Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 2518 ..

MRS DUNNE: I seek leave to table the petition.

Leave granted.

MRS DUNNE: I present a petition from 625 residents requesting the Assembly to reject the Health Regulation (Maternal Health Information) Repeal Bill 2001 and the Crimes (Abolition of Offence of Abortion) Bill 2001.

Mr Deputy Speaker, we come here today hopefully to put an end, for some time, to the question of abortion. I ask a question that many people around this place and in this community have asked-to which I hope to give an answer-why is abortion different?

It has been argued that abortion is just another medical procedure. Mr Berry argues that there is no need for any safeguard beyond that provided for surgical procedures in general. For me, the main difference comes down to the arguments we have heard before. They are the ones about life and death. Those arguments are not about lifestyles or lifestyle choices.

More ACT lives are lost to abortion than all published causes of death combined. More years of life are lost from abortion in the ACT than are lost in the whole of Australia for any other published cause of death, except ischaemic heart disease, yet many people are unmoved by this argument. Some claim to be convinced by sophisticated, philosophical, arguments that say humanity is defined not by soul or biology but by our social relationships, so we are not dealing with humans here. Others are uninterested in philosophy and say that those who cannot see, be seen or do not vote, do not matter.

Most, I suspect, simply refuse to think about the question-either because they cannot face the idea of living in a society that destroys its citizens by the thousands or because they might be forced to think about what I would say is the unspeakable, which most of you would just think is unsayable.

The debate is focused on the interests of the mother, and it is assumed that this is unrelated to the arguments about the status of the principal victim. The trouble is that they are, in fact, intimately related. Even if members here believe, with absolute certainty, that we are talking only about blobs of protoplasm, we have to face the fact that large numbers of Australians do not believe that-in particular, the pregnant woman. I know this. Pregnant women are strongly inclined to develop the view that what they are carrying around in their belly is a baby. As I said when I introduced this bill, how many women do you know who have said, "I felt the foetus kick"?

I know most members received the book by Melinda Tankard Reist, Giving Sorrow Words. I hope you all read at least part of that book. Unfortunately, as we know from many publications, many women come to this conclusion when it is too late. They often come to this conclusion after later carrying a later pregnancy to term-as many of them do. I will give one small quote from Katherine. It reads:

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .