‘Not the end but just the beginning’: historicising anti-abortion politics and the far-right counter-offensive in contemporary Australia

In late 2024, a series of anti-abortion political interventions disrupted Australia’s two-decade trajectory of abortion law liberalisation. A South Australian bill proposed live delivery and adoption for abortions after 28 weeks; a Queensland politician pledged to repeal abortion decriminalisation; and a federal shadow minister called for a debate on abortion to feature in the upcoming federal election. These events were linked by shared actors, notably a prominent South Australian anti-abortion influencer, and occurred amid intensified media and political focus on abortion, both locally and globally. This article situates these developments within transnational far-right movements that increasingly mobilise around gender and sexuality. We argue that these incidents represent a strategic counter-mobilisation against abortion reform, reflecting the global convergence of anti-abortion and anti-gender ideologies. By tracing these connections, we show how far-right rhetoric and tactics are seeping into Australia’s political mainstream, reshaping the terrain of reproductive politics.