A moderate NSW Liberal MP has invoked the Nazis’ genocide of Jews in a parliamentary debate over amending the state’s abortion laws, saying it was “bizarre” that the termination of a pregnancy was categorised “as a human right to healthcare”.
Upper house MP Chris Rath, who is seen as one of the leading progressive Liberals in the party room, has told parliament that he could not support an amendment to NSW’s abortion laws, which would allow nurses and midwives to prescribe medical terminations up to nine weeks.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott at an anti-abortion rally outside NSW parliament on Wednesday night.Credit: Facebook
Rath told parliament that “no person should have the power to determine what constitutes a valuable life” and past attempts had led to “some of the greatest atrocities known”.
“We need only to think of the historical prevalence of killing civilians en masse in warfare, the use of life-threatening shock therapies on the disabled if they were not murdered at a young age,” he said.
“Perhaps worst of all, the Nazis leading an entire people to believe that Jews were subhuman, worth less as a human being than you or I.”
Rath, who was not in NSW parliament when abortion was decriminalised in NSW in 2019, said abortion could not be a human right because the “very notion of human rights is the right to life”.
NSW Liberal MP Chris Rath says abortion should not be considered healthcare. Credit: Oscar Colman
“There being a right to abortion would imply that it is a procedure free to be employed for whatever reason one wishes. Calling it healthcare implies not only that it can be undertaken but that it should be undertaken,” Rath said.
Rath later issued a statement: “There was no intention on my part to draw any comparison [with Nazis]. I regret and apologise for the insensitive language that was used.”
Labor and Coalition MPs have been allowed a conscience vote on the bill, which was introduced by Greens MP Amanda Cohn earlier this year following a NSW Health review of abortion law.
That review found places with limited access to abortion services in NSW, coined “abortion deserts”, undermined the 2019 legislation. The report also recommended expanding practitioners able to prescribe medical abortions to include nurses and midwives for terminations up to nine weeks.
Sydney independent MP Alex Greenwich, who introduced the bill in 2019 that saw NSW become the last state in the country to decriminalise abortion, slammed Rath’s comments.
“These comments are heartless and ignorant to healthcare needs of women,” Greenwich said. “Chris Rath believes in government so small, it fits into a woman’s body.”
The debate over the amendment of NSW’s laws has sparked protests outside parliament, as well as at some Sydney universities.
On Wednesday night, former prime minister Tony Abbott fronted a rally at NSW parliament, saying the new legislation would “force every health professional into facilitating abortion”.
The rally shut down Macquarie Street, with thousands of people holding images of Jesus and blue and pink balloons as they gathered to oppose the legislation.
Abbott was one of several speakers, including Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher, who described the 2019 decriminalisation bill at the time as “effectively infanticide on demand”. High-profile anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe, an academic from South Australia, also addressed the crowd.
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