Overview
- The House of Assembly defeated Family First MP Sarah Game’s bill 36–9 on Wednesday night, ending the bid to tighten rules on abortions after about 25 weeks.
- Earlier the Legislative Council had passed the same bill 10–9, but a Labor amendment by Tung Ngo added a narrow exemption for serious fetal abnormalities that two practitioners must judge 'incompatible with survival after birth'.
- If enacted, the bill would have removed the existing health‑risk exemption that now allows abortions after 23 weeks when two doctors judge continuation would pose a significant risk to the pregnant person’s physical or mental health; that framework remains in place.
- The vote was handled as a conscience issue by Labor and Liberal MPs, the Greens voted against the bill, One Nation supported it, and both Premier Peter Malinauskas and Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn voted in favour without speaking.
- This was the third conservative effort since 2024 to tighten South Australia’s abortion laws and the first to pass the upper house, a sequence that underscored how changing chamber composition can briefly advance measures but still fail in the lower house and fuel public rallies on both sides.