Abortion Legislation Bill

I move, That the Abortion Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

This bill was introduced on 5 August last year and was referred to the Abortion Legislation Committee, a special committee set up specifically for consideration of this bill. The committee was established by the House precisely for that purpose. I want to thank members of the committee, in particular the chair, the Hon Ruth Dyson, and the deputy chair, the Hon Amy Adams, for the work they did. They received more than 25,000 submissions. They heard from more than 130 people during 30 hours of oral evidence.

This bill and this topic are a very sensitive topic. It’s a very difficult topic for many citizens and many, many members of this House to discuss and debate, but debate it we must, because this legislation that we’re now considering—the changes to which we are considering—are more than 40 years old and it is timely and appropriate to consider it.

I want to thank members of the committee for conducting their work in a thoughtful and respectful way, and I want to thank the many members of the public too, whose submissions were thoughtful; those who have written to myself and, I know, many other Ministers and MPs who’ve done so in a respectful way. That is the way we should conduct a debate on matters such as this.

Many members of the public who wrote to the committee and made submissions to the committee made some very important points, and I think it is reflected in the changes that the committee has agreed to in the bill. Those who submitted to the committee also included those with expertise in the area, with daily practice in the area. That includes the Abortion Supervisory Committee, regulatory bodies such as the Medical Council of New Zealand, abortion providers, and many women who shared their personal experiences. For many of them, that was a difficult thing to do.

I have previously spoken about the reasons why I believe the law governing abortion needs to be changed, not the least of which is that the legislation is so old, but also the fact that the framework for abortion in New Zealand right now is set out in both the Crimes Act 1961 and the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977, and a woman seeking an abortion should not have her actions stigmatised as if she were committing a criminal act—she is not; she is making a decision about herself and her body.

The law as it is at the moment is complex and bureaucratic and is difficult for women seeking an abortion. A pregnant woman has to go through multiple steps to obtain an abortion and that delay—and we have to remember, too, that for New Zealand, compared to the rest of the world, the time or duration within the pregnancy by which a New Zealand woman gets an abortion is one of the longest in the world, and that adds to their stress. It’s not good for them. It’s not good for health practitioners. It’s not good for New Zealand. The proposals in the bill will enable earlier access to services and will support the best health and wellbeing outcomes for women. The bill reflects the fact that women can and should be trusted to make an important health decision in consultation with their doctor.

Following the select committee process, the Abortion Legislation Committee has recommended changes to improve access to abortion services which it considers are in the best interests of women. I want to now just go through some of the changes that the committee has recommended, because I think they are good changes and reflect the sentiment, on average, that has been expressed by the many New Zealanders who contacted the committee during that phase.

In relation to abortion after 20 weeks, in response to submissions received, the revised bill changes the test that a qualified health practitioner must follow if providing abortion services to a woman who is more than 20 weeks pregnant. The test in the bill as introduced required a qualified health practitioner to determine whether the abortion is appropriate in the circumstances with regard to the woman’s physical and mental health and wellbeing. The revised test expands some of the wording from the original bill. In fact, the requirements now include a requirement that the health practitioner regards the abortion as clinically appropriate, the health practitioner has to consult another health practitioner—so it’s not just one but two—and, of course, that reflects current practice anyway. We have to remember that for women seeking an abortion at 20 weeks, generally speaking that is a wanted pregnancy but there is something seriously wrong either with the fetus or with the woman’s health. This is a very difficult point at which to make this decision, and I hope that people embarking on this debate will recognise that. That is now reflected in the changes that the committee has proposed.

They add in a requirement that the medical professional has to have regard to his or her relevant legal, professional and ethical standards to which they are subject, and also consider the woman’s physical health, mental health, and overall wellbeing, and, of course, the gestational age of the fetus. I go back to the point that I just made: women at 20 weeks into the pregnancy do not make a decision on a whim. In the end, this is about having a legal framework within which women can make these decisions and are, and should be, trusted to make these decisions, as you would expect any human being who is confronted with a situation to do so. I note that the committee intended to reflect in legislation the process that already occurs when women are considering abortion at this stage of the pregnancy.

I want to turn briefly to sex selection because this was an issue that the committee considered and it was raised in submissions. The committee was concerned about submissions made that some might consider an abortion on the grounds of gender biased sex selection, and they point to evidence overseas. The committee concluded that there was no evidence of this happening in New Zealand but they wanted a statement in the bill that reflected the, generally, New Zealand view on this, which is that we don’t tolerate sex selection as a reason for an abortion.

I turn briefly to safe areas because I know this is an area to test those who are vigilant about and are champions of freedom of speech in this country, and that’s very important and we need those voices—they’re absolutely vital. The truth is that there are women who are seeking abortions and going to facilities where they are prevailed upon in an unseemly and entirely inappropriate way, and they should not be subject to that sort of behaviour. Now, the changes that the committee have recommended in this regard are to shift the offence from a reckless sort of standard to an objective test; it’s now expressed as an ordinary reasonable person test. That is, it’s an offence to intimidate, interfere, or obstruct a person in a safe area in a manner that the ordinary reasonable person would know would cause emotional distress to a protected person. Protected person is defined as either a medical practitioner going to a facility from which an abortion might be carried out, or a person who is seeking an abortion. The committee has also inserted a requirement that each safe area is reviewed within five years of the area’s establishment. There is a process to go through to establish a safe area, it’s done by the Minister of Health in consultation with the Minister of Justice, there has to be good reasons for it, it has to be done by Order in Council, and it is reviewed on a periodic basis.

Let me turn to conscientious objection, because this is another sensitive area too, particularly for health practitioners who do not support the idea of an abortion. For contraception and sterilisation services, the person with an objection to dispensing advice to a patient had to tell the patient how to access the contact details of another provider of the services; for abortion services, the person objecting would have to tell the patient how to access a list of service providers. The committee has simplified this process for someone with a conscientious objection to ensure timely access for the person seeking services. The revised process is that the conscientious objector must tell the person seeking an abortion or sterilisation or contraception services how to access the contact details of another person who is a provider of the service requested.

The committee also picked up on an existing provision in the current Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act related to conscientious objection that had not been amended in the bill as it was introduced. This section regards supply of contraception to victims of sexual violation. The committee has aligned the requirements for practitioners with conscientious objections in these instances to the process set out in the bill.

There are also revised provisions in relation to conscientious objection and employment. The aim is that for bigger services where staff who have a conscientious objection can be redeployed, they are deployed. Where that is not possible because of the size of the business, then that is a matter which the business has to ensure that they can continue to provide their service, and that may bear upon the employment of a person with a conscientious objection. There is a provision in the bill that requires the Director-General of Health to ensure that abortion services are provided equitably across the country.

We need a law where a pregnant woman can and should be trusted to make the decision for themselves about an abortion in consultation with their health practitioner. This bill does that, and on that basis I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I acknowledge first the over 25,000 New Zealanders who took the time to make a submission on this bill. Of those, an overwhelming 91.6 percent opposed this bill. I’d also particularly like to acknowledge the many brave women who came forward to share their abortion stories with the Abortion Legislation Committee, either in writing or in person. Women from both sides of this debate came forward. This is an issue that dredges up a lot of pain and hurt, and, clearly, still a lot of healing is required for many of them.

Leading up to the introduction of this bill, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated that she wanted abortion decriminalised. I don’t agree with her. This has always been a solution looking for a problem. No woman has ever been criminalised in New Zealand for having an abortion. Not one. So not only do we have a solution looking for a problem to solve but this bill stretches itself to the furthest reaches of abortion liberalisation.

This bill seeks to strip unborn babies of what little recognition and protection they had left in the law. In decriminalising women who seek an abortion, the sad reality of this bill is that it dehumanises the unborn baby by framing abortion via termination as a health issue. Further, this bill not only infringes on a health professional’s right to conscientious objection, it also seeks to stamp out New Zealanders’ democratic right to freedom of speech and expression, which includes the right to peaceful protest. Most harrowing for me, this bill frees up post - 20 week abortions to the point that any measured reading of the bill can only conclude that it will allow abortion on demand up to birth.

As a member of the Abortion Legislation Committee, I was not able to effect any meaningful change to this bill despite an overwhelming number of submissions against it. As a consequence, I wrote a minority view to ensure those views that opposed were heard.

