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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 2509 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

Any person who, with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman, whether she is or is not with child, unlawfully administers to her ... shall be guilty of an offence and liable to be imprisoned for life.

That says to me that where somebody takes part in an unlawful abortion it carries the same penalty as murder-not manslaughter but murder.

I will skip over the procuring one, and I invite people to look up that section. But then in section 82A of that same act it tells you where abortions are legal. Nobody likes it. Nobody's saying it is a great idea. But they are saying there are occasions when this would happen, and it should be all right. It talks about it being done by a legally qualified medical practitioner in a proper facility. It says that it must involve greater risk to the life of the pregnant woman for the pregnancy to continue than to be terminated. It talks about whether the child would suffer from such physical or mental abnormality as to be seriously handicapped.

It also says that a medical practitioner can do it instantly if he-or she, for that matter-has a fear that some immediate intervention is necessary to save the life of the woman. And it also says in section 82A, subparagraph 3-and this is what made this act attractive to me as opposed to the others:

In determining whether the continuance of a pregnancy would involve such risk of injury to the physical or mental health of a pregnant woman ... account may be taken of the pregnant woman's actual or reasonably foreseeable environment.

What that legislation actually does is say, "Right, it's not on. It's the taking of a life and we're not happy with that. But there are occasions when society has moved to a certain position where it says these things are acceptable to society at large."

They may not be acceptable to me personally, but that's tough luck; society has moved-as indeed it moves in recognising when life begins. Once upon a time life didn't begin until you were 21. Then it became at birth. Now we recognise that it is earlier than that. I for one believe that life begins at the instant of conception. I know other people disagree with that, and I respect their position. But I say that life has primacy. I actually support the German approach-that when we are talking about two lives, that's the end of it. We need then to flick into a regime that is similar to the South Australian regime.

I haven't put that forward because it is very difficult to amend a repeal act. So all I would do is invite members to have a look closely at the South Australian legislation to see whether it does not actually satisfy, predominantly, what we are all worried about, and whether or not with some tinkering it can be made to suit the ACT.

Sorry, I cannot support the Crimes (Abolition of Offence of Abortion) Bill. I am actually not going to support the Health Regulation (Maternal Health Information) Repeal Bill either, because it has some good things in it and some not-so-good things in it. Actually, I think giving a woman a 72-hour cooling-off period on an issue as serious as this is nothing short of a blatant insult. I would be happy to see it go. I don't want to see the whole lot go, but I am happy to see that bit go.

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