Supporters of a NSW bill to decriminalise abortion are confident an "outbreak of good sense and responsibility" in the upper house will allow the much-debated bill to pass.
Upper house MPs will on Tuesday start debating a raft of proposed amendments on the draft legislation to take abortion out of the NSW criminal code.
The Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 allows terminations up to 22 weeks, as well as later abortions if two doctors agree the termination should occur.
The bill passed the lower house 59-31 in August.
Following pro-choice and anti-abortion rallies in Sydney's Hyde Park at the weekend, those in favour of the bill organised for 29 women to wheel luggage across the city centre to Parliament House.
The trip intended to symbolise the 29 women each week who travel interstate to access termination services.
NSW Pro-Choice Alliance chair Wendy McCarthy told reporters she had seen no sign of upper house MPs changing their mind on the issue or being spooked by vociferous anti-abortion protests, and was optimistic the bill would become law.
"I'm counting on everyone to stand where they were when we packed up the house a couple weeks ago, and to pass the bill by the end of the week. I have to believe that's going to happen, we've been waiting 119 years," Ms McCarthy said.
The bill's opponents are expected to keep vigil outside parliament when debate resumes on Tuesday.
Liberal and Labor MPs have been allowed a conscience vote on the private member's bill, with opponents raising concerns about late-term abortions, conscientious objection, gender-based terminations and the bill's introduction.
While Liberal MP Tanya Davies has expressed her willingness to move to the cross bench over the bill, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Monday she was "absolutely" confident of ending the week with her cabinet intact.
"We're a government that is strong and stable and a government that gets on with the job," she told reporters.
She said it was up to every MP to "consider their community, to consider their views, to consider their conscience and vote accordingly".
"Conscience votes are very rare and it's in these rare circumstances where members are given the freedom to speak their mind ... and I encourage members to do that."
A group of upper house MPs, including the Shooters' Robert Borsak, One Nation's Mark Latham, Labor's Courtney Houssos and the Liberals' Natasha Maclaren-Jones, is pushing a number of amendments.
Under their changes, medical practitioners wouldn't perform terminations reasonably believed to be for sex selection, and they would take all reasonable steps to ensure neonatal care for babies born alive from a termination.
Another change would require that terminations after 20 weeks are only done to save the life of a mother or another unborn child.
Protesters supporting the bill on Saturday urged politicians to forgo the proposed list of amendments, saying many could "make things worse for women than they currently are".
Those who demanded the withdrawal of the bill, such as former prime minister Tony Abbott, called the draft laws on Sunday "infanticide on demand".
Former Nationals federal leader Barnaby Joyce said abortion was "the slavery debate of our time".
Australian Associated Press
