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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 2519 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

Certainly I knew theoretically that there were alternatives, but the facts about them were withheld from me. Before the abortion, I allowed myself to think in terms of 'product of conception' or 'blobs of jelly'. Yet afterwards I knew with absolute clarity that I had killed a child. My child.

Would not Katherine have been better off if she had discovered that this was a child before she took the action she did? Even if you believe, hand on heart, that it is not really a child, can you imagine the effect it would have on a woman if she came to the conclusion that she had killed her child?

As a mother, I can imagine the feelings of someone who comes to such a decision under pressure and in distress. Could you wake up hours, years or days later and come to the realisation that you had done the wrong thing? "What have I done? What have I done?"

Having a baby, even in the best of circumstances, is not always an unalloyed joy. I will read from one of the hundreds of letters I have received. This is one I received most recently. The lady who writes to me says:

I know a few women whose lives have been shattered by just such a process, where information and time to think, and offers of support (rather than just termination) have not been provided.

On the other hand, and interesting I think even in the small sample of my personal experience, I know of no women who regret continuing an unplanned pregnancy, even in difficult circumstances. As a professional woman with four children and six pregnancies, I know how stressful that the decision can be. I cannot say how grateful I am for the provision of information, time to get used to the idea and find solutions to the problems around the pregnancy, and support-rather than all fingers pointing to the clinic.

I can echo that. As someone who has lived for 22 years in a stable relationship and who has five children, sometimes you sit there and think, "This is not the right thing to do. This is too difficult. I am not sure that I want to be here."

I think we should be conveying the message to people that it is all right to feel afraid to be pregnant; it is all right to feel threatened; it is all right to feel that you cannot cope, but that there are solutions which do not end in the abortion clinic. At the most basic level, as I said in this place in June, abortion is not just another medical procedure. I am glad Mr Hargreaves and Mr Wood touched on this. Medicine is concerned with diagnosis, treatment and the prevention of disease. Pregnancy, as we all know, is not a disease-there is no disease for which abortion is a cure.

This is in an era of evidence-based medicine. It is an era when evidence-based medicine holds sway. The Chief Minister is a great advocate of an evidence-based approach to policy. We rightly judge the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of medical procedures by measures such as potential years of life saved and quality-adjusted life years. No-one claims any positive health outcomes for abortion by these or any other criteria. Any search of the medical literature will fail to uncover any positive health outcome for abortion.

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