In replacement section 11, inserted by clause 7 of this bill, it gives full effect to abortions post - 20 weeks gestation. This stands in stark contrast to the hollow assurances that the Hon Andrew Little gave when he stood before the House to present this bill at the first reading. There is nothing in section 11 that the Minister of Justice can point to that defines when an abortion can proceed, and more importantly, when it cannot. These are vague generalisations that use loose and broad criteria for post - 20 week abortions. As the Minister has also defined, I do not agree that these are better criteria: “Clinically appropriate”, having regard to the physical and mental health of the woman, and, the most nebulous of all, “overall well-being”—terms so broad as to be legally meaningless. The current law is clear that abortion after 20 weeks is only available to save the life of the woman, or to prevent severe, permanent injury to her physical or mental health. These are robust terms that include the awful situation when a mum is carrying a baby that is simply not viable outside the womb.

The current law also requires a sign-off by two certifying consultants. In oral submissions, Dr Aimee Kettoola, a general paediatrician, spoke about the undue burden this loose criteria, wellbeing, will place on doctors. In her words, “As a doctor, I don’t even know what that means.” She also argues that the broad and loose criteria will make late-term abortions easier as it significantly lowers the threshold for eligibility. It would be difficult to see any instances where abortion could reasonably be refused by any medical practitioner, given the terminology of criteria in this bill before us today. This leaves health practitioners dangerously exposed should they deem that an abortion for that woman post - 20 weeks is not appropriate.

I do not support the amendments in section 11, as they have added nothing. They do not strengthen the criteria at all. For example, we now also have in section 11 that the qualified health practitioner must consult at least one other qualified health practitioner. The bill does not define what that consultation should look like. That is not two doctors taking responsibility and oversight over this serious decision. What happens if the second qualified health practitioner does not agree with the first and does not agree that abortion is warranted? We don’t know. The bill is silent on that. It is not unreasonable to think that two doctors may not agree on the wellbeing criteria.

Further, in section 11, it also says that the health practitioner must have regard to the gestational age of the fetus. Again, this criteria is meaningless because it is silent on how that regard should be taken account for. So these are words that are utterly meaningless in practice.

The New Zealand Medical Association recommended that the statutory test for the period post - 20 weeks needed to be narrower. They recommended a point of distinction in the legislation, a statutory test at, say, 21 weeks and 38 weeks. There is no distinction or upper limit in this bill. Some in the House will say that I am scaremongering. I urge those members who take this view to look closely at the meaning of section 11 and tell me how a different conclusion could possibly be drawn. How can one doctor deny a woman an abortion under these criteria?

I turn now to sections 19 and 20, in clause 7. There are provisions around conscientious objection—except that there are no provisions for conscientious objection. The employer can discriminate against an employee if they deem that their conscientious objection would unreasonably disrupt provision of health services. The bill does not define “unreasonable disruption”. It is vague. A submission by a legal organisation told the committee that the phrase was too subjective, and it doesn’t require an employer to prove that the objection would disrupt their business.

I have outlined a lot to be alarmed about in this bill. I am deeply saddened at this bill’s blatant attack on the right to life and recognition for our unborn babies. If we can discard the life of an unborn baby—if we can diminish their value and their humanity to the point that we no longer call them babies, then we have lost our own humanity, because they are the smallest versions of us. Late-term surgical abortions are nothing short of barbaric; there is nothing kind in it. A truly progressive society protects the rights of all its members down to the smallest and most vulnerable—the unborn child. I take a stand for that unborn child. I oppose this bill. Thank you. [Applause in gallery]

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I just make it very clear to people in the gallery that there are to be no interventions. Anyone who intervenes again will leave.

Mr Speaker, thank you. I want to begin by stating very clearly in the debate on this bill—which is a conscience issue—where I start from, and my fundamental views in this regard. I have an absolute belief that women have the inalienable right to control their own reproductive systems and to determine, ultimately, whether or not they have a child.

Secondly, I think there is no place for a Parliament to be specifying and legislating what the appropriate medical treatment is in any given case. We are not medical professionals; we are lawmakers, and we have to respect that. I trust women and doctors to make these decisions carefully, gravely, and appropriately. It’s time for New Zealand to go from being one of the most restrictive and outdated in the way our legislation is framed around abortion to move to having a sensible and balanced framework that doesn’t make women feel like they’ve got to create a fiction of being mentally unbalanced to access the care and the treatment that they want.

Some countries have no abortion law at all. Now, that might seem strange in a New Zealand context, but when you think about it, we don’t have laws for any of our medical treatments, even those that have the most intense ethical considerations and the most significant impacts on those involved. I do want to acknowledge that there are widespread and very genuine, deeply held views across the House and across society, and all of those views are valid. Everyone is certainly entitled to their view, and I respect those who have them, who represent them, and who advocate for them. But I am disappointed that so few opponents appear to have taken the time to understand even the current realities of abortion care in New Zealand or even the factual reality of this proposal.

This is not abortion on demand; that is simply untrue. In every situation that the bill provides for, the doctor is always the decision maker, not the woman. The woman can certainly request the service, but the doctor is the decision maker, and the doctor is never compelled to carry out a termination where he or she doesn’t believe that that is the appropriate treatment in any given case. It is not, despite what is being said, abortion up to birth. Those of us who sat on the select committee—and I was privileged to be in that role—heard the providers being very clear on this point. It is fatuous and misleading to suggest otherwise.

The evidence is also clear that it won’t increase the number of abortions in New Zealand. In fact, the number of abortions has been falling for many years, and that’s a good thing. All members of the committee were very clear that we wanted to see a society where every pregnancy was a wanted and loved pregnancy, but we do know that the delays because of the current framework are negatively impacting women significantly, and this bill is about making sure that when termination services are sought, they can be the product of an open and honest conversation, and they can be accessed as early in the pregnancy as that can be obtained.

You will hear a lot in this debate of the arguments of the specific provisions, and, of course, that’s what we do as a Parliament. But let me be really clear: what’s driving the opposition to the bill is not concern about the way it’s framed; it is a deep and underlying opposition to there being abortions. Now, as I said, that’s a valid view to hold, but let’s be really clear: that’s what’s driving the opposition in this House—people who fundamentally don’t believe there should be abortion. Well, abortion has been a reality in New Zealand legally for many years, and it will continue to be so. It is our job as lawmakers to address whether that law is correct.

I want to commend the chair of the Abortion Legislation Committee, the Hon Ruth Dyson, and all of my fellow committee members. It is not an easy issue. It is an emotional issue. It is a fraught issue. Those who submitted came with, as I said, deeply held and very strident beliefs. I want to put on record that I think the committee, a bipartisan committee, acted respectfully and professionally, irrespective of their views on the matter, and I think other committees who have dealt with contentious conscience issues could certainly learn from that approach.

I also want to put on record—and this is going to stray into the more contentious areas—I’m quite comfortable that not every submission was heard. I know a lot of people have tried to make a lot about that. There is no automatic right to be heard at a select committee, and a select committee is not a forum by which the volume of people heard determines the outcome. Your submission—every submission made on the bill—is read, is analysed, and is a part of the consideration. But no one should assume that if you make a submission, you have an automatic right to be heard. This committee heard 30 hours—in fact, more than 30 hours—of evidence, and, because of the decisions we made, we were able to ensure that those who came along had adequate time to recount, as I said, what were often difficult scenarios that they wanted to talk about.

I’m quite happy to admit that I learnt a lot going through this process about the current situation, and there’s no question that what will be right in each case and for each woman will be very different and very specific to them, and every woman must be supported to understand their options and to make the decision that is best for them.

Now, you’ll hear a lot of selective quoting from submissions that might enable the House or people listening to misunderstand the level of support and opposition. The reality is that we’ve had many doctors, many nurses, many midwives, and organisations like social workers and even the Mental Health Foundation make it clear that they supported the changes in this bill as being ultimately the right thing for the women of New Zealand.

I want to come now just to a couple of the specifics in the bill, and the first is addressing the suggestion that this is a solution looking for a problem. I utterly reject that. We heard evidence—harrowing evidence—from women in New Zealand who have faced incredible inequities because of where they live and their ability to access service. We heard from a woman who had to drive from Queenstown to Invercargill at her own cost, take the day off work, and spend a night in a hotel and then had to drive home while the pills that she had taken for the medical abortion were taking effect on her body—and she was, effectively, miscarrying—because she couldn’t access services where she lived and she couldn’t afford to spend more nights in a motel that wasn’t funded by the health system. That sort of inequity and overly rigorous process is not good for women, and it is time for it to come to an end. The delays that women are forced to endure and the lies that they are forced to tell to access healthcare are not acceptable in modern New Zealand.

