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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 2573 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

would be discarded as biological waste. She couldn't tell me whether he or she [the foetus] would be mutilated in the process.

I went to the clinic three times before making the decision to kill my child to be. At my third visit to the abortion clinic, they told me that, if I didn't abort the baby soon, it would be too late for any procedure there. I opted that day, partly because motherhood was fraught with too much unknown and partly because I didn't understand the reality of abortion.

The reality of abortion procedure that day sank in soon after. I found myself crying over the abortion and feeling an incredible sense of guilt and grief whenever I saw any children around. This grief then extended to when I saw commercials, TV programs, billboards, magazines with children in them.

I believe some good can come out of my own traumatic experience at the abortion clinic. I believe it is vital that women be given relevant information on the following before they are allowed to make the abortion decision.

This is a woman who has had two abortions. She received minimal counselling and her experience was a very bad one. However, she says, "Okay, what do we learn from this?" There are five points she wishes to make. The first point is as follows:

Accurate factual information on what features, organs the foetus has developed by one, two, three and four months. This should include what stimuli the foetus responds to by those months, for example nerve endings are formed by the first month and thus the foetus can feel pain by then, or that they can already hear by three months old, because the auditory system is formed by then. This should include photos of the unborn child at two, three and subsequent month gestation periods.

Her second point is this:

Information on what a woman could expect to experience after an abortion. I find it shocking that expectant mothers are warned of the possibility of post-natal depression after the delivery of their babies, and yet mothers about to abort their unborn children are told absolutely nothing of the depression, grief, guilt that could swamp them after an abortion.

Jennifer's third point is as follows:

Information on what one can possibly expect from parenthood/motherhood. There should be some objective information on the challenges and inconveniences, and also the joys and rewards of bringing up children.

Her fourth point says:

Information on fostering, adoption of children.

The fifth point:

Information on where they can get further information and assistance from both pro-life and pro-choice organisations.

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