{"id":66540,"date":"2026-08-06T14:58:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/66540\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T14:58:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:58:19","slug":"anti-abortion-campaigner-joanna-howe-clashes-with-vickie-chapman-at-womens-council-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/66540\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe clashes with Vickie Chapman at Women’s Council meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Liberal Women’s Council meeting has become a flash point for the ideological rift plaguing the South Australian party as a prominent anti-abortion campaigner clashed with the former deputy premier.<\/p>\n

Anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe was invited to speak at the Liberal Women’s Council’s annual general meeting, in conversation with conservative Senator Alex Antic.<\/p>\n

Professor Howe said she had been granted permission to film her address, but former Deputy Premier Vickie Chapman objected.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Joanna Howe posted a video to social media of Vickie Chapman at the meeting.\u00a0 (Instagram)<\/p>\n

In a video published online by Professor Howe, Ms Chapman can be seen making a motion to block the filming.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never, in the 50-odd years I’ve been working in the Liberal Party, known any other meetings to be [filmed],” she said.<\/p>\n

“If that was to be recorded on an audio basis, and the meeting approve that, I think that would be quite in order but I think the meeting does need to approve it and I just ask that there be no filming of the event.”<\/p>\n

In a social media video, Professor Howe said she wanted to record her address to avoid being misquoted in the media.<\/p>\n

“My message to Vickie Chapman might be, ‘You’ve not seen this in 50 years, well times have changed Vickie,'” she told the meeting.<\/p>\n

The issue was put to a vote, and Professor Howe was ultimately allowed to film the meeting.<\/p>\n

She said Ms Chapman and a small group of women who voted with her then left.<\/p>\n

The shift to the conservative<\/p>\n

The Liberal Women’s Council is an official organisation of the party, and the meeting on Tuesday night voted on its new leadership, and on delegates for the party’s State Council, which elects the party’s state president and votes on state and federal senate preselections.<\/p>\n

At the meeting, Senator Alex Antic backed Tea Tree Gully Councillor and former Liberal candidate Irena Zagladov was elected council president.<\/p>\n

Antic-backed candidates also won the other 12 delegate positions voted on that night.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Alex Antic is currently running uncontested to be the SA Liberal Party state president. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)<\/p>\n

Professor Howe is not a member of the Liberal Party but was invited as a guest speaker.<\/p>\n

The professor, who is an expert on labour laws, was a long-term Labor Party member until she was expelled earlier this year <\/a>for campaigning against the party in the most recent state election.<\/p>\n

In her social media video about the event, Professor Howe and her husband James Howe described Ms Chapman and her supporters as “witches” who love killing babies.<\/p>\n

Ms Chapman led the push for abortion reform in South Australia, and ultimately succeeded in decriminalising it in 2021.<\/p>\n

“The witch is dead is a classic call for a reason. A classic cause for celebration and we should join in these traditions as conservatives,” Professor Howe said in the video.<\/p>\n

“We should celebrate the wins and this is a win. To see Vickie Chapman, the architect of killing babies right up until birth in this state removed.'”<\/p>\n

Ms Chapman has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

\"'I'll<\/p>\n

Vickie Chapman served as Deputy Premier and Attorney-General in the Marshall Liberal government. (News Video)<\/p>\n

Ms Chapman, along with other party leaders from former Premier Steven Marshall to former federal ministers Simon Bermingham and Christopher Pyne are moderately aligned.<\/p>\n

The deputy opposition leader Josh Teague today said he did not support Professor Howe’s comments.<\/p>\n

“I don’t support the remarks that have been reported about what happened at a meeting during the week and I know the leader’s been very clear about not supporting those comments,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We all need to conduct ourselves in public debate with respect and with decency.”<\/p>\n

He said Ms Chapman can handle the situation.<\/p>\n

“Vickie will be totally OK. I know Vickie very well. She’ll be fine and she knows how to hold herself in the public debate. She’s a tough as they come,” he said.<\/p>\n

Who will be state president?<\/p>\n

But in more recent years, the party’s conservatives have been taking over leadership roles within the administration.<\/p>\n

Senator Antic was widely expected to become state president.<\/p>\n

No other candidates has publicly declared they are running ahead of nominations closing for the position at 5pm on Friday.<\/p>\n

Fellow conservative Tony Pasin has defended Senator Antic’s nomination.<\/p>\n

“There’s been a level of hyperventilation around this question over the course of the last few weeks that I’ve never seen before,” he said.<\/p>\n

“From my perspective, I think it’s interesting at the very time that One Nation seems to be attracting popular support, there’s a suggestion that the right wing of the Liberal Party shouldn’t exist almost in the legacy media and in the commentariat and in various places online.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Liberal Women’s Council meeting has become a flash point for the ideological rift plaguing the South Australian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15149,83608,31754,33589,22,21,63641,22074,65258,83606,15151,83607,83603,5818,83605,106,24305,83604],"class_list":["post-66540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-abortion","tag-abortion-rights","tag-alex-antic","tag-anti-abortion","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-conservative-politics","tag-debate","tag-filming","tag-irena-zagladov","tag-joanna-howe","tag-liberal-president","tag-liberal-womens-council","tag-sa-liberal-party","tag-sa-liberal-party-president","tag-social-media","tag-tony-pasin","tag-vickie-chapman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}