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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 2565 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

This is an argument about whether or not there should be a crime relating to abortion in the Crimes Act. It is not about many of the other things that members in this place who oppose my bill have said tonight.

Mr Humphries drew attention to section 44 of the Crimes Act and made great play of his argument that it was not a criminal offence under the Crimes Act if a woman procured a miscarriage from someone else but that if she did it to herself it was perhaps a criminal offence. Mr Humphries did not say that if this were proven to be the case then medical practitioners who might provide this service would withdraw the service. Women who wanted abortions would then have go to backyard abortionists, as they did for years. Women died as a result of the procurement of abortions from illegal practitioners. What you are really doing is strengthening the argument to repeal this legislation.

Mr Humphries: I do not understand that, Wayne.

MR BERRY: Let me explain it to you again. If a woman cannot legally procure an abortion from a medical practitioner, then where else will she-

Mr Humphries: Why can't she?

MR BERRY: Because it would still be unlawful under the legislation.

Mr Humphries: Only if she did it to herself.

MR BERRY: It would be unlawful for somebody else to provide the abortion. Look at section 45. Under the heading "Procuring another's miscarriage" it says:

A person who, unlawfully and with intent to procure a woman's miscarriage (whether or not she is pregnant)-

(a) administers a drug ... or

(b) uses any instrument or other means-

this would probably be a doctor in the current estimation of things-

is guilty of an offence punishable, on conviction, by imprisonment for 10 years.

If that was brought into effect, Mr Humphries, how many medical practitioners do you think would provide the service? I say none. I say also that women would be forced to go interstate to procure an abortion or to go to backyard abortionists in the ACT. If this sort of notion was to be adopted in New South Wales, which uses the same form of legislation, we would end up with the calamitous situation of thousands of women being forced to endure unwanted pregnancies.

Mr Stefaniak carefully avoided talking about supporting the Crimes Act provisions. He used the argument often used by the Right to Life Association that the bill would allow abortions at any time. Under the current legislation, if one listens to the arguments about its effectiveness, abortions could be allowed at any time. But in our hospital system they are dealt with in a way which I find acceptable. Nobody gets access to late-term

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