Page 1097 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 23 June 1992
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TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY (REPEAL) BILL 1992
Debate resumed from 16 June 1992, on motion by Mr Berry:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
Motion (by Mr Humphries) put:
That the debate be now adjourned.
The Assembly voted -
AYES, 7 NOES, 10
Mrs Carnell Mr Berry
Mr Cornwell Mr Connolly
Mr De Domenico Ms Ellis
Mr Humphries Ms Follett
Mr Kaine Mrs Grassby
Mr Stevenson Mr Lamont
Mr Westende Ms McRae
Mr Moore
Ms Szuty
Mr Wood
Question so resolved in the negative.
MR HUMPHRIES (8.02): Let me say, first of all, Madam Speaker, how dismayed I am that this debate has been brought on tonight, just seven days after this Bill was introduced in this Assembly. We have already had many words across the chamber this afternoon about haste in government legislation. Nowhere is this haste more evident than here in this debate about this fundamental question of the value we place on human life. I have rarely seen an issue stir the conscience of this community as the issue of whether the ACT should change its abortion laws has. No issue has generated so much mail, so many phone calls, so many personal representations as this has. Every indicator - letters to the editor, demonstrations outside the Assembly, whatever - demonstrates unambiguously that this is an issue on which massive debate is possible within the ACT community.
Yet what debate on the specifics of this Bill has been allowed by this Government? Until the Bill was introduced last Tuesday there was intense speculation about what it would actually do. Would it redefine the circumstances in which abortion was acceptable? Would it, for example, provide a power to the Minister to prescribe certain places outside public hospitals where abortion could occur on the same terms as within hospitals? Would it set up a freestanding abortion clinic? In fact, Madam Speaker, it does none of those things. It simply repeals another older Act.
Madam Speaker, I would argue that in a debate where there are so many alternatives it took the actual tabling of the Bill to know exactly what option was up for consideration by this Assembly, and until that point real focused debate on this question eluded us and the community. How long is this informed phase of the debate to last, now that we have seen the final version of the Bill? Seven days.
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