Page 1126 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 23 June 1992
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women wishing to control their fertility is the second. There are many organisations currently in existence which could be harnessed to work together to provide this much needed service. The repeal of the ACT Termination of Pregnancy Act could pave the way for the establishment of an independent private clinic, should that assist. However, we must be on guard to ensure that clinics offer a holistic approach to women's needs and can guarantee that the service will be appropriate for and affordable by all.
MR LAMONT (9.58): Madam Speaker, the people opposing this legislation say that the question we are addressing is a moral issue, and I agree. It is a moral issue, but it is not a moral issue as they have worn it on their sleeves this evening or as they have attempted to portray it over the last number of weeks and, as Mr Berry pointed out, the last 14 years. I need to interpose one point in relation to a comment by Mr De Domenico. I am the father of three boys. I believe that I understand the joys of parenthood and what it means, not only to me but also to all other people in Canberra as far as their own children are concerned. Let us not suggest that one has the upper hand, as it were, in relation to expressing that type of sentiment.
The legislation before the Assembly is about morals. It is about empowering people to make moral choices, for without choice there is no morality. I quote a well-known British philosopher of this century, A.J. Ayer, who said:
There is no such thing as an individual morality which is enforced by authority.
On this occasion that authority is enforced in this town by the Termination of Pregnancy Act. The opponents of this legislation want me, as a member of this Assembly, to make a moral judgment for any ACT woman seeking an abortion. Madam Speaker, I cannot do that. I cannot and I will not, for two very good reasons. First, I believe that it is not the place of governments to interfere with what is, after all, the private and internal being of a woman. Secondly, even if I thought I could make judgments about such intimate matters, I cannot and should not pretend that I can make moral judgments on behalf of every ACT woman in every circumstance, and that is what people here are being asked to do.
While I respect the right of the opponents of this Bill to put their view, I reject completely the moral absolutism of some of their arguments. I am concerned about the dangers that arise when we presume that moral questions are absolute and that we can make moral judgments on behalf of others. I do not believe that any woman would contemplate and then proceed with the physical and emotional trauma of an abortion without the deepest personal reflection on what such a decision means. Statements by some anti-abortionists that abortions are undertaken by young mothers without due regard for the decision, I believe, reflect poorly on those who make such statements.
What can governments do? Wash their hands of the matter because it is politically unpalatable? The reality which anti-abortionists seem unwilling or unable to accept is that for many women no amount of support services will deter them from their decision, a decision which only they can make, to terminate their pregnancy. Historically, the social cost of trying to ignore this fact has been great and has been counted in terms of dangerous backyard abortions, suicide and infanticide, to say nothing of the economic and social costs.
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