Page 1115 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 23 June 1992
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proliferation of readily accessible abortion clinics, and I believe that if there were a referendum on the matter it would show an overwhelming objection to the Bill. The Government knows that, because it purposely withheld announcing its policy during the election.
MS ELLIS (9.15): I rise to speak very briefly on this Bill before the house tonight. Over the past few weeks I have met with a number of people representing both viewpoints on this issue. I have also, over the past few weeks, been placed under extreme political pressure in an effort to make me oppose this Bill. However, much as I respect the views of others, I expect and would hope for a similar respect from them of the view that I and others share.
I strongly endorse the remarks already made by my colleague the Chief Minister, and I will not go to the time-wasting effort of repeating those. I also endorse the remarks already made to this house by the Attorney-General in his legal interpretation of what the repeal of this Act actually means. I have very carefully considered the Bill before the house, and I feel very confident in my decision to support it.
MR DE DOMENICO (9.16): Madam Speaker, I will try not to get emotional, but I believe that I am not going to succeed. I have heard a lot said about a definition, and I quote what Mr Berry, our esteemed paragon of medical knowledge in this town, said:
Abortion is a safe and relatively simple procedure.
Let us make no mistake about what this debate tonight is about. It is about abortion.
Mr Moore: It is about control.
MR DE DOMENICO: It is about abortion. You sit down and give me the courtesy of listening, and I might do the same for you.
Seeing that it is about abortion, let me tell Mr Berry that I do not believe that it is the safe and relatively simple procedure that he believes it is. Let us talk about what abortion is all about, and I will give a couple of examples. The most common method is suction aspiration, which is usually performed during the first 12 weeks, or the first trimester, of pregnancy. The entrance to the woman's womb, the cervix, is dilated by inserting rods, dilators, of increasing size. A hollow tube, a cannula, with a sharp-edged tip is inserted into the womb. The unborn child is shredded and pulled through the tube by suction many times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner. About 93 per cent of abortions in South Australia were performed by this method in 1983. Who knows how many by now?
There is another method for this safe and relatively simple procedure.
Mr Moore: Coat-hangers.
MR DE DOMENICO: It is dilation and curettage, or D and C - or, as Mr Moore suggests, the coat-hanger. Let the record show that that is what Mr Moore said - the coat-hanger approach. We are talking about human life, and you say, "Coat-hanger". Shame on you! In dilation and curettage, the next most common
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