive after a late-term abortion being given medical care, rising to 87 per cent among those expressing a view.
The same poll found 74 per cent opposed abortion beyond 23 weeks of pregnancy.
These findings do not prove Australians are pro-life.
They do suggest, however, that many Australians are uncomfortable with some of the most extreme aspects of modern abortion law.
That distinction matters.
A common trick in this debate is to ask broad questions such as whether abortion should be legal or whether women should have access to abortion services.
Most Australians answer yes.
The media then often treats that answer as if it settles every other question.
Support for abortion in some circumstances becomes support for abortion in almost all circumstances.
Support for legal abortion becomes support for abortion right up to birth.
Support for healthcare becomes support for denying conscience rights to medical professionals.
The nuance disappears.
The difficult questions are avoided.
And anyone who raises them is labelled an extremist.
That may be politically convenient, but it is not intellectually honest.
The reality is that abortion is not one question.
It is a collection of questions.
Should abortions occur late in pregnancy?
Should an unborn child be aborted because it is the “wrong” sex?
Should a baby born alive after an abortion attempt receive medical care?
Should doctors be forced to participate in procedures they believe are morally wrong?
These are not crazy questions.
They are serious ethical questions.
They deserve serious answers.
Most importantly, they deserve public debate.
One Nation’s critics are free to disagree with its proposals.
That is how democracy works.
But pretending that nobody shares those concerns, or that the debate itself is somehow illegitimate, is something else entirely.
Australians are capable of discussing difficult moral questions.
They are capable of weighing competing arguments.
They are capable of deciding for themselves where the line should be drawn.
The real extremism may not be found in those who want to debate abortion laws.
It may be found in the growing insistence that those laws should never be questioned at all.
Because if the polling tells us anything, it is that many Australians remain deeply uncomfortable with late-term abortion, sex-selective abortion, babies born alive being denied medical care and the erosion of conscience rights.
The media may not want that conversation.
But Australians deserve to have it.
Until next time, God bless you, your family and nation.
Take care,
George Christensen
George Christensen is a former Australian politician, a Christian, freedom lover, conservative, blogger, podcaster, journalist and theologian. He has been feted by the Epoch Times as a “champion of human rights” and his writings have been praised by Infowars’ Alex Jones as “excellent and informative”.
George believes Nation First will be an essential part of the ongoing fight for freedom:
“The time is now for every proud patriot to step to the fore and fight for our freedom, sovereignty and way of life. Information is a key tool in any battle and the Nation First newsletter will be a valuable tool in the battle for the future of the West.”
— George Christensen.
Find more about George at his www.georgechristensen.com.au website.
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The Media.
Just who controls and runs this Media?
Why are "they", the massive, global propaganda machine of Lies, Hate and Division, allowed to continue, unopposed, spreading such lies and biased information?
This is not about journalism, this is about attacking any chosen person or group that dares to share the TRUTH about just what is going on and taking a stand against their lies and misinformation.
Abortion is the murder of the unborn! Murder! This is a fact that can not, and should not, be denied.
If you don't want to have an unwanted pregnancy, here's an idea, use contraception! That's what it's there for!
And for those that choose to say an embryo/ foetus is not a life, a human life, well choose again, because this life has been created with the potential that the born baby human has, but has been denied through the choice of someone to end it's life.
The law has declared, and rightly so, that if a pregnant woman is killed by, let's say, a hit and run driver, then the driver will be charged for a double murder, that of the woman and that of the unborn baby! See, even the justice system knows that the unborn is a life, not just a "cluster of cells".
One Nation is now in the sights of the big Media snipers, using whatever "ammo" they can grab onto, for one reason and one reason only, One Nation is challenging the big Media's bosses, the plutocrats, the demonic psychos that want it all, everything.
The time is drawing near where we all will have to make a choice, whether to continue supporting these psycho-elite that want to take global control of everything or decide to support a party that wants to return control to the People.
These insane plutocrats think we are all dumb sheep that can be manipulated through their big Media propaganda mangling machine, let us prove them wrong!
Make a choice for CHANGE, a chance for a brighter, freer future for us, our children and the coming generations.
If we choose to stay with the same broken system of government, that's what we will get, more broken government that thinks only of themselves and their overlords and doesn't give a damn for the People.
Now is the time for a change, a return to being treated as someone that matters, someone who has some worth, dignity and humanity.
Let us show these parasites that their days of lies and traitorous behaviour are over.
MAGA! Make Australia Great Again!
This is the true colours of the Greens/Labor opposition; astounding the ACT government shut down a Catholic hospital. And it was so skilfully done with the perfect excuses.
If ON wants this fight, we are going to need to marshal our facts and get a cogent message about moderate guardrails. My Greenie son said late term abortions are only done in medical emergency. When I sent him the horrific testimony of the midwife in Queensland Parliamentary enquiry, he dismissed it as lies.
We need to be very careful and factual because people don’t believe there’s an actual problem.
https://www.catholicvoice.org.au/the-unjust-compulsory-acquisition-of-calvary-public-hospital-one-year-on/