One Nation’s New South Wales leader Mike Newman says the party’s policy on abortion “is clear” and he “made a mistake” when he told a rally that he wanted to abortions to “stop”.

Newman on Wednesday clarified comments he made to an anti-abortion rally on Tuesday night, saying One Nation only wants to stop certain abortions.

The party’s policy is listed as “pro-life”, and states they “will seek every opportunity to roll back brutal and extreme abortion law”, but it doesn’t say at what point in a pregnancy they would make abortion illegal.

Related: Anti-abortion activists are trying to limit access in NSW – and they are just getting started

One Nation’s federal leader, Pauline Hanson, has said she was not against abortion in the first trimester, a position that has not been reflected in the party’s formal policy.

Newman attended a rally, alongside controversial campaigner Joanna Howe, on Tuesday night, which was pushing for the NSW parliament to restrict abortion access.

At the rally, Newman said about abortion in general: “We want to make sure that abortion rights … we want to stop it.”

“We want to make sure that same-sex, sorry, abortion is stopped,” he said.

He had also said that, if elected, One Nation would make sure there was a “right to life … that babies live”.

On Wednesday, Newman said One Nation does not advocate for an outright ban on abortion, but was opposed to late-term and sex-selective abortions.

He also told the ABC Upper Hunter that he “made a mistake” in the way he presented it.

“And I own that 100% we do not want to stop abortion outright,” Newman said.

“What we’re talking about is late-term and sex-selection abortion, which we want to put an end to.”

He went on to say the party wants to make sure “reproductive rights are protected”.

Newman also said that “some people, for medical reasons, first trimesters and whatnot, should have a choice”. He said there were cases where it was happening and that he didn’t “like the idea of babies being born and left in a petri dish to die”, apparently referring to the debunked “babies born alive” idea.

He was not the first One Nation figure to appear at an anti-abortion event. After joining One Nation, Barnaby Joyce appeared at a June event that was also organised by Howe. Before he left the Nationals, Joyce and others were rebuked for comments about late-term abortion that one doctor described as “terrible, cynical, awful”.

Howe – who has been accused of spreading misinformation and bullying NSW politicians – wants to “end abortion” and have anyone who is involved in abortions at any stage to face murder charges.

Related: Anti-abortion activist concedes pictures of human foetuses may have been sugar glider joeys

NSW parliament votes on abortion bill

The comments came before the NSW parliament voted on legislation introduced by Libertarian upper house member John Ruddick to make sex-selective abortions illegal. The bill was voted down on Wednesday night.

The state’s health minister, Ryan Park, said there was no evidence such a thing is occurring, and experts have warned the push was part of a broader move to restrict abortion access.

The practice is already banned in NSW, with health practitioners potentially facing professional misconduct charges if they did it, but abortion as a whole is decriminalised.

Speaking on News24 on Wednesday, Newman said Howe had told him sex-selective abortions were happening. Host Laura Jayes asked him why he was “putting so much stock” in what Howe told him, and he said he didn’t “have any reason to disbelieve her”.

The interview turned into somewhat of a trainwreck as Jayes asked Newman repeatedly what evidence he had for the prevalence of sex-selective and late-term abortions besides what Howe had told him.

He did concede that late-term abortions were very rare.