NSW’s new abortion law treads an Orwellian path

IRRESPECTIVE of your position on abortion, free speech is a fundamental human right. So why are members of the NSW government giving it away for free, asks Miranda Devine.

LAST week a Coalition government in NSW twice acted to curtail our freedoms.

First came new hate speech laws which hand identity politics the weapon of three years in jail for anyone who uses words which “incite violence” on the grounds of race, religion, LGBTQI identity or HIV/AIDS status.

Even worse, early Friday morning, a bill co-sponsored by National Party MLC Trevor Khan and the Labor Party makes it a criminal act, punishable by jail, to offend anyone within a 150 exclusion zone around an abortion clinic or GP clinic or hospital where abortions might be sought.

It was backed by premier Gladys Berejiklian and Nationals leader John Barilaro.

Abortion aside, it is a dangerously illiberal law, so broad it criminalises “silent praying” at unknown locations. A nun or a Christian wearing a crucifix unwittingly strolling past a hidden abortion clinic could be committing a crime if someone takes offence.

The absurdity was highlighted by Liberal MP and barrister Alister Henskens: “it means somebody silently praying within an access zone will also be committing a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment if it upsets or confuses any person going into or leaving a hospital that is a defined premises or an abortion clinic, even if, for example, the hospital is operated by a religious body.”

He says the bill “seeks to criminalise speech in support of one side of the argument on a matter of contentious social policy. It represents a dangerous step in eroding the freedom of expression.”

Treasurer Dom Perrottet slammed the bill, as an “abuse of power”.

“This bill is not about abortion. It is about mobilising the machinery of the state to silence those with different views.”

And he lamented the role of the National Party, which has lurched so far left it could form a coalition with the Greens.

“What is the point of Liberals and conservatives being in office, if they are not in power to oppose bills like this? Our party is in the business of increasing liberty, not restricting it.”

Too many Coalition politicians refuse to stand against cultural Marxism, though they pretend to be conservative during preselection season. The reckoning is nigh.