Page 1109 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 23 June 1992
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I am not arguing with the Menhennitt ruling which Ms Follett and Mr Connolly mentioned earlier. I am speaking not on moral grounds but in the interests of simple health safeguards which were adverted to by our Chief Minister. For example, do you propose allowing abortions only in the first trimester, or do you propose allowing them in the second trimester as well? Have you considered the relative dangers between the two trimesters? Do you propose that abortions up to, say, 11 weeks of pregnancy be performed in a day care clinic, but that abortions after 11 weeks and up to 20 weeks have to be performed in a hospital and be subject to approval by a terminations committee? Do you propose that prior to having an abortion the woman be counselled and that this counselling be non-directive? Do you propose a cooling-off period of seven days between counselling and the actual termination? Do you propose a compulsory, four-week post-termination examination?
All seven of these questions are addressed in this report No. 26 and recommendations are made about them - all of them important - and I suggest that all of them have been completely ignored by this so-called responsible Labor Government. All could just as easily be ignored, I remind members of the Assembly, by the private freestanding abortion clinics that this repeal will allow to operate in the ACT. This, members of the Assembly, comes from the champions of women's rights opposite, the advocates of luxury safe houses for domestic violence victims. This comes from those who profess concern for the status of women and from a Chief Minister who gives quite unqualified support for and belief in affirmative action. These are the people who have bowed, I believe, to the insistent demands of their left wing and thoughtlessly rushed through this totally inadequate repeal.
By this one line piece of legislation - that is what it is, I would remind members - you have placed women at risk and you have oversimplified an issue of great consequence to the community. Let us not argue that question. The Chief Minister referred to that earlier and I agree with her. It is of great consequence to the community irrespective of the community's view on abortion. This headlong rush to appease, I suggest, your left-wing, radical feminist supporters has provided the community you purport to listen to and to consult with no safeguards and no direct accountability. This lack of thought in your impatient rush to placate this left wing, I believe, approaches a dangerous flippancy when, again in your presentation speech, Mr Berry, you said:
Not by tinkering with the legislation to further regulate approved places for terminations, but by repealing the legislation altogether so that terminations can be performed in a range of appropriate locations thereby giving women more choice about the procedure.
I am not sure what procedures you are referring to, Mr Berry; but I assume that you are talking about the numerous methods of pregnancy termination, such as dilatation, curettage, vacuum aspiration, maybe the intrauterine injections or pastes. These again are from report No. 26. Your proposal for a range of appropriate locations, I am afraid, puts the whole business, I think, in rather bad taste. It sounds rather like boutique shopping. It also shows an alarming ignorance of supply and demand, and it fails to address the question of cost and who will pay. I would like to mention that a little later.
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