A publicly funded broadcaster has a special responsibility in a democratic society.
Australians do not expect SBS or the ABC to be neutral on facts. We expect them to be neutral in how they approach contested political and ethical questions. We expect them to present competing arguments fairly, challenge claims from all sides, and equip citizens to make up their own minds.
That is why SBS’s recent article, Whose Choice Is It? The Unseen Side of Australia’s Abortion Debate, is astounding.
The article was published just days after hundreds of Australians gathered outside NSW Parliament House to support legislation that would prohibit sex-selective abortion. Families, students, healthcare professionals, elected representatives, and long-time advocates came together around a proposition that most Australians instinctively understand: a child should not lose his or her life simply because of their sex.
Rather than seriously engaging with that proposition, SBS chose a different path.
The article presents itself as an exploration of migrant women’s experiences. In reality, it functions largely as a critique of those seeking to restrict sex-selective abortion.
The headline asks, ‘Whose choice is it?’
That is not a neutral question.
It immediately places the discussion within the conceptual framework of the abortion rights movement, where the central issue is choice and access. Missing entirely is the competing moral concern at the heart of the debate: whether it is ethical to end the life of an unborn child because that child is a girl – or because that child is a boy.
That question of sex-selective abortion barely receives consideration in this article.
Instead, readers are presented with a succession of voices arguing for greater abortion access, fewer barriers to abortion services, and broader ‘reproductive healthcare’, the euphemistic phrase that includes elective terminations, used to complement the ‘abortion is healthcare’ narrative. The article quotes abortion-access advocates, family planning representatives, reproductive health organisations, and politicians opposed to the proposed legislation.
What it does not do, is meaningfully engage with those who support the bill.
There are no pro-life health professionals. No ethicists. No researchers who have studied demographic evidence relating to sex-selective abortion. No representatives of organisations campaigning for the legislation. No serious attempt to explain why many Australians – including many who support legal abortion in other circumstances – regard sex-selective abortion as morally troubling.
A reader unfamiliar with the issue would be forgiven for concluding that opposition to sex-selective abortion is little more than a fringe political campaign searching for a problem.
But that conclusion would require ignoring a growing body of evidence.
The article states that Australian data lacks a clear picture regarding abortion patterns among migrant populations. Yet it fails to recognise several large Australian studies on the subject, of which the most recent one by Edith Cowan University, was published in 2025. Researchers analysing more than two million births in New South Wales and Western Australia identified skewed sex ratios among some migrant populations, that were consistent with patterns observed internationally where prenatal sex selection is known to occur. The researchers described their findings as indirect evidence of sex-selective abortion practices.
Reasonable people can debate the interpretation of that evidence.
What should not be debatable is whether readers deserve to know it exists.
Instead, SBS largely relied on the review that found sex-selective abortion is rare, while giving little attention to evidence that challenges that assumption. The review was a one-year report completed by the NSW Ministry of Health which relied on notification data of terminations, when the Abortion Law Reform Act 2019 was enacted. The report, largely by termination of pregnancy providers in NSW, stated there were 13 notifications for sex selection, but argued that 10 were likely reporting errors because they were for pregnancies less than nine weeks before which determining sex is unreliable. The fact that the report failed to mention available online services that can provide enough certainty by seven weeks, seemed to suggest the termination providers were unaware of this service. But what was most striking about the report is that it did not subscribe the three that were done for sex as significant enough to warrant any further action.
In our opinion, that is not balance. It is selective reporting.
The article also repeatedly introduces claims that have little direct connection to the legislation under discussion.
Readers are told about Medicare exclusions, language barriers, culturally safe providers, financial pressures, family violence, and access to reproductive healthcare. Some of these issues may well be important. Some may deserve public attention and policy reform.
But they are not the issue before Parliament.
The proposed legislation concerns one specific question: should it be permissible to terminate a pregnancy solely because of the child’s sex?
Rather than address that question directly, the article repeatedly shifts attention toward broader discussions about abortion access.
This matters because it obscures a crucial distinction.
A woman pressured into an abortion by her family is not exercising genuine choice.
A woman threatened, harassed, or coerced into terminating a pregnancy is not experiencing reproductive freedom.
Yet some of the most compelling stories in the SBS article involve precisely these situations. Women allegedly pressured to abort. Women facing family demands. Women deprived of meaningful autonomy.
Those accounts, if true, strengthen the case against coercion. They do not strengthen the case for unrestricted abortion access.
The irony is bewildering. An article supposedly concerned with autonomy spends remarkably little time discussing the autonomy of women who wish to continue their pregnancies despite external pressure.
Most concerning of all is the tendency among some opponents of the legislation to dismiss concerns about sex-selective abortion as racist, anti-migrant, or xenophobic.
This accusation appears throughout the broader public debate and is referenced within the SBS article itself.
It is an unfortunate tactic.
A society cannot address harmful practices if raising concerns about them automatically attracts accusations of prejudice.
Australians are capable of welcoming migrants while expecting adherence to Australian values and laws. Australians are capable of opposing racism while also opposing sex discrimination before birth. And Australians are capable of asking difficult questions about demographic evidence without harbouring hostility toward any ethnic or cultural group.
The moment every uncomfortable observation becomes evidence of prejudice, honest public debate becomes impossible.
This is why the SBS article matters.
The issue is larger than abortion.
The issue is whether publicly funded media organisations are willing to present contentious social debates fairly, particularly when those debates challenge prevailing progressive orthodoxies.
Australians do not need SBS to endorse pro-life arguments.
They do not need SBS to support restrictions on sex-selective abortion.
They simply deserve journalism that engages seriously with both sides of the debate.
On this occasion, it is our view that SBS fell well short of that standard.
A healthy democracy depends on citizens hearing competing arguments, weighing evidence, and reaching their own conclusions. When publicly funded broadcasters begin selecting which arguments deserve serious consideration and which can be dismissed, they stop facilitating debate and start participating in it.
That should concern us all, regardless of where one stands on abortion.
Ms Naomi Bunker is a Registered Nurse, Ms Louise Adsett is a Midwife and Dr Melissa Lai is a Neonatologist, and are Executive Members of Pro-life Health Professionals Australia.