I want to talk too about what is probably the most contentious issue of the bill, if my reading of the House in discussions with others is right, and that is the post - 20 week framework. The first thing I want to make very clear is that abortions post - 20 weeks are always of wanted pregnancies. Women are not fickle, inconsistent, hare-brained people who suddenly wake up one morning and decide they no longer want to be pregnant. When abortions are sought post - 20 weeks, it is very rare and it is because of the most tragic situations and it is heartbreaking for everyone involved. It is offensive to suggest otherwise. To hear of women who have been told their fetus is incompatible with life outside the womb but to be left with no options but to continue that pregnancy, knowing that that is the case for months, is inhuman, and this bill will allow for other options to be offered to that woman.

I want to simply end by saying that I came to this House to stand for freedom, to stand for individual choice, and to stand for less State involvement in the parts of our lives that it has no place being. That is what this bill does. Women must be in charge of their bodies, not this Parliament. I commend the bill to the House.

Greg O’Connor—a five-minute call.

I stand in opposition to this bill. I voted for it at the first reading because I felt that the bill needed to go through a select committee to see if it could be made palatable. I’ve read the Abortion Legislation Committee report. I’ve read the bill.

For those who are watching tonight, those who believe this is an abortion debate, it is not an abortion debate. As the previous speaker pointed out, that debate was had several years ago and abortion is now part of the New Zealand landscape. Whether or not it’s abortion on demand is debatable. I believe, from what I have learnt, it is abortion on demand. However, I do not agree with those who believe we should go back to a day where all abortions were illegal, because you will end up putting it back where it was—in the hands of criminals. If you think it’s bad—anything now to do with abortion—wait until you end up back in those days. Most abortionists were caught because they had butchered a job or butchered a woman—butchered a victim. That was how they were caught. So I would implore those who believe that this is a re-debate of abortion to think again.

What this is is about post - 20 weeks. I’ve read the report, and I’ve looked for anything that would assure me that the situation we have now would not become the post - 20 week situation—where you have the consultants, where you have to have the reasons; but that is what you have now. There will be those who’ll disagree, but, from my own experience, it is not difficult to get an abortion in New Zealand today. That is where—there will be those who are in favour of full rights; they will say no—this debate really belongs.

I’m the father of an intellectually handicapped son who’s now 27 years old, and what this post - 20 week legislation will mean is that for parents who do find out that they have a child who may not be “normal”, who isn’t what they had hoped the child would be, all of a sudden a whole new set of pressures are going to go on as a result of this legislation. While we have the same consultative process, pretty much, we have now pre - 20 weeks which will be imposed post - 20 weeks, I look at the committee’s report where they say, “We have confidence that doctors base their decisions on these legal and ethical guidelines. However, we note the bill does not explicitly state the legal and ethical frameworks a doctor would use.” This is the essence of the debate. There is going to be a considerable amount of discretion able to be used by those doctors.

I note—as I researched that—there have been a number of abortions over the last 10 years that have been refused. But, actually, the statistics don’t tell us whether those abortions actually carried on—whether the women went to another person or another physician.

So, again, I stand here looking. I’ve examined this legislation. I’ve examined the report, and I don’t believe that anyone can look at this and believe that there’s not a whole new set of pressures going to go on to parents—those who are now going to be forced to make a decision around whether they will abort their child. I fear that post - 20 weeks—this part of this legislation I simply cannot vote for.

Taking the legislation out of the Crimes Act, as I said, I agree with. That is something that I think there are sufficient safeguards in there now to keep it outside the Crimes Act. It does belong as a health issue, as some of the other speakers mentioned. But post - 20 weeks, there is just simply not enough safeguard to ensure that those—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to speak about the Abortion Legislation Bill and the committee report that is now before us. I stand with sadness, with a heart filled with tribulation and pain because, once again, I stand to argue against a bill that seeks to enable the ending—the taking—of a human life by another human being. I remind myself and this House and all those watching these proceedings that I do not stand alone. There are many who hear and understand and support the position of not voting this legislation through—people who feel the same pain that I feel, people that I stand and speak for now.

We have heard many statements focused on the details of the bill and that women who undertake abortions should not be stigmatised as criminals—this despite no woman having been charged with unlawful abortion in the history of this Act. We have heard that the bill is not intended to liberalise abortion up until birth—this despite the bill allowing abortion beyond the current legislation limit of 20 weeks, without an upper limit.

The bill opens the door for the abortion of babies with not just severe abnormalities but also moderate ones, making disabled unborn children very vulnerable under the proposed law. The current law explicitly prevents abortions on the basis of fetal abnormality up to 20 weeks, but that the proposed law does not do the same represents a major step backwards in terms of disability rights.

We’ve heard that safe zones are necessary to prevent intimidation and unseemly conduct, despite all activity near abortion centres being perceived to be peaceful and non-intimidating and non-threatening, and that many nurses and health professionals are in support of this bill when, to my personal knowledge, many, many, many nurses and health professionals do not support this bill.

I would like to specifically point out that this great effort for the current legislation to be amended to allow for abortion beyond 20 weeks, including making standards more available, setting standards, and ensuring that there are competent staff—all of these cost time and effort and resources, yet the committee acknowledges that they have heard from women who might not have chosen abortion if they had received more support. There are no mandatory provisions in the bill for ensuring women are given information about the consequences or risks of having an abortion, are made aware of all their options, or are enabled to receive the practical support needed to help them make a different choice. There are no mandatory provisions proposed for ensuring women receive emotional and psychological support after an abortion, should an abortion have been gone through. Neither the bill nor the committee report seeks to ensure that assistance is to be provided to the many women and their partners who often have to deal with the coercive realities that surround many abortions.

As the father of four daughters, an uncle to many, and a friend to many families, and as a husband who loves his wife dearly, I believe that for a woman to remain undecided and unsure of whether to continue her pregnancy to the full term, and to have her baby actually born, in her arms, cuddled, squeezed, hugged, and kissed and cared for, it is because she does not have the support she needs from her partner and/or the whānau around her, and the lack of support makes sharing a life with another human being so fearful and inconceivable as to make her consider terminating it. I believe that this is where time and resources should be spent.

I finish with a quote from the New York Times, quoting a Harvard medical professor who said that we pass through different stages as we grow, and that a “baby of five weeks in the womb differs from the newborn, but so does the toddler differ from the teen. … but we don’t pass from person to non-person, or vice versa.”

I am pleased to support the Abortion Legislation Bill to this House. Can I take a moment to acknowledge all of the members of the special committee: Jan, David, Agnes, Amy, Ruth—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order!

—just to acknowledge all of your work.

I do want to acknowledge that there are some very strongly held views in this Chamber. I don’t want to diminish those views. I have extraordinary respect for freedom of speech and freedom of religion. But I support this bill for a few very fundamental and simple reasons. The first is I believe that every woman in New Zealand has the right to control her body. It’s very simple. It’s very simple; in fact, it’s so simple that we are one of the most archaic countries in the world—even Catholic Ireland has more liberal abortion laws than New Zealand. That’s right, we were the first country to give women the vote and we’ve had extraordinary female leaders that have come over generations on different sides of the House, but we are less liberal on abortion laws than Ireland.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge Dame Margaret Sparrow. You are an extraordinary New Zealander. For half of your life—more than 40 years—you have fought for abortion reform, and I want to acknowledge how hard that has been at times. I do acknowledge there have been 25,000 submissions in this House, of which a majority are opposed. But we cannot consider those submissions without considering the many silent voices: the many women who email me, who come up to me in airports, and who come up to us in constituency clinics who are too afraid to speak up publicly, for which the leading lights like Dame Margaret Sparrow have put their bodies literally on the line to fight for what I consider are basic equality and women’s rights.

I want to acknowledge what the committee has said in terms of many members in this House supporting the basic view that we want to see less unwanted pregnancies in New Zealand and less abortions in this country. We support this view.

