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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2779 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Mr Speaker, there is absolutely no justification for these people to override the professional judgment of the specialists who were appointed by law, by this house, not so long ago to make this judgment. What did they say? They said, Mr Speaker, that the provision of pictures in abortion information was inappropriate and, possibly, counterproductive. So we have a situation where the expert committee has said no, it could be counterproductive; it could do injury.

Imagine, Mr Speaker, that a woman has been informed that she has a compromised foetus and is considering an abortion because of that, but she is forced to consider information and issue a joint statement that she has considered information which describes foetuses which have not been compromised. I do not have any special knowledge about psychiatry, but I can imagine, with my meagre knowledge, that there are strong possibilities that this would be unnecessary and counterproductive. I cannot see, for the life of me, why people would want to force this on women unless they had a twisted view about abortion. Abortion is a matter of a woman's control over her reproductive system, and it is not a matter in which politicians should interfere. It is certainly not a matter that the churches should interfere in. Most importantly, it is not a matter that politicians should interfere in.

Mr Speaker, the decision today, it appears, will depend on whether Mrs Carnell votes for these regulations or not. Mrs Carnell has oft claimed that she is pro-choice - pro-choice, it appears, except for allowing a woman to choose whether she wants to see information or not in relation to these matters. Mrs Carnell, in the debate last year, spoke in support of the preparation of the information by this panel. Let us reflect on that. Speaking in support of the preparation of the information by this panel, she said:

It is not balanced enough, it appears. So here we have a closet right-to-lifer, it appears, deciding that it is not enough. Well, those of you who chuckle only have to look at the performance. Mrs Carnell opposed my moves to decriminalise abortion. She has supported moves to introduce this absolutely disgusting legislation and have it brought into this house. Now she supports taking away a woman's choice in relation to the provision of foetal pictures.

Let us turn to the pictures for a moment. I see that there are three or four pictures prescribed in the regulations. These are pictures which are designed to be used as emotional leverage at a point when a woman is considering an abortion. I cannot judge this because I have never been in the position - I can only go on what I have been told in relation to the matter - but this is at a point when a very serious decision has been made about the future of a pregnancy. At that point, after the woman has made up her mind that she wants to consider a termination, she goes to her GP and others and she is then told that Mr Humphries and Mrs Carnell want her to see these pictures, three of them - one that describes a foetus at six weeks, one at 11 weeks and one at 12 weeks.

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