Page 2417 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 June 2005
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been through the angst of debates in this place about abortion law reform. My colleagues on the other side who participated in those debates would remember how horrid those debates were. I think it would be pretty awful if, in this debate, we were to descend into that arena again. I am just looking about the place to see how many members were here during that debate. I know Mr Smyth was here; he would remember the difficulties. Whilst we have a position of our own and that is something we are tied to and totally committed to, the pressures that were brought to bear on us, both inside and outside this place, were pretty horrendous. I would not want to see us get into that particular discussion again.
I think that has been dealt with but I did feel, in looking at the way the legislation was constructed, that there may have been a temptation to get into the area of abortion; that, even though there is an assurance within the context of what Mr Pratt said that that is not what it is about—in the explanatory statements and all the rest of it, that is not what it was about at all either—I wonder sometimes, in looking at it, whether or not it does open the door to that.
At the end of the day I do not believe this legislation is talking so much about the protection of the life, it is what we do about it when it is threatened, when it is harmed and when it is terminated. I am reminded of the publicity—I think it was Mr Pratt who highlighted it in this place—about a woman who was involved in a car accident and the child died.
Mr Smyth interjecting—
MR HARGREAVES: Thank you very much, Brendan. The issue was whether or not this was a deliberate attempt to harm the mother, a deliberate attempt to harm the child or a deliberate attempt to harm both of them. I think the conclusion was that the whole issue was about the child. There is a need, I believe, in our society to fix that up and to try to protect the child a bit more.
I am really concerned that the way in which we go about this may open up the debate. I believe, as I have mentioned in this place before—and I have said this today—that we have to move somehow to protect the kids. We cannot allow a person to deliberately harm a woman who is pregnant, with the direct and deliberate result of killing the child, and get away with it under the guise of its being just an accident. I do not think we can do that at all. I am concerned that we get it right.
As I have said to Mr Pratt before, I support very sincerely what he is trying to do. If we have a difference today as a result of this debate, I need it to go on the record that the worry I will have is a procedural one. It is the way in which our protections are expressed, and the way in which the legislation protects those expressions. I want it recorded for all time that I find it unacceptable and that, if I have a difficulty at all in the context of this debate, it is because of the way in which the legislation is presented.
I also would like to express my appreciation—not on behalf of my group because that is up to them to do; they are big boys and girls—to Mr Pratt for inviting us to discuss the legislation. I think that is worth noting. It does not happen all that often in this place and I appreciate Mr Pratt’s willingness—indeed can I say almost pushiness—in saying, “Let
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