When South Australian MLC Sarah Game introduced legislation seeking to place limits on late-term abortion in South Australia, the public deserved a serious and balanced debate.

Instead, what South Australians appear to be receiving is a carefully curated consensus.

Recently, The Advertiser published a lengthy commentary from Professor Warren Jones criticising the proposed Bill and warning readers of catastrophic consequences should limits on late-term abortion be introduced. In response, Pro-Life Health Professionals Australia (PHPA) submitted a detailed reply from medical professionals addressing a number of the article’s clinical and ethical claims.

The response was not abusive. It was not inflammatory. It was grounded in obstetric practice, neonatal medicine, and medical ethics.

And yet – no response was received from the paper.

It is our view that a token short letter to the editor from another contributor does not constitute balanced public discourse when one side is afforded the weight, prominence, and reach of a full expert commentary while opposing medical voices are effectively sidelined.

That matters because the South Australian public is currently being asked to consider legislation dealing with one of the gravest ethical questions imaginable: whether viable unborn children should be intentionally killed late in pregnancy.

Surely such a debate warrants more than ideological gatekeeping and selective platforming.

The article contained several assertions that we feel deserved scrutiny.

Most notably, it was suggested that restricting late-term abortion to situations involving a genuine threat to the mother’s life would place women at risk because doctors would allegedly be unable to intervene appropriately in serious maternal emergencies.

The reason no example was provided is simple: no recognised medical condition exists in which a viable third-trimester baby must first be intentionally killed in utero in order to save the mother’s life. In genuine maternal emergencies, the medical response is urgent delivery – not feticide.

Modern obstetrics already possesses established pathways for managing severe maternal illness during late pregnancy. Conditions such as severe pre-eclampsia, haemorrhage, sepsis, or cardiac compromise are managed every day through urgent delivery of the baby. The standard medical response is expedited delivery – not feticide.

These are not the same procedure.

Delivering a baby prematurely in order to treat maternal illness is fundamentally different from intentionally ending the life of that baby before delivery. In emergencies, adding a feticide procedure delays definitive treatment expose the mother to additional risk.

The public also deserves honesty regarding neonatal outcomes. Babies delivered in the third trimester have extremely high survival rates with modern neonatal care. Yet much of the public discussion surrounding late-term abortion continues to rely on emotionally charged hypotheticals and fear-based rhetoric rather than evidence-based medicine.

Equally concerning was the language used regarding babies diagnosed with disabilities or severe abnormalities. Terms such as ‘severely deformed baby’ risk reinforcing the dangerous notion that disability diminishes the value of human life or weakens society’s obligation to protect vulnerable patients.

A compassionate society should reject any framework in which human worth depends upon physical perfection, predicted lifespan, or independence.

Reasonable Australians are entitled to ask whether the law should permit the intentional killing of viable unborn children when early delivery, neonatal care, or perinatal palliative care remain available options.

These are not fringe questions.

Nor are those asking them extremists.

Many Australians – including women, healthcare workers, parents of disabled children, and ordinary voters with no religious affiliation whatsoever – are deeply uncomfortable with laws permitting viable unborn children to be intentionally killed late in pregnancy.

This is why Sarah Game’s proposed legislation deserves genuine public examination rather than misleading media caricatures.

Regardless of where one stands on abortion generally, surely South Australians can agree that laws concerning viable third-trimester babies deserve open debate, accurate medical information, and intellectual honesty.

The deeper concern here extends beyond a single newspaper article.

Across Australia, dissenting voices on abortion – particularly from within medicine – are increasingly treated not as participants in democratic debate but as obstacles to be marginalised, dismissed, or ignored. A growing number of Australians can see that many of our public institutions, including sections of the media, no longer engage in genuine dialectic, but rather restrict reporting to an agenda-driven discourse.

The result is a narrowing of acceptable opinion on matters that profoundly affect ethics, medicine, disability, parenthood, and human rights.

South Australians deserve better than managed consensus.

They deserve a media willing to tolerate disagreement, publish competing medical perspectives, and trust the public enough to hear both sides of the debate.

Ms Naomi Bunker is a Registered Nurse and an Executive member of Pro-life Health Professionals Australia (PHPA).

Dr Melissa Lai is a senior Neonatologist and the President of PHPA.