Page 2432 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 June 2005
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what even constitutes a child. Until we, as a society, start to reverse, by way of strong legislation, the total disregard for human life, we will continue to see unnecessary and tragic consequences for the unborn child and the impact this has upon the pregnant woman.
We have said, and we realise, that we do not believe this bill will get up today. It will be defeated, sadly. But I, like my colleagues, will certainly be closely scrutinising the proposed changes to the Criminal Code, which have been three years in the making. It is going to be a pretty darn fine document by the time it gets tabled, I am sure. We, on this side of the house—and Mr Pratt has our full support—want to ensure that the unborn child is valued and recognised far better than it currently is under law.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (12.11), in reply: Mr Speaker, while I disagree with Dr Foskey’s very narrow interpretation of one or two of the salient aspects of this bill, I do thank her for the comments that she made. I also thank Mr Hargreaves for his rather calm and considered approach to the issue in what he had to say this morning. But I must say I was quite disappointed by the Chief Minister’s elevating what should have been a very important and sensible debate to one which was a bit vitriolic. I will perhaps come back to a couple of comments that he made and address those shortly.
I recently tabled, and now today I have sought to debate, in the Legislative Assembly this bill to protect an unborn child in law following an assault on its mother. That is the purpose of why we are here. Why did I design this? Because I believe that there is an anomaly in law as a consequence of the abortion bill introduced in the ACT, which allows an assault on a pregnant woman resulting in the death of the unborn to go unpunished. My motive has been to extend our laws to provide protections to and defend the rights of a woman who seeks to carry her unborn child through to safe birth, by creating a deterrent to violent and/or reckless behaviour. That is the sole motive for this bill.
The Crimes Amendment Bill 2005 makes it an offence to injure or kill an unborn child through assaulting or poisoning a woman who is known to be pregnant and who, as a direct result of the offence, loses her child. I appeal to all members to support this piece of new law as, logically, in all fairness, nobody here could fault that. I have heard no argument here today that defeats the logic or fairness of this proposed law.
The passing of the Crimes (Abolition of Offence of Abortion) Amendment Bill 2001 did create that loophole, as I pointed out earlier, which would allow the injury, manslaughter, or unlawful killing or murder of an unborn child during an assault on its mother to go unpunished. That is a fact. That is a fact that has to be dealt with.
I have heard no argument advanced here today that supports the proposition previously put by someone in the government—and, I must say, really only put again here today by one person, that is, the Chief Minister—that this proposal is some sort of Trojan horse aimed at getting inside and then defeating the abortion bill. I cannot stress too much that the Crimes Amendment Bill 2005 is not an attempt to revisit or undermine the decision made by the Assembly in relation to abortions.
I point to the quite sensible remarks made by Mr Seselja and Mrs Dunne that the abortion debate will always continue, whether we in this place like it or not. It is a salient
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