Explainer: Responding to abortion and sex selection claims in WA

We want a future where everyone has equal access to healthcare. It's time for abortion to be treated like healthcare in law and for the focus to be on the health, dignity and autonomy of patients.

There is no evidence of a sex selective abortion problem in Western Australia. Even if there was, the inclusion of a ban on sex selective abortion in the Abortion Legislation Reform Bill 2023 (the Bill) will have harmful and discriminatory impacts on the health of women, while doing nothing to address the societal attitudes and structures that see women discriminated against in many facets of their lives.[i] 

Legislative bans on sex selection have negative and discriminatory impacts on women

  • Good health care depends on an open and trusting relationship between doctor and patient. Legislative bans on sex selective abortion undermine the doctor-patient relationship by putting doctors in the position of having to police and second-guess their patients for fear of potential criminal prosecution.[ii]

  • A sex selection ban is likely to result in the stigmatization and racial profiling of People of Colour.[iii]

  • If patients fear being treated with suspicion by their doctors, they may delay treatment or withhold information, or even be pushed towards unsafe options, all of which compromise good health outcomes.

  • A sex selection ban could discourage pregnant people carrying sex-linked genetic conditions from having honest conversations with their doctors.

  • The medical profession already practices within a highly regulated ethical and legal framework.

No evidence to support a ban

  • Experts at the World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations (UN) have found that imposing restrictions on access to health services, like abortion, for sex-selective reasons is more likely to have harmful impacts on women and “may put their health and lives in jeopardy”.[iv]

  • Sex selection bans have been pursued by opponents of abortion in the US to limit access to abortion.[v] Research from the United States has shown that sex selective abortion bans don’t impact on sex ratios.[vi]

  • During its comprehensive review of abortion, the South Australian Law Reform Institute (SALRI) recommended against a prohibition on sex-selective abortion because it would be unenforceable and was also unnecessary, noting that “Whatever may be the situation overseas, there appears little, if any, evidence that abortions purely on the basis of gender are a real issue in Australia”.[vii]

  • SALRI found that a sex-selective abortion ban would lead to a “difficult, if not impossible situation” in which people would need to establish that their request was not on the basis of sex selection.[viii]

There are better ways to addressing gender discrimination

  • WHO and UN agencies have found that in parts of the world where male-biased sex-selection is a problem, the drivers are deeply entrenched social, economic, cultural and political factors that see women discriminated against in all facets of their lives.[ix]

  • Restrictions on healthcare shift the burden of gender discrimination onto women and their doctors, with considerable risk of harm to those who are denied access to abortion care.

  • Sex-selective abortion bans do nothing about the societal attitudes and structures that see women discriminated against in many facets of their lives.[x] Instead, social and economic policy responses are needed to tackle gender discrimination in all its forms, for example, measures to eliminate gendered wealth inequality and family violence.

Further information:
Adrianne Walters, Acting Legal Director
E: adrianne.walters@hrlc.org.au

[i] See e.g. Bela Ganatra, ‘Maintaining Access to Safe Abortion and Reducing Sex Ratio Imbalances in Asia’, 16 (31) (2008) Supp Reproductive Health Matters 90.

[ii] Danielle McMullen, ‘Gender selection has nothing to do with decriminalising abortion: AMA’ (SMH, 15 August 2019).

[iii] See e.g. Guttmacher Institute, Abortion Bans in Cases of Sex or Race Selection or Genetic Anomaly (as of 31 August 2023).

[iv] World Health Organisations, Preventing Gender-biased Sex Selection: An interagency statement OHCR, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and WHO (2011).

[v] See eg Brian Citro et al, ‘Replacing Myths with Facts: Sex Selective Abortion Law in the United States’ (Cornell Law Faculty Publications, Paper 1399, 2014); Sneha Barot, ‘A Problem-and-solution Mismatch: Son Preference and Sex-selective Abortion Bans’ 15(2) (2012) Guttmacher Policy Review.

[vi] Brian Citro et al, ‘Replacing Myths with Facts: Sex Selective Abortion Law in the United States (Cornell Law Faculty Publications, Paper 1399, 2014).

[vii] South Australian Law Reform Institute, Abortion: A Review of South Australian Law & Practice (2019), 330 [14.2.3].

[viii] Ibid 330 [14.2.5].

[ix]  World Health Organisations, Preventing Gender-biased Sex Selection: An interagency statement OHCR, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and WHO (2011).

[x] See eg Bela Ganatra, ‘Maintaining Access to Safe Abortion and Reducing Sex Ratio Imbalances in Asia’, 16 (31) (2008) Supp Reproductive Health Matters 90.

This page was updated on 14 September 2023.

ExplainersThomas FengReproductive Rights