Abortion Legislation Bill

Thank you, Madam Chair. I expect we’re going to have a good, intense scrutiny of this bill this afternoon, so I want to just make some opening remarks. There are a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). I won’t comment in detail on each of them, but I just wanted to make a number of opening points. First of all, the way the debate has been conducted over this bill so far has, I think, been constructive. I know that there are very strong views held and there are members of the House—like many members of the public—who are opposed in principle to the idea of abortions, but that is not what this bill is about. We have a legal framework in place in this country for women to get an abortion. Roughly 13,000 abortions are carried out in New Zealand today, and this bill is about changing that framework, and the objective of it is to make it safer for women—to make it safer for women by enabling women to get access to an abortion earlier than is currently the case, because the average time in which women in New Zealand get an abortion is one of the longest in the OECD. So that is what that is about.

It is clear that from some of the proposed amendments and the SOPs that some members are keen to see some further hurdles or obstacles put in the way when a woman is making the choice, and the process of making the choice to get an abortion, and dealing with her medical practitioner. Some of the Supplementary Order Papers set out, in very prescriptive detail, what medical practitioners might have to do, or should do, in the event that they are consulted by a woman seeking an abortion.

I make the point in principle that it is not appropriate, in my view, for legislation to start prescribing to medical practitioners—qualified medical practitioners—how they should conduct themselves in an age when they not only have high-quality training but they are subject to professional standards in each of their professions, subject to the oversight of the Health and Disability Commissioner and the powers of investigation there, as well as the standards set by, usually, their employers—whether it’s DHBs, whether it’s private clinics and private medical practices. So simply setting out a bunch of prescriptive requirements, in my view, is not helpful, and I certainly won’t be supporting any that do that.

There is a Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Agnes Loheni—I think it’s Supplementary Order Paper 460—that sets out, effectively, three different tests, depending on the point during the pregnancy at which a woman seeks an abortion. The first is up to nine weeks, the second is between nine and 20 weeks, and the third is following 20 weeks. I say of that Supplementary Order Paper that it puts in place obstacles that do not exist today. Supplementary Order Paper 460 represents a massive leap backwards in terms of the ability of women in this country to get medical advice and support and help in relation to an abortion than is the case today. It restricts the administration of an abortion after nine weeks to what is described as a “specialist medical practitioner”. Those specialist medical practitioners are not widely available—certainly in many rural areas around New Zealand—and would impose significant burdens on women in many parts of the country. So I certainly won’t be supporting that.

I go to the Supplementary Order Paper 462 from Joanne Hayes in relation to determining when a woman has the capacity to give informed consent, and I simply make the point that that is already covered off in our legislation. I know that there is a Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Nicky Wagner that seeks a change of language. But, again, notwithstanding the language, it is a provision that is already catered for in the current legislation. I have been handed a further amendment in the name of Simon O’Connor, which refers to “Care of children born after abortion”. So this refers to—

💬 Simon O’Connor: Have a read, and come back to me.

I would like to see the science about a child being born after an abortion, so I’ll put that aside for now and maybe comment on that a little later.

I think it is very important that when we are making our considerations about the content of this bill and the Supplementary Order Papers in relation to it, we do actually observe what the medicine and the science says. I say that particularly in relation to some of the Supplementary Order Papers that touch on the issue of what happens in the post - 20 week period, because when you look at the incidence of abortion at that point, which is a very, very, very small number, and you understand the background of women who seek an abortion at that point, these are wanted pregnancies. These are situations where women, because of their health and possibly sometimes the health of the fetus, are put in that impossible situation of having to make a very, very difficult decision, and adding further requirements and obstacles to that point, or even referring to the idea of a child being born after an abortion, shows a lack of understanding about the reality of women in New Zealand today who seek an abortion.

Women at post - 20 weeks seeking an abortion do not do so willingly. They do so with a great sense that their health is at risk, and it is an extraordinarily difficult time for those women. I do not think this House should make assumptions about women in that situation. That has the potential to look, at its most charitable, extraordinarily patronising, but actually, in reality, it is showing a total lack of understanding about the reality of that situation. I have great respect for my colleague the member Simon O’Connor, but I think he is ill-informed in his amendment.

I go to some of the other Supplementary Order Papers, and Supplementary Order Paper 469 from Chris Penk, which relates to the law related to conscientious objection. It is introducing an additional path for seeking damages in employment situations. That is already taken care of by existing law. If someone has been poorly treated and wrongly treated and unlawfully treated in their employment, there are ample paths to take. One is under the Human Rights Act, if it relates to discrimination, and the other is under the Employment Relations Act.

If I turn to the—and that may, in fact, be in Part 2, so I won’t refer to those. I’ve made some general comments about some of the Supplementary Order Papers, but depending on how the debate takes place, I will respond to specific points made about specific Supplementary Order Papers. But I emphasise the point that those SOPs that actually seek to add more prescription in circumstances where none can usefully be added because of existing guidelines, rules, regulations, and professional requirements in addition to the moral obligations and requirements of the medical health practitioners, I personally certainly won’t be supporting those.

In the end, this is a bill about dealing with a piece of legislation that is more than 40 years old and that is clearly outdated, and for which the time has arrived for it to be updated and to be modernised to allow women in the modern age to, with the help of their health professional, make what is always a difficult decision and to get access to the healthcare and support that they need when they make that decision. I would hope that this House has moved on from an age of the past dominated by the thinking of men that women need to be sort of mollycoddled and cared for and over-regulated and totally regulated. We live in an age now where women are capable of making decisions about themselves and their health, and our legislation should reflect that. Our abortion legislation should reflect that too, and that is the spirit with which we should consider the Supplementary Order Papers in relation to this bill.

I go back to the point I made before. I know there are members here who simply do not like the idea of abortions at all. That debate was won and lost in 1977, when the then relevant Minister, Venn Young, shepherded through the 1977 legislation. It was accepted that it was a legitimate choice for women to make and to seek healthcare and advice. A framework was set up in 1977 to do that, and it is now time to bring that framework into the modern age, which is what this bill seeks to do. I look forward to the remaining debate.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m speaking in the committee stage of the Abortion Legislation Bill, and I would just like to comment on some of Minister’s remarks leading into this part. The Minister has said, with specific reference to the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in my name—SOP 460—that it is a massive leap backwards and that the challenges are administrative ones. I would say that this actually is a key part of the bill. This proposed new section 11 in clause 7, on post - 20 weeks, amends the critical part of the bill which makes this one of the most liberal abortion regimes ever. So before I get on to my SOP, I’m just going to refer to some of the select committee parts to this.

As you know, 25,000 submissions were made on this bill, with 91.6 percent opposed. There is overwhelming public interest in this bill. In particular, in terms of assessing the concerns of submitters on this bill, many—and I would say that it would be in the frame of 60 to 70 percent of those opposed—have concerns around the statutory tests of the bill. The comment was made that they thought it would lead to abortion on demand up to birth