Fundamentally, there are a couple of other reasons why it is crucial, in my view, that we have this law change. Again, I want to quote Dame Margaret Sparrow, who really, effectively, said a number of years ago that it is an absolute farce in this country that 98 percent—I think it was at the time—of the abortions were on the grounds of mental health. That is a farce, that is wrong, that is archaic, and it is time that, as a country, we changed that and we faced up to the fact that it is archaic and outdated and wrong to have a law on the books that, effectively, says that.

I also want to stand up and acknowledge our Minister of Justice, Andrew Little. It is wrong to have this law reform under the framework of the Crimes Act, and I want to put on record that I think that that is unacceptable, and that is why I am supporting this bill to the House.

I do want to acknowledge the real concerns that we have had from across New Zealand around this issue of post - 20 weeks, which we’ve just heard some of our parliamentary colleagues talk about. But look, I am supporting this law because I’ve looked at the facts. I’ve actually looked at the reality of the practice in New Zealand. The reality of the practice in New Zealand is that of the 13,000 abortions in New Zealand each year, there was a small number—it was tiny—that were post - 20 weeks. Why? Because any member in this House who has sat next to someone who has had to go through an abortion and held their hand, who has hugged their partner, who has gone and been with someone through this process, knows that for pretty much all of the women in New Zealand, and the men who go through this alongside their partners, it is the hardest process that anyone could go through.

So I do not buy the arguments of some of the people in this House who have suddenly said that this will lead to a whole lot more women deciding that they are not going to go through what is a carefully considered, traumatic process for them. In fact, this bill is about strengthening and improving the support for those women and those families, with a right to counselling. I want to acknowledge the committee for the real issues that the committee has covered around inequity in terms of access to services. We cannot just pass this legislation without ensuring that, actually, we have decent access to services right across New Zealand.

I want to cover a couple of other issues. I want to acknowledge conscientious objection, which is covered in this bill. The Minister of Justice also outlined the amendment, which I see as an improvement, around ensuring that where there is a conscientious objection, women know of other services available. I also want to acknowledge the issue that people have raised around sex selection, and I want to put on the record, as many other members of this House have, that I am completely opposed to this; and that the select committee overwhelmingly heard that there is no evidence of this happening, but there are amendments in the bill to improve the law in this area.

Finally, I want to say to all members of this House—and it really reiterates what my colleague, the Hon Amy Adams, has said—I completely respect all members of this House in terms of their religious freedom. I completely respect all members of this House who may have a view that they don’t want any abortions. But what I will not accept in this House is what I consider a lack of factual analysis about what happens in New Zealand—the numbers of abortions, the process that most women go through, the horrific experiences that they have had, the delays that they are experiencing, which is clearly articulated in the report. I think there was a 2010 study which indicated that many women were experiencing a delay of over 25 days. I will not accept arguments put up by members that are not factually accurate, and I would ask members in this House to be open and honest about their lens and the view that they are coming from—if it is religious, if it is about the fact that they just don’t want any abortions—because I do believe that New Zealanders have a right to know.

I do believe, as well, that many women in New Zealand, basically, fundamentally, want equality. They want the ability to have control over their body. They don’t want to have to be in these situations, but, if they are, they, ultimately, want respect and equality. I believe that this bill is timely. It’s progressive. It’s important. It will lead to less suffering. I commend this bill to the House.

E Te Mana Whakawā, thank you for the opportunity to be able to contribute to the Abortion Legislation Bill. I acknowledge all the 25,776 submissions from interested groups and individuals. I would also like to acknowledge the submitters who came to the Abortion Legislation Committee and gave us their oral evidence. I want to acknowledge the leadership of the chair, the Hon Ruth Dyson—Ruth Dyson and her leadership of this select committee—because, as a person who opposes this bill, I was given every opportunity to express my views. So in the chairwomanship, leadership, of the Hon Ruth Dyson—I want to acknowledge her in this process. I also would like to acknowledge the leadership and insightful critique, or questioning, of the Hon Amy Adams. She was able to ask questions that were insightful and helped our deliberation through the process. As we’ve heard from other speakers, we sat through 30 hours of oral submissions, and I want to acknowledge all the people that attended and all the stories shared by the women, by the people who work in these professions, who gave us their insightful experiences, whether they supported or opposed this bill.

I today stand alongside the over about 91 percent of submitters that are opposed to this bill. I am acknowledging that 17 percent of submitters are for the bill. My views in opposition to this bill are derived from Tongan culture and as a Christian Tongan. That’s where I formed my view. And I need to say it in this House—that I am a Christian and I was raised a Tongan Christian. And I don’t stand here to say that I represent all Christians or all Pasifika. I am representing my views as a Tongan and all the people that have actually spoken to me about those views.

The word for “placenta” in the Tongan culture and the word for “land” is one word; it means the same. It’s “fonua”. So “placenta” in the Tongan language means “fonua” and “land” means “fonua”. In my upbringing, the most sacred kinds of rituals conducted by Tongans are through birth and death. We give the language that we use in these incidences the same status that we use for royalty. In my limited knowledge in Te Reo, “whenua” is also the same meaning for “placenta” and the same meaning for “land”.

I’ve heard speakers on the other side, and I need to respond to a few of those speeches. The last speaker, Nikki Kaye, talked about trusting a woman to control her own body. The age of consent in this country is 16. This bill does not differentiate between a child under 14, a young person under 19, an adult over 25. It does not differentiate. During the select committee, my main concern was about informed consent. If a woman is pregnant at 13, how informed is her consent? If my 14-year-old daughter chooses to have sex and is pregnant, and she makes an informed decision to have an abortion—for me, I disagree with “informed decision”. There was an example from the previous speaker, who spoke about a young woman from Queenstown who, through this current legislation, took a long journey to get to have an abortion. That young woman took that journey twice, to have an abortion.

In New Zealand, in Aotearoa New Zealand, it is legal to have an abortion through the current system. In the current system in New Zealand, performing an unlawful abortion and supplying the method of obtaining an abortion are criminal offences under sections 183 and 186 of the Crimes Act 1961. An abortion is considered unlawful unless certain legal grounds are met. It talks about, in the commentary, “The bill would insert a new criminal offence as section 183 of the Crimes Act. The offence would be for a person who is not a health practitioner performing an abortion or attempting to perform one, or procuring an abortion, or attempting to procure one.”

So, actually, it says the same thing. It says the same thing—that the woman is not criminalised for choosing to have an abortion. And in choosing to have an abortion, the decision lies with the health practitioner. The woman may choose to self-refer, as this bill intends. The woman may choose to self-refer, but, at the end of the day, it is the health practitioner that provides the means for the abortion to happen. It is not the woman’s choice at the end of the day; it is the health practitioner’s. We are lawmakers, and through the public and through whatever means what we are saying is that we are setting a process to change the current system for abortion, which is actually legal in our land.

I want to touch on the offence of killing an unborn child. The commentary states, “Section 182 of the Crimes Act contains an offence of killing an unborn child, and provides … a prison term of up to 14 years. The offence applies if a person causes the death of [a] fetus in such a way that they would be guilty if it had become human. Clause 11 of the bill as introduced would amend section 182(2) to make it clear that the offence does not relate to abortions in accordance with [this bill].” So with abortion it is not killing an unborn child; it is aborting a fetus. So that’s the differentiation.

I want to tell the story of a woman that came to the select committee. In the room she had two 10-year-old twins and it was her third pregnancy but her first live births. So the woman was in a boarding school—I won’t mention the boarding school. She was in the boarding school and twice she had an abortion and was supported by the staff for her to be able to have an abortion. She was at high school, so she was in her teenage years. In her last intended abortion, there was a trainee doctor in the room, and that person had asked while she was in training if she could take a scan—oh gosh, I can’t remember what that is, even though I’ve had four children—

💬 Hon Member: Ultrasound.

—ultrasound of the child, and there were two heartbeats in this pregnant woman. She was pregnant with twins, about to go and have an abortion, and at that moment she decided, “No, I will not go to an abortion.” She spoke to me afterwards and she said to me the guidance provided to her by the school was about a thing that’s growing inside of her, and it was one way, and had she been given other guidance, then maybe—maybe—her decision would be different.

This is the second most emails I’ve received or communications I received, apart from the End of Life Choice Bill by the member David Seymour. This is the second most communications made to me by the public. I want to thank everybody that has communicated with me because I know that my name is not easy to spell, but you managed to do it—you managed to do it. I want to acknowledge the Papakura Baptist Church who—I attended church a couple of weeks ago—asked to pray for me in terms of when I stand here to speak in the House.

Like I said in my introduction of my speech, I don’t stand here to represent all Tongans. I don’t stand here to represent all Christians. I stand here to represent what I’ve heard through the select committee and my definition of what this bill does. I accept that it’s trying to reform the legislation, but we must also remember that abortion is legal in New Zealand, but there is an opportunity to differentiate between a child and an adult. And I disagree with the fact that it is an informed decision by a woman who is pregnant at 14 to have an abortion. I disagree with that—that it is informed. And I also disagree with the fact that it’s the woman’s choice, because, at the end of the day, it is the health practitioner that makes the decision for the woman to have an abortion. And in that tone, I oppose this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the Abortion Legislation Bill, a piece of legislation whose time has come—decades ago—a piece of legislation that will take abortion out of the Crimes Act because it should never have been a crime. As earlier speakers have made a point of saying, there is no other medical procedure that is legislated the way abortion is.

I should start by acknowledging and thanking the Minister of Justice for bringing this bill to the floor of the House—good on Andrew Little. And I should also thank and acknowledge my fellow members of the Abortion Legislation Committee, a specially formed committee with members from every party in this House to consider this bill. It was deftly chaired by Ruth Dyson and supporting her was Amy Adams, with her legal skills. It was a very constructive committee that worked through some very different, difficult issues extremely efficiently. And I have to say, as the only bloke in the room for most of the time, I developed a strange new empathy for Elizabeth McCombs, who must have often felt exactly the same.

I most of all want to acknowledge the submitters. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for people to come forward and tell such heartfelt stories about such harrowing experiences in their life and do it not only in public, but in front of a group of politicians, often in the full glare of the media’s TV cameras as well. I think those New Zealanders who came to the select committee deserve our admiration. They deserve our admiration because one of the things that they did was they absolutely gave the lie to the claim we’ve heard that there is no problem to be solved here. Actually, the submitters showed us that in the real world of New Zealand, there are serious problems with our current abortion law and I would name three of them.

One of them is that the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders believe it is important to follow the law. One of the most stigmatising things that can happen to most New Zealanders is that they are labelled as a criminal. We heard from one woman in particular, Jacqueline Cavanagh, who told us some of the most horrendous stories about the grotesque, evil bullying that she has suffered because she had had to have a late-term abortion, and one could only think that when this Parliament tells New Zealand society that having an abortion is a crime, of course, some of those odious comments and bullying are going to come forth.

But I want to put on record what Jacqueline Cavanagh bravely told the committee, because I think it deserves to be recorded in the Hansard of this House. And I also think that she said it much better than perhaps any of us will be able to. She says “a person does not wake up at this gestation of pregnancy and decide that they simply no longer want a child. These are crisis pregnancies.”—she refers to those ending in late-term abortions—“These are heart-wrenching and soul-destroying decisions. Names [have been] picked out, nurseries decorated, birth plans thought through, baby clothes washed and at the ready. We carry shattered dreams inside us. To travel the road of abortion at this stage of gestation is an altruistic decision made from a place of love and despair.” She had an abortion because it was the only way that she could stay alive and be with her already born child and her husband. That’s why she did it. And she doesn’t deserve the stigma that criminalisation has placed around abortion.

But another problem, the submitters told us, is inequity. We had somebody who had had two abortions in their life. This woman had had one whilst living in a smaller provincial centre in her late teens and another later in life in a larger metropolitan city in her late 20s. The difficulty and the rigmarole and the trauma that she went through were like night and day. Doing it in provincial New Zealand; having to travel, as we’ve had so well described by Amy Adams in her excellent speech; being able to make it work and get through a second certifying consultant with all the rigmarole that our current law requires was incredibly difficult. Doing it in a large, metropolitan city in her late 20s was somewhat easier but still needlessly difficult.

Now, in any sane world, for which of those two people, at those two stages of life, would it have been easier to access abortion services? Of course it would be the younger, more vulnerable, more geographically isolated woman in that story who would’ve been able to get more support. Under our current law, it’s the opposite. I say to those people who are the doyens of the regions, who want to do things for regional New Zealand, one of the things you could costlessly do is vote for this bill, because those people would be not only helping all women but disproportionately helping those in rural New Zealand.

Finally, the problem that is related to the first two is the subterfuge, the idea that women have to invent a fiction that they are somehow mentally unstable in order to access healthcare. It’s actually completely crazy, and until you say it, you don’t realise how crazy it is.

I realise there are people who have moral objections. I admire the speaker who spoke before me, Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, who said, “I’m a Christian; this is my view.” That was refreshing honesty. I think we should have more of that, because an earlier speech by Agnes Loheni said there was no problem, criminalisation wasn’t happening, and yet, somehow, decriminalising it is going to change the world. I think that gives the lie and the illogic of the opposition to this bill.

The Abortion Legislation Committee did not choose model A, a model that would have no statutory framework, much like, say, Canada, a country with lower abortion rates than New Zealand. The select committee has gone with option B, which has a statutory test after 20 weeks. I want to put on record that I think that’s a mistake. The select committee chose to continue including these protest zones, these restrictions on freedom of expression. Now, in my view, abortion protesters in New Zealand are not like American ones. They’re not scary, they’re not dangerous; they’re people to feel sorry for. They are not a threat in the way that American abortion protesters are. However, these protest zones in this legislation are an impairment of freedom of speech so arbitrary and so ad hoc that those particular impairments of freedom of speech could be used as a precedent for any other restriction. I intend to put up a Supplementary Order Paper that will remove that section and allow other parts of our law, such as the Summary Offences Act, to deal with harassment as it should, and I’d invite members who are in favour of this cause and in favour of freedom of speech to join together and support that amendment, which is already prepared.

Finally, I want to talk about the moral case behind this bill. I get messages saying, “Do you support abortion?” Of course I don’t. Nobody does. Nobody wakes up one day and thinks, “That’s what I’ll do today.” It is a difficult and harrowing experience to go through. But that’s not the question. The question before this House tonight is: what should be the role of this Parliament and what should be the role of the State when it comes to abortion law reform? If any member thinks that it is somehow helpful for the State apparatus, for this Parliament, to ask the police and corrections and the courts in this country to run around and try and compel women to take unwanted pregnancies to term against their will, then I don’t know how else to argue with those people, but I hope they’re in the minority tonight. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I want to start by congratulating the members of the Abortion Legislation Committee who’ve reported this bill back to the House. They’ve responded to a piece of legislation that arouses strong emotion on both sides of the debate. They have heard harrowing personal stories. They have managed their way through complex legal, health, and ethical issues. Many will have been subjected to gruesome images. They have, by majority, amended this bill in ways that I believe largely improve it, and they have worked constructively together despite their divergent views.

I support this reform of our abortion laws. Many people I deeply respect and admire do not share my views on this issue. I feel moved to express why I support it. I have carefully studied this bill. I have spoken with medical practitioners, those who perform abortions, those who have had abortions, those who’ve supported those who have had abortions, and my conclusion is that this bill advances the rights of women. It will improve women’s access to health services. It will enhance our legal autonomy over our own bodies and our own fertility. It brings our law into line with good medical practice. It reduces unnecessary and potentially harmful delays in access to abortions, and it improves reporting on important issues such as equity and timeliness of access, availability of counselling services, and the spectre of gender selection. This bill will reduce harm. Fundamentally, it improves choice for all of us and, crucially, requires that choice from none of us.

The majority report on this bill is commendable for its dispassionate analysis of the issues. Those who’ve been hearing frightening claims about what will change if this bill is passed should go and read the report, because it treats abortion like other health issues. It trusts that highly trained and specialised medical professionals will, as in all medical procedures, exercise good judgment, good practice, and be bound by good ethics. We should uphold that principle of trust in our medical professionals in this House. It trusts that existing laws, including the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights, made under the Health and Disability Commissioner Act, extends to abortion services. It trusts that women, as my colleague Amy Adams said, are not fickle, selfish actors. We are not incapable of making good decisions about our pregnancies. No; we are capable of making good decisions for ourselves and our own families, and it is wrong to suggest that those in this Parliament are better placed to decide what is best for women seeking abortions.

Some have argued that this bill is unnecessary because the current system works. The truth is that our abortion law is outdated, it creates harm, and it is fundamentally sexist. The Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act was debated in 1977. At that time, this Parliament had more men in it named William than it had women, and I think it is entirely possible that the men of those Parliaments were not best placed to dictate the arrangements for services that are used exclusively by women.

The select committee process showed abundant evidence of problems with the way the system currently operates. Women do have to lie about their mental health in order to access an abortion. Women have been made to feel criminal, and women, having made a decision for themselves in consultation with a medical professional, are on average waiting an additional 25 days between their first appointment to a referring doctor and actually having the abortion procedure—unnecessary delay.

Others have scaremongered about what this bill will permit. We had the phrase “abortion on demand”, and I share the horror of the spectre of medical professionals carrying out abortions on a late-term fetus because a woman wakes up one day and says she doesn’t want a baby. That is ridiculous. It demeans women and it demeans medical professionals, because it does not reflect the reality of the circumstances in which a woman with a wanted pregnancy in late term is forced to have an abortion.

Other speakers have done a very good job of detailing the clear statutory tests that this bill has for the limited circumstances in which a woman could access an abortion after 20 weeks. And I note that, unlike the current law, these include medical professionals having regard to the gestational age of a fetus.

So it’s clear, I strongly disagree with some of the arguments put forward by the opponents of this bill. But I want to acknowledge that they are also my colleagues, my friends, my supporters. And I know that their opposition comes from a place of deeply held belief and that they have weighed the issues just as carefully as I have. Opponents are entitled to reject abortion as a medical procedure for themselves. They are entitled to condemn its use by others. And I support the conscientious objection clauses in this bill which uphold those rights. But I cannot stress enough: nothing in this bill will require a person to undergo or undertake an abortion.

I respect also that some of the opposition to abortion is rooted in faith and I empathise with this. I was christened Presbyterian, I attended Anglican schools, I was married in a church. And faith plays a crucial role in my community, and we should all cherish it and the right to freedom of religious expression that comes with it. To quote page 15 of the select committee report, “All of us want to ensure that the rights of a person to exercise religious freedom and a person’s ability to access services are balanced.”

Freedom of expression is a crucial tenet of our liberal democracy, and we should guard it carefully. And it is for that reason that I am uncomfortable with the provision in this bill that would allow safe zones around abortion clinics, effectively limiting rights to free speech there. I am not convinced the current law can’t do the job this section is trying to do. If people are harassing, assaulting, or verbally assaulting people, then that is potentially criminal and should be policed as such.

As I said, I come to this debate respectfully. But what I do not respect is the bullying that some outside this Parliament have used, the disgraceful tactics that have been used to try and influence the votes of members of this House. Why do they think that emailing me images of dismembered fetuses will change my views? And why should our staff be subjected to that? Do they understand that gruesome images are available to illustrate any argument? Their shock tactics reflect badly on them and their cause, and, in some cases, may be a breach of existing law. Perversely, it is those images that finalised my decision to speak today. I will not be intimidated by those people, and I will not stand by while they question women’s rights to have autonomy over our own bodies.

I want to say one more thing about the use of the phrase “pro-life”, because it’s a phrase that’s used a lot in this debate and was used a lot during the select committee process. My views on all issues before this House are fundamentally rooted in my belief in the value of life, the dignity of individuals, and their rights and capacity to shape their own lives. I have carried and given birth to four children, and the joy and miracle of their births has been amongst the most, if not the most, profound experiences of my life. I understand the transformational gift of life and I cherish it. So do not tell me I am anti-life.

But there for the grace of God go I. There but for the grace of God go all of us, because let us in this House make laws that allow for people in all their diversity and all their circumstances at the best of times and at the worst of times. Let us trust women and let us trust medical professionals. I want my children to live in a world that genuinely cherishes the life of every woman, that respects her right to manage her own fertility, her own body, her own future. That is the world I want for my daughters. That is the world I want for my sons. This bill is a step forward, and I commend it to the House.

Darroch Ball—a five-minute call.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise tonight not on behalf of myself to speak on this bill but on behalf of the party. I don’t intend to take a long call, but I think that it’s important that I outline very clearly why New Zealand First will be putting its nine votes towards this bill and voting in favour of this bill at the second reading.

As we promised in the first reading of this bill, we will see this bill through to the committee of the whole House where we will table a Supplementary Order Paper requesting a referendum on this issue.

We believe that this conscience issue, affecting the fabric of human society, should be decided upon by the people of New Zealand, not decided upon by 120 temporarily empowered politicians. We don’t believe that individuals in this House—their life experiences, their beliefs, or their family histories—are any more or less important than anyone outside of this House. The fact that this House has decided that this vote is a conscience vote and not a party vote is explicit acknowledgment that every single individual Kiwi in this country will have an individual perspective based on their own conscience, not based on anyone’s conscience in this House, and especially not based on temporarily empowered politicians in this House or anything that’s based on party politics.

This is why New Zealand First has had this principle, this founding principle, on these matters of conscience votes since our inception. Not only that, but that principle hasn’t changed in its 27 years of existence—the principle that conscience votes of this nature that change the fabric of the society should be decided upon by New Zealanders and not solely us in this House.

Not only that, but we have a firm record of requesting referenda on these issues to ensure that New Zealanders’ conscience is counted with equal measure, and the only way that we can do that is if we put this to a referendum. As we did with the previous conscience vote in this House, we will vote for this piece of legislation solely on that reason through to the next stage, to the committee of the whole House, where we can put a referendum clause on the Table to be debated and where we will vote on it at that stage. We did the same with the End of Life Choice Bill, and we do so with this bill. We will support it through this reading through to the next stage. We will be requesting a referendum on this issue. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I refer to the report of the majority of the Abortion Legislation Committee on this, the Abortion Legislation Bill. The majority report is linguistically elusive, ideologically incoherent, and scientifically unsound. The report, like some of the contributors to this debate, characterised abortion services as being “like other health services”. The fact of the matter is that unless one is separating conjoined twins, one is not, in fact, operating with two human lives in the power of one’s hands as a doctor. This is the elephant in the room that has been, I believe, wilfully ignored by many of the contributors to this debate.

A colleague earlier said that this bill is not concerned with abortion up to birth. And yet the pre - 20 week regime is followed in the legislation by a post - 20 week regime at which the only natural endpoint is birth, short of, of course, the performance of abortion services. So if those colleagues who believe that this bill does not concern itself with abortion up to birth would like to indicate the point at which it becomes no longer valid, short of birth or another intervention, then I would be very interested to hear it, perhaps in the committee of the whole House stage.

I note that the select committee majority report said that it was grateful to those submitters who had shared their views and stories. That will be news to the ones who had wished to speak but were denied that opportunity. I do acknowledge the point made by Amy Adams that not all submitters can necessarily be heard, but the skewing of the submitters who were allowed to be heard in favour of those, relatively speaking, in favour of the bill, as distinct from those who were against—some 92 percent of the submissions overall—will leave many to make a conclusion that some members of the select committee will not enjoy being made.

The elephant in the room, as I’ve described previously, relates to the status of what is variously known as the unborn child or the fetus or, most creatively of all within the Abortion Legislation Bill select committee report, “contents of the uterus”. This is a reference in relation to surgical techniques that are used. In fact, the phrase “unborn child” is currently used in the Crimes Act, in section 182, and will remain so. The bill, despite what proponents have sometimes claimed, will not entirely remove, essentially, the practice of abortion from the Crimes Act. Section 182 of the Crimes Act is amended by the proposed bill, but it is not removed from that. So it is—bearing in mind that description of an unborn child, as I say, existing on the statute book that we have at the moment—that phrases such as “choice”, “freedom”, and “the ability to choose what one does with one’s own body” should be viewed in the context of the alternative language to that of “unborn child”, dehumanising as it is.

The report—again, I stress, the majority view within that—talks about a desire to modernise the legislation. Well, of course, all changes to legislation are by definition modernising it, but, of course, they wish for the connotation to be of improvement. But it will be for members of this House individually, as well as members of the public, to judge whether improvement is in fact the result of such modernisation. Whether it has a civilising or barbarising effect—that is a decision for us each all to make.

