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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 2572 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

Ten years of research in Canada found a strong correlation between child abuse and abortion. In a report titled 'Induced Abortion and its Relationship to Child Abuse and Neglect', Dr. Philip Ney of Victoria, British Columbia, reports that British Columbia and Ontario, the provinces with the highest abortion rates, had the highest rate of child abuse. The provinces of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick had the lowest rates of abortion and child abuse.

People may say, "This is your view. You have gone hunting for the areas where it suits you." The article goes on to talk with a Dr Philip Mango, a psychotherapist with 30 years experience in individual and marital therapy. It says:

Any honest clinician or researcher will come to the conclusion that large numbers of women who have had abortions, whether they believe in God or not, develop self-destructive behaviors.

He then goes on to say:

I wouldn't say abortion is the cause of [illegal] behavior ... but it can be a major influence.

I think we should look at all the areas that have been discussed today-suicide, mental health problems, increased risk-taking, or death by homicide. Going back to the first article by Dr Reardon, it says:

Comparing abortion to birth, we once again see that the risk of death from natural causes was significantly higher (60 percent higher in this sample) for women who had an induced abortion in the prior year compared to those who carried to term or had a natural pregnancy loss.

It also then goes on to say that whilst the researchers found that miscarriage was also associated with a lower healing score, induced abortion was more strongly associated with lower health assessments, and more frequently identified by women as the cause of their reduced level of health.

It then looks at the suicide rate, by month, after the pregnancy event. It talks about going back and looking at what happened afterwards-because often surveys were done only in the close months. It talks about the large number of mental health and suicidal incidents in the seven to 10 month period after the abortion was carried out. There is psychological deterioration. Again, whether you choose to believe it or not, there is enough data there to suggest that we need to do more-that we need to look at it. That is why this bill should not be repealed.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to read parts of a letter from a Canberra resident who got in touch with me. She has called herself Jennifer. I think she sent this to some other members as well. This is a lady who has had two abortions, one in 1991 and one in 1993. She says:

When I asked the nurse there whether she could give me some information about what the foetus would look like by this stage, she said she didn't have any of these information. I also asked her if the foetus would feel any pain when being aborted. She said, "No, because it's just a group of cells." I then asked whether the foetus would come out crushed and how the remains would be taken care of. She said it

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