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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 547 ..

opposed to a women who is not pregnant and therefore not carrying a child. We are extending the whole argument by a step, and we don’t have to.

If somebody wants to stand up and point out to me exactly where we get this notion that life begins only at birth, I am happy to have that argument. What you are looking at in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is that the pregnancy, the foetus, the embryo—whatever—is something special and seems to be accorded, in any interpretation of article 6, some special rights.

This is contrary to what the Chief Minister asserts. He is very good at asserting but he never backs it up, which is unfortunate. Another interesting thing is the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, proclaimed by the General Assembly resolution of 20 November 1959. I think it is worth reading. I will read it here for the benefit of all those who are dismissive of international covenants or say that that is not what the initial covenants say. For those who are dismissive of the press release put out by the Right to Life Association, let me read the entire Declaration of Rights of the Child. It is not very long. It states:

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person, and have determined to promote the social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas the United Nations has, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth therein, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status,

Whereas the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth,

If we pass clause 9 (2) tonight, we will be in contradiction of the declaration of the rights of the child. I don’t know whether the Attorney-General takes international resolutions of this nature seriously. What he does is lead us to a contradiction and a contravention of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The declaration continues:

Whereas the need for such special safeguards has been stated in the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924—

something else that the Chief Minister dismissed and just said, “No, that is not our interpretation”—

and recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—

it is in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well Chief Minister; Attorney-General, perhaps your advice is wrong—

and in the statutes of specialized agencies and international organizations concerned with the welfare of children,

Whereas mankind owes to the child the best it has to give,

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