In my remaining time, and it is short now, I wish to also make a note about the select committee majority report claiming that the current legislation contains deeply offensive language in relation to disabled people. The disabled people themselves and the advocacy groups who have contacted me in relation to the bill find much more deeply offensive the notion that their lives will inevitably be deemed to be worth less in many situations, whereby conditions such as, for example, Down syndrome can be effectively screened to an even greater extent than is already the case by the fact that this bill does have a liberalising effect—that is, it makes the regime more liberal both in relation to pre - 20 weeks and post - 20 weeks, until either such time as birth is given or abortion services performed.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand to take a call opposing the Abortion Legislation Bill tonight. I’ve sat here on purpose to listen to the contributions in the House tonight, and some of the contributions have left me a little bit flummoxed with some of their ideas. I do not support the idea of taking the Abortion Legislation Bill into a referendum. I think this is what our job is here, to make a decision, and I don’t think that it should be anything like inside any referendum like New Zealand First did with the End of Life Choice Bill.

This is an important bill. I have heard the discussions around the Crimes Act and having abortion taken out of the Crimes Act, etc. The previous speaker, my colleague Christopher Penk, has eloquently outlined that this bill will not do that. It will not do that. I’ve also heard in this House tonight that women feel criminalised from having an abortion, and we’ve heard that nowhere in the history of this country has a woman been criminalised or taken to court over having an abortion. That is absolutely misinformation.

I want to talk a little bit about the fact—you know, I’m a Māori woman. I’m a Christian Māori woman. I come to this House to speak on this bill based on that. I was brought up in a family that loved all children. Mokopuna are our value. They are our future, and when I look at my mokopuna and I see their future ahead of them, glowing through their eyes, I can’t think of anything, absolutely anything, to actually end that opportunity for their life.

My family, my parents, were brought up to oppose abortion as a horrible, heinous family crime. They didn’t like it. They brought us up the same. They said to us, “Don’t ever, ever do that. Come to the whānau. If you fall pregnant and you feel you can’t have that baby or look after that baby, you come home and we’ll look after that baby.” That’s what Māori do. We look after our babies, and that’s why the current abortion bill should not be altered. This bill does that, and it’s wrong.

I too read the report from the Abortion Legislation Committee. I read the report that around 2,800 submitters who wanted to be heard were not allowed to be heard—only 160, as we’ve heard in this House. Only 160 were allowed to have their say, of 2,800. We’ve had bills pass through this House where we have had thousands of people, of submitters, be allowed to submit their oral presentations, and yet in this particular bill it was stopped. Why was that? Why was the process made to be like that? Only one dissenting voice in that committee, maybe two: my colleague Agnes Loheni said we should be hearing everybody. But no, it was not the majority decision on the committee.

When I look at the 25,000-plus submitters and then you see that 23,000-plus actually opposed the bill, and yet the select committee ignored the opposition from those submitters—they ignored it. What is going on? This is supposed to be a transparent process, and yet these people, their 23,000-plus opposition to this bill, have not been heard in this whole process and in this House tonight. Is that fair? Is that fair to them?

My second reason for standing tonight is talking about and defending the rights of the unborn child, because they don’t have a voice. They’re not given a voice, and in this whole process, people are going to do things to them, and it’s not nice. That is absolutely horrible. It should be a black mark on everybody who thinks like that in this House.

I am one of those people that thinks that unborn children need to have their rights heard. That’s why I stand here today. I didn’t come here to this Parliament to end a baby’s life. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to actually have legislation that advances the wellbeing of people. This bill does not do that.

I think one of the speakers tonight from the Government side of the House spoke about this bill being abortion on demand. That’s what this bill is actually working towards. It is about abortion on demand. I don’t care how you want to pretty it up or whatever you want to say or how you want to soften it down: it is abortion on demand. If a woman wants to have an abortion, she can go off and have an abortion and not go through the current processes that they have to go through to be approved for an abortion by practitioners. Then we hear from Anahila from the Labour Party, who said that—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

—it is the health—sorry—practitioner that makes the final decision on who gets the abortion. Well, I don’t know about that. If the legislation is loose enough to allow somebody to get an abortion on demand, then that is what this bill will actually come up with.

I don’t want us to, when it comes to fetal abnormality—and as I said, I read the report. In the report—this is the select committee report—it talked in one area around the Denmark example, whereby 98 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in Denmark are aborted. I also read that in Iceland, there have been no children born in the last five years with Down syndrome. I do not want New Zealand to be part and parcel of all of that history that those countries are actually doing to their babies. I don’t want us to be the third country in there, and I think that this bill is a dangerous bill. I think that it has the potential to go that way if there are no checks and balances in place.

I heard tonight that it is a woman’s right, it’s her body, and she should be trusted. But what about the women and the girls that don’t get a right to have informed consent—where that is taken out of their hands by other people, by family members maybe, by people who believe that they do not have the ability to make that decision for themselves, and want to keep their baby? I am worried about those people, those women and girls, that are not afforded the right to be able to say no.

We’ve talked about, in this House tonight, the post - 20 week abortions, and, to be honest, with this bill, it’s a dangerous bill because it will allow post - 20 week abortions right up to birth. I say to everybody in here that says “No, no, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”, that it’s written in the bill. Read the bill, because that’s where it is. To be honest, there is very little appetite for that from where I come from; really no appetite for it whatsoever. Abortion on demand should be illegal.

There were also issues around the upper limit of the number of abortions that women can get, and there was no upper limit put on this bill. So as I sat and I read this report from the select committee, I noted that those voices, those dissenting voices, the 23,558 that oppose this bill, have not had their voices heard in this bill. It has been trodden all over. I can say that what happens is that we have a current abortion bill—people say we don’t have one, we do have one—and there has been no woman that has been criminalised under it.

This abortion bill is a licence to kill the unborn; that’s what it is. It’s a dangerous piece of legislation. Whilst there will be people in here that are supporting this bill that will say, “No, no, no, that’s not what happens.”, in reality that is what will happen. That’s what concerns me most; the reality of it hitting the ground, hitting the women out there in the community and the families, that this will be a licence to kill unborn children. It ignores absolutely everybody’s opposition. I’m really, really sad to be standing here on a day, on an evening like this evening, to be able to say to my colleagues who are supporting this bill, it is the wrong thing to do. I oppose this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I just begin by acknowledging and thanking the Hon Andrew Little for introducing this long overdue legislation to the House. I’ve been in this Parliament for 26½ years, and it’s been discussed in every caucus I’ve been in. It’s only now that the time has been considered right.

I also want to acknowledge all the members of the Abortion Legislation Committee. We were a select committee of seven, representing every party in this Parliament. We had, fundamentally, three different views about the legislation, which you might think would’ve been awkward. But, actually, the behaviour of the select committee members should be acknowledged and admired. Despite deeply opposing views, there was, almost without exception, an atmosphere of respect and tolerance of each other’s views. I think that’s the way that our select committees should model themselves, because we are a Parliament full of different ideas, and on sensitive and contentious issues like this, we should show each other the most respect. So I want to just acknowledge all the members of the select committee.

I want to thank our clerks, who did an extraordinary job trying to piece together the various views and questions and inquiries that we made during our time. I want to, also, acknowledge our officials from Justice and Health. We had officials from both the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health. They did amazing work and research for us. I want to acknowledge the parliamentary counsel, who were quite challenged by some of our requests. I guess that will become obvious as the debate goes on. But we did some things in this bill that were new for New Zealand because we wanted to have conditions placed on parts of the legislation in a way which hadn’t been done before. I’m very proud of the work we did in that space.

I want to thank all the submitters, particularly those with medical expertise or social work experience, people who practise in this field, who came and told us what life was really like. For many of us on the select committee, that was new information. I want to thank the submitters who gave their personal experiences. They highlighted for us the fundamental flaws in the current law. The submitters came and told us harrowing and horrific stories of delays, of humiliation, of bullying, of the trauma of having a post - 20 week abortion.

The situation that David Seymour outlined brought nearly all the select committee members to tears because it was just so wrong. To hear some of that debate repeated in the House makes me really sad. One of the submitters that came to our committee told us that post - 20 week abortions would be used as convenience. I find that as offensive as can be.

There is nothing more offensive than being told that a woman would wake up one morning, 30 weeks pregnant and say, “I’m over this. I’m going to have an abortion.” Then to layer on top of that the accusation that a doctor would then say, “That meets my professional and ethical standards.”, and would go ahead with that termination—I don’t know who the people who say that know. Who do you know that would do that? Nobody. It’s just a lie. On any topic, I think it’s important to tell the truth, but on a topic as important as this, as sensitive and as contentious as this, we should just tell the truth.

Another submitter who should know better said that doctors would be required by law to abort a baby in the birth canal. That is a lie. It is an outrageous thing to say. It totally undermines the quality of debate in this Parliament, and for a former Prime Minister to say it I find deeply disturbing. It is a lie; it just isn’t true. Let’s all tell each other the truth in this debate. Our democracy deserves it.

The opposition to this bill came not from people who oppose this bill but from people who oppose abortion full stop—people who, if they were being given the contraception, sterilisation, and abortion legislation, would oppose it. The same thing happened in the marriage equality bill. People came and said, “You’ve got civil unions. Why would you want marriage equality?” They opposed civil unions as well. It’s exactly the same frame. They have a right to their view; I don’t deny that at all. But they weren’t opposing this legislation; they were opposing abortion at all in New Zealand.

I want to endorse the comments from the Hon Amy Adams and Greg O’Connor on that very point. That was why many of the submitters who weren’t invited to be heard would not have added to the consideration of this legislation—because they weren’t submitting on this legislation. They were submitting in opposition to abortion, start and finish.

I want to talk briefly in the time I’ve got about some of the more difficult issues. The issue of sex selection was very difficult for us to determine where to go. None of us—and this was one of the rare unanimous views of the committee—want sex selection used as the basis of abortion in New Zealand. It isn’t our culture, and we don’t want it ever to be.

So we have put in the legislation a process by which the Director-General of Health will monitor sex birth rates, and if it’s clear that this terrible practice is being introduced at all into New Zealand, he or she will make recommendations to the Minister of Health to respond to that. But that has to be a very clear message from this Parliament: sex selection should not be used as the basis of abortion.

We were very concerned about the inequities between services that district health boards provide, and I am still concerned that with the generous and fair conscientious objection provisions that we have introduced into the legislation—they’re not too dissimilar from the current regime—there will still remain inequities in provision of services. I am particularly concerned about women seeking emergency contraception and not being able to get that contraception within the best time frame, which is 72 hours. So that’s something that I’m sure we can debate further down the track. The conscientious objection provisions generally raised some concerns for us in regards to equity of access.

The only issue on which Agnes Loheni and David Seymour agreed was they both opposed safe areas. I’m not sure where that’s going to go during the debate, but it was an interesting alliance for quite similar reasons. But again, it’s a debate worth having. I agree with David Seymour: we don’t have the intensity of opposition that they do in America, but I feel very strongly that everyone in New Zealand has the right to perform and access health services that are delivered legally. It’s clear in some parts of the country that that is very difficult for them. We also made a requirement to collect information in the same way as the current regime does, but through the committee—which of course this legislation abolishes.

I want to just conclude by saying that while this debate was respectful, it was also difficult for all of us. We felt we were taking a needed step, but one which we wanted to take very carefully in in a very considered way, and I think the committee did a very good job of that. We want to see a country where there are very, very few abortions. Our numbers are heading in the right directions now; I want to commend Pharmac for introducing long-acting contraception. We need more education, we need better access to contraception, but we will still need abortion services—the fewer the better, but the earlier, more equitable, and safer the better. That’s what this legislation seeks to deliver and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s a real honour to speak tonight, as a feminist who has been working towards abortion law reform for years and also as a member of the Green Party who committed to decriminalising abortion about six years ago—[Interjection from gallery]

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume her seat. That man will be removed from the gallery.

This may point to the need for safe areas and the fact that, actually, there is opposition to those of us who support women’s reproductive health rights. And that has resulted, or at least been used as an argument, in the assault against my co-leader.

So I would, in this speech, like to acknowledge all the submitters and the very adept chairing of the Hon Ruth Dyson and the really constructive engagement from all of the members of the committee—that we were able, I genuinely believe, to listen to each other and hear our differences and accept them and find where there were points in the legislation that we could improve on—and also to acknowledge all of the advisers and officials and the really hard work that was put in on this, and, too, to acknowledge all of those submitters and the really personal stories. It was tough for a lot of people to share those stories, and part of the reason for that is that there is so much stigma surrounding abortion in this country, which makes people feel really exposed. And that’s part of the reason behind the Green Party’s support for this legislation: that people will be healthier and their families will be better the more we can remove the stigma from this healthcare.

It’s obvious from the submissions that we don’t have a consensus in this country on abortion, and there is a very motivated group of people who are deeply opposed to abortion. That was one of the clearest messages that we heard in the submissions—that there is that group of people. We heard and understand those views, and I absolutely support, as others in this House have said tonight, the right of these people to hold, and live according to, those views. But this legislation is not about limiting access to abortion in Aotearoa; that train left the station in the 1970s. This legislation is primarily about updating our law to better reflect the best medical practice and to meet our international obligations to respect women’s bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health rights.

This law, as has been mentioned, has been a really long time coming. To my knowledge, the Green Party was the first political party to commit to decriminalisation, and it took us until 2014. I think it took that long because some people remembered the intensity of the debate in the 1970s and were worried that, if we opened it up again, we would put at risk the existing framework that we have, and also that there is so much silence around abortion in this country. Who would think that one in four women in this country has had an abortion? You would not think that, because there is so much shame and stigma that we silence it, and that is a problem for people in their real lives. And I think most people not affected thought that it was already decriminalised when we announced our policy. In the vox pop on the news, most people were like, “What? Haven’t we done that already?” And those others who weren’t having to go through the system thought it was OK. They thought people were able to easily access the abortion here that they needed.

But what we heard through the submissions and what we’ve been hearing before that was that that is not the truth and that the legislation we have, the framework we have at the moment, is not working well.

The Abortion Supervisory Committee has said that best practice for abortion is that it happen prior to nine weeks. But in New Zealand, only 41 percent of abortions are carried out before nine weeks, and this is a lot less than in comparable countries, where in Sweden, for example, 84 percent of abortion care happens prior to nine weeks because they have a liberalised system and people don’t have to jump through all of those hoops that they do here.

In this country, our legislation means that in some areas pregnant people have to see as many as seven healthcare providers before they can access a termination, and that the average time from going to the doctor for a referral is 25 days, and in some areas it’s two weeks before you can get that appointment. We heard from almost all submitters a real concern about abortions happening later; that was one of the key things that came through. I just want to say to people in this House who hold that concern: this legislation is your best answer to that concern, this will enable people to access abortions when the pregnancy is at the embryonic stage, before it even gets to being a fetus. That, I think, we have shared understanding of. Even when I ask people opposing the bill, because they have a concern around the development of life, about whether they would want abortions, if they were going to be happening, to happen earlier, they said yes. This legislation is how we do that.

Another point that was often raised that I think is really important for people to understand is that there’s a concern that this liberalisation will lead to more people having to seek abortion care, particularly later. There is no international evidence to back that up; in fact, it is the reverse.

Canada has no abortion legislation. It is purely a healthcare issue—that’s been the way since 1988, and they don’t have more. They haven’t seen an increase in terminations happening after 20 weeks, it’s remained very stable. Similar to our patterns, they have, I understand, a slightly lower rate than we do. In Queensland, where they do have a threshold at 20 weeks, they have a higher rate of terminations after that point than Canada does with none. The evidence is that the more restrictive the legislation, counterintuitively the more people are accessing terminations and the more maternal fatalities there are.

If you care about women’s health, if you want to see these women accessing abortion care, accessing it earlier if it has to happen, this is the legislation to do it. I do think we should get rid of the 20-week threshold altogether, and that came through clearly from those very small numbers of people who are actually involved in providing this care in the country. When we heard, previously, from a speaker talking about a GP asking how they were to interpret wellbeing, they wouldn’t know what that would mean. It wouldn’t matter if they didn’t understand that, because they wouldn’t be providing them, because there’s only a very small handful of people who are qualified to provide those services. The thing is that it is according to very strict guidelines of care and medical ethics, and it is my belief that the decisions should still remain with the pregnant person.

As we heard from the Cavanaghs, where they found out that—and from their perspective it was a baby at that point, the heart was growing outside of its body, and they knew that the longer the pregnancy continued, the more pain that their child would experience, and they made the decision to terminate. There are people in their Facebook group who have been through that; others made a different decision, chose to continue the pregnancy because they wanted that birth and the funeral. That is not a decision that a health practitioner should make; that should be their decision on their morals and their conscience, and it’s certainly not a decision for this House to make. How can we insert ourselves into those times in anybody’s life and think that we know better?

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Abortion Legislation Committee by majority be agreed to.