The Abortion Poll They Can’t Ignore

There is something perverse about a political establishment that condemns the views of fellow Australians as an extremist, fringe minority when their views are actually extremist, fringe, and in the minority.

I talk about the topic of abortion, which I define plainly and clearly as killing babies in the womb.

That’s the harsh and unvarnished reality of the topic that’s often buried beneath slogans, euphemisms, and sanctimonious speeches about a woman’s “right” to choose. Whenever anyone proposes limits to this unholy sacrament of the Left, the familiar accusations arrive.

If you’re even mildly pro-life, you must be an extremist, misogynist, religious fanatic. Apparently, thinking of human life inside the womb as… well, life, makes you unfit for polite society. A deplorable. 

Well, Australians have now been asked what they really think about abortion, and a lot of us are in that deplorable bracket. Jokes aside, the results should embarrass every politician and commentator who has treated opposition to unrestricted abortion as the preserve of a lunatic fringe.

A national poll conducted by McCrindle and commissioned by CitizenGO, where I serve as Australian campaigns director, found that 58.6 percent supported banning abortion after 24 weeks or earlier, when the question’s named exceptional circumstances, such as serious health risks, fetal disability, or sexual assault, did not apply.

That figure includes respondents who chose earlier limits. In fact, an absolute majority of 50.4 percent supported a ban after 20 weeks or earlier.

So much for the supposedly settled consensus around abortion.

Just 18.6 percent of respondents said it should never be banned. That’s what you call a real fringe minority. Yet the champions of killing babies in the womb have behaved as though they possess an unquestionable mandate to silence everyone else. Their certainty deserves to be shattered.

The survey involved 1,513 Australians aged 18 to 80, questioned online between 25 August and 2 September 2026. It used quotas for gender, generation, and state or territory. The poll is substantial evidence that Australians want extreme abortion laws rolled back, with time limits and protections for babies and vulnerable pregnant women put in place.

Across Australia's various states and territories, abortion laws permit killing babies in the womb right up until birth. Bizarrely, I have heard the very politicians who support such laws trying to deny how permissive they are. They point to conditions requiring two doctors to sign off on late-term abortions and insist that this provides a real safeguard. 

But what protection does that offer when the two doctors can be from the same clinic or hospital performing the procedure? What reassurance does it give when both doctors support the very abortion regime whose limits they are supposed to enforce? And what safeguards are there when the breadth of the conditions doctors take into consideration practically makes the system function as abortion on demand?

The grounds considered in jurisdictions such as Queensland include current and future physical, psychological, and social circumstances. That means any impact on finances, education, employment, or a social life is a legitimate reason to kill a baby in the womb. 

The politicians and bureaucrats who designed such laws and presented them as safeguards have blood on their hands, no matter how hard they've tried to wash it off. And their extremist views are absolutely rejected by the Australian public.

In the CitizenGO poll, 54.5 percent said abortion after 24 weeks should be illegal when the reason was interference with education, career, or life stage. For personal preference without specified hardship or medical risk, 51.8 percent said it should be illegal. So Australians are willing to draw lines that too many politicians refuse to draw.

Now consider One Nation. The party’s published pro-life policy seeks lower gestational limits, a ban on sex-selective abortion, counselling and safeguards, equal care for babies born alive, fetal anaesthesia, conscientious objection, restrictions on the use of aborted babies’ organs, and abortion data reporting.

That agenda has been treated as a political horror story by the left-wing legacy media.

The Guardian told us that One Nation’s rise was encouraging to activists pursuing American-style abortion restrictions. The ABC declared that One Nation’s pro-life stance was somehow a negative political gamble, and Nine’s Sydney Morning Herald talked of One Nation’s policies as a threat to “abortion rights,” whatever they may be.

It goes beyond One Nation, as well. In June, the Guardian presented NSW Libertarian MP John Ruddick's proposed ban on sex-selection abortion as part of a wider dastardly campaign to restrict “abortion access”. 

But the polling shows Australians want that agenda well and truly inaccessible. On sex-selective abortion up to 24 weeks, 67.0 percent wanted it to be illegal. After 24 weeks, the figure jumped to 69.2 percent. In an election, such a result would be an unprecedented landslide. No wonder. Killing an unborn child because the child is the “wrong” sex is a hideous form of discrimination. 

On babies born alive after an unsuccessful abortion, an even greater majority of 74.8 percent supported requiring the same care as for any other infant at the same stage and in the same medical condition. Only 4.5 percent, another extremist fringe minority that most politicians seem to be in, opposed that requirement. Why would anyone oppose equal care for babies born alive? A child’s medical treatment should not depend on whether someone wanted that child dead.

On safeguards for women, the findings were overwhelming: 83.4 percent supported checks against pressure from another person, 77.5 percent backed counselling from an independent organisation with no financial interest in the abortion procedure, and 73.6 percent supported a required waiting period of a few days.

Fully 80.8 percent agreed that nobody should feel forced into abortion through financial or social hardship. More than four in five supported information about available pregnancy support. This is where the rhetoric of “choice” meets its most uncomfortable test. What freedom does a frightened pregnant woman have if she is being bullied into abortion by a partner? What meaningful choice exists if she believes she cannot afford to keep her baby and cannot find support? 

A majority of 52.6 percent also agreed that Australia should try to reduce abortion numbers even where abortion remains legal. Only 18.4 percent disagreed. 

Support for One Nation's pro-life policy agenda continued to shine through the poll results. A 59.2 percent majority supported fetal anaesthesia or pain relief during third-trimester abortions. A 55.5 percent majority backed public reporting of anonymous abortion totals, with majorities also supporting reporting across every other category tested.

On conscientious objection, 40.5 percent supported allowing healthcare workers to decline to perform or assist in abortions that conflicted with their conscience, against 36.4 percent opposed. On banning fetal tissue or organs obtained through abortion from use in medical research, support was 42.6 percent, against 22.9 percent opposed.

Across every question in the poll that aligned with One Nation's policies, support exceeded opposition. Most attracted clear majorities.

There is another finding that the political class should confront. Some 43.6 percent of respondents agreed that the human right to life begins at conception, compared with 28.9 percent who disagreed. Read that again. The question asked of people was not whether or not life begins at conception, but whether the right to life begins at conception. 

That’s perhaps why support for banning abortion at or before 24 weeks, except in extreme circumstances, was near unanimous across the political divide. It reached 59.1 percent for Labor voters, 58.8 percent for Liberal voters, and 65.0 percent for One Nation voters. The combined Liberal, LNP, and Nationals cohort recorded 60.7 percent support for that limit.

Among the combined Independent/Teal group, it was 62.5 percent. Although with only 88 respondents, a welcome sign of the dwindling support, treating those numbers as reliable warrants caution. Nonetheless, it still challenges the notion that support for restrictions stops at a party boundary.

Even among Greens voters, 49 percent, just shy of a majority, wanted a ban on abortion at or before 24 weeks, and absolute majorities supported a sex-selection ban up to 24 weeks, equal care for babies born alive, independent counselling, coercion checks, and a waiting period.

Women, incidentally, recorded 59.9 percent support for a ban after 24 weeks or earlier, compared with 57.1 percent among men. The women whose opinions matter in this debate include the women who want stronger protection for unborn children.

These results make me angry.

They make me angry because this debate concerns children who cannot speak for themselves and women whose vulnerability deserves more than a slogan. They make me angry because humane pro-life reforms have been treated as extremist, fringe, while this poll exposes that their position as extremist and fringe, yet it's been presented to us as unquestionable.

And they make me angry because too many politicians appear more frightened of a hostile headline than willing to defend an unborn child. The evidence gives them reason to act.

Ultimately, the polling shows that the Australian public want our parliaments to lower gestational limits and end late-term abortion for non-medical reasons. They want our parliaments to prohibit sex-selective abortion and guarantee equal medical care for every baby born alive. They want them to protect women from coercion by requiring safeguards, independent counselling and practical support to choose life. They want them to respect the consciences of healthcare workers and require anonymous abortion data to be collected and published so Australians can hold the system accountable.

These findings make a powerful case for rolling back Australia’s extreme abortion laws. You can read the research yourself at AbortionViews.au, and then sign CitizenGO's petition at https://cgo.ac/sc2PJl9dG, or, better still, put the findings in front of your MPs and demand a written response.

Pro-abortion politicians have spent years claiming that killing babies in the womb is solid ground upon which the majority of Australians stand. Now that the lie has been exposed, they need to explain to us why they’re the ones standing outside the real mainstream.

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”
― Thomas Jefferson