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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 2553 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

If, after looking at everything that is before us on the web and the information that is presented to us by the pro-life and pro-choice groups, you do not come away with at least a sense of doubt about the effects of an abortion, you are blind. I think that we need to see the full package-how you would make it legal, safe and rare-before we take this step today. The emphasis is always on the legal aspect from those who are pro-choice. We never hear how they will make it safe or, if it is safe to have an abortion, how they will go and make it rare. In the time that I have been in this place and in the time that I have observed ACT politics, I have never heard from Mr Berry how he will make it safe and rare. I ask that in his closing speech he tell me how he will provide a guarantee that abortions undertaken in the ACT will be safe for the women who seek them and how he will make them rare.

I think that we need to look at whether abortion it safe. Before we give the green light to abortion and before, as one of the previous speakers said, we totally deregulate, how do we determine whether it is safe? Until we have an answer that says that abortion is safe, we should err on the side of precaution. Until you prove to me that it is safe for women to undertake an abortion, I will resist all that you attempt to do in this place.

I appreciate the honesty and the candour of members so far. As people put their cards on the table, they need to explain where they have come from and how they have got to a position. All of you will know that I am a Catholic. I am one of 10 kids and that is my tradition. But I now follow that tradition not as a child whose parents inculcated that tradition in me. I follow that tradition through choice. I follow my tradition because I look at the issues and I try to come to a position based on knowledge and information, not on rhetoric and cant.

A couple of questions need to be answered. One of the speakers said that she would be okay on abortions in the first trimester. What happens on day 93, day 94 or day 95 with the move into the second trimester that changes? I would love to know what changes make abortion acceptable for three months but not three months and a day, three months and two days, three months less a day or three months less two days.

We have all been onto the net, we have all searched the web and we have all read, I hope, the information that has been presented to us. The document that struck me most was from STAKES, the Finnish National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health. There has been legalised abortion in Finland for probably 30 or 40 years. This document was prepared as part of an epidemiological study which went back and checked the record as to whether there was an effect, whether abortion was safe, as women had been told. The information in this script that I have clearly says that abortion is not safe.

If you have doubt as to the outcome of this survey, even if you only have doubt, then, using the precautionary principle, you should err on the side of caution and not vote this bill through today. This data identified 9,192 women in Finland who had died between 1987 and 1994. There was then a check to see whether there was a correlation with abortion. The statistical accuracy of this survey seems to be very high and the faith that people seem to put in this survey by a body that, I guess, is the equivalent of our own NH&MRC is really important. The document contains some amazing numbers. For instance, it says:

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