Page 1116 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 23 June 1992
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method of abortion, the womb opening is enlarged with dilators and a loop-shaped knife is inserted. The unborn child is cut into pieces and scraped out of the womb. About 4 per cent of South Australian abortions are performed in this way.
Mr Connolly: Did you talk to Mr Humphries about this when he was Minister?
MR DE DOMENICO: I am talking to you. You are the Government. You are presenting the Bill in the house, Mr Connolly, not Mr Humphries.
The saline method is the most common for second trimester - three to six months - abortions. A concentrated salt solution, hypertonic saline, is injected into the amniotic sac which surrounds the unborn child after the removal of some of the amniotic fluid. The unborn child may breathe in the salt solution, which may burn the unborn child's lungs, and it may swallow some, which burns its stomach and intestines and may poison the unborn child. The salt solution also burns the skin of the unborn child. The child struggles, haemorrhages, goes into convulsions, and dies what is apparently an extremely painful death in a few hours. The mother, of course, goes into premature labour and delivers a dead or dying child. These are the things that Mr Berry has called "safe and relatively simply procedures". There are many more, Mr Berry, but I will save you the rest that I have here.
Other questions have been raised in this Assembly. When does human life begin? Some people say that that has nothing to do with the debate. It is a very fundamental issue in this debate. When does human life begin? When the human egg is fertilised by human sperm and the 23 chromosomes of the father join with the 23 chromosomes of the mother. Mrs Carnell is laughing; she might listen and learn a thing or two as well. Thus, by fertilisation a genetically individual human being is created.
Other things have been said - that these appendages are just part of a woman's body. The unborn baby may, for example, be dark of skin and male with AB+ blood type while the mother is fair skinned with an O- blood type. The baby cannot be part of the mother; it is indeed foreign tissue to the mother.
Ms Follett: What is this about?
MR DE DOMENICO: It is about abortion, Ms Follett. That is what the debate is all about. Whether people accept it or not, it is about abortion, about human beings. When does the heart start to beat? The baby's heart starts to beat 24 days after contraception - conception, I am sorry.
Government members: Ha, ha, ha!
MR DE DOMENICO: You are all laughing on that side. I have made a mistake; I am terribly sorry. I am getting emotional. I am terribly sorry. It is a very emotional issue. It is about the killing of unborn babies, Mr Connolly. It gets very emotional, I agree, and I get very emotional from time to time.
When does this baby look human? The baby's arms and legs, fingers, toes, feet, ankles, head and trunk are all present and distinguishable by the fifth week, yet the baby is only one centimetre long. Already the face looks human. Eyes develop from 19 days and the mouth, ears and nose take shape from five weeks.
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