OPINION At first sight, campaigning around male and female toilets, and the issue of sex selection abortions are rallying points for social conservatives. But both campaigns will generate noise, but will have little practical effect even if successful. Maybe making noise and “rallying the base” is what both are about.
Sex Selection Abortions
Campaigner Joanna Howe is supporting a New South Wales (NSW) bill introduced by Libertarian MP John Ruddick that would criminalise abortions performed based on a baby’s gender.
A Sydney Rally For Life is planned June 2nd.
Howe and Ruddick are powerfully motivated by evidence that sex selection abortions are occurring in Australia. Edith Cowan University (ECU)researchers, using data gathered from 2.1 million registered births over 21 years in WA and NSW, found that “the sex ratio at birth exceeded expectations for children born to Indian, Chinese and Vietnamese mothers”. Their paper in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS Global Public Health is also summarised in an ECU article.
The anti Abortion campaigners are working on a real issue.
Ruddicks Abortion Law Reform Amendment (Sex Selection Prohibition) Bill 2025 if
“prohibit the performance of terminations on persons for the purposes of sex selection,” and also mean those terminations would amount to professional misconduct by medical practitioners.”
However, the issue of sex selection abortions has been wrestled with in the NSW parliament before (and other legislatures around Australia). The result was that the legislators included a position statement in the Abortion Law Reform Act 2019. “This Parliament opposes the performance of terminations for the purpose of sex selection,” and tasked the government with conducting a review to produce “recommendations about how to prevent terminations being performed for the purpose of sex selection.”
The result was that the terminations (abortion) policy directive from NSW Health includes a clause about terminations for the sole purpose of sex selection. This policy, the Framework for Termination of Pregnancy in New South Wales, applies to all registered health practitioners in NSW.
“These procedures relate to when a termination of pregnancy is sought for the sole purpose of sex selection. These procedures do not apply to a termination due to the possibility of a sex- linked medical condition in the fetus.
“Before performing a termination of pregnancy, it may be disclosed to the prescribed health practitioner that the reason for the request is for the sole purpose of sex selection. If this is the reason for the request, the practitioner must not perform the termination, unless not performing the termination will cause significant risk to the woman’s health or safety.”
There are significant penalties for sex selective abortions already – but the issue that the parliament has already wrestled with is that this practice is secretive, and finding penalties that will prevent it is really difficult.
For this reason, while the Ruddick bill will serve as a rallying point for social conservatives, including many Christians, it is unlikely to have a practical effect, even if passed.
The public toilet campaign
The Australian Christian lobby is campaigning against a change in the National Construction code that allows all gender toilets. “Under this code, developers would be allowed to replace up to half of the minimum required male and female toilets in a building with all‑gender toilets,” ACL reported. “The updated code, published on 1 February 2026, will impact places like schools, workplaces, shopping centres and sports venues.”
“Michelle Pearse, the CEO of the Australian Christian Lobby, says reducing the number of single‑sex toilets creates a genuine safety issue. She said, ‘Women and girls deserve safe, private spaces in public buildings. Removing or reducing women’s toilets puts their safety and dignity at risk.’
“She also said that victims of sexual violence, young girls, mothers with children, and older women rely on single‑sex toilets for a sense of safety and privacy. Michelle Pearse said these changes could leave women and children with no real choice but to use all‑gender toilets, even if they feel unsafe.”
It should be noted that the construction code permits but does not mandate an increase in all-gender toilets.
There’s support from the Coalition parties.
Melissa McIntosh. The Shadow Minister for Families, NDIS and women included this issue in her budget reply speech, linking it to transgender issues by citing examples of biological males in women’s prisons. She then says “We also see examples of the continued encroachment on safe spaces for women with a push to have more gender neutral toilets and change rooms right across communities in our shopping centres, in our gyms, in our schools, in our hospitals, and our sporting clubs.”
Thoughtfully designed public toilets can avoid these issues by having cubicles opening directly into well-lit and trafficked public spaces. Our image shows new toilets in Camperdown Resk Park in inner Sydney, in white and green glazed brickwork that features a line of cubicles with basins in the publicly visible verandah. It makes for a very safe toilet block.
The link to trans issues is less explicit in the ACL campaign, although their blog post “Half the Toilets, Double the Questions” hints at a link “We’ve raised concerns that reducing the number of single-sex facilities risks compromising privacy and safety for women and girls – and we’ve already been proven right. In the ACT, where these facilities already exist, there are reports of girl dropping out of sport because they don’t want to change clothes in the same changing rooms as men.”
Public toilets are already all-gender in some sense. Trans people wearing clothing for their transitioned gender will go to those toilets. As female toilets do not have shared facilities like male urinals, any concern involves the internal corridor or washing area leading to cubicles, where people are fully clothed.
In addition, toilets for people living with a disability are gender neutral toilets anyway.
All-gender toilets or any set-up with cubicles leading off a fully public area would remove that concern. Good design for toilets overcomes this issue.
If the ACL focused its campaign on changing rooms for school or community sport, it would be seeking a practical solution to what many would regard as an issue, although the provision of a private changing area for those who want to use them would be the solution, as already adopted by some schools, for example.
Image: the Camperdown Park Rest toilets. Image Credit: reddit
WOW! to the photo! It looks like it could be in the country. I used to walk through that park to go to uni got three years. It has been transformed.
Yes, cubicles opening directly into well-lit and trafficked public spaces make all the difference. I have current church experience of cubicles opening into closed off non- trafficked space. Is this in the Code somewhere? Or just logical?
The Code does say people transiting to a single-sex designated toilet should not have to pass through an area transited to the alternative designated facility.
Teacup storm? Read carefully the letter from Richard Condie (Anglican Bishop Tasmania).
washing in basins – some women do not want trans-women or men identifying as women looking at them washing stuff(eg bloodied undies) in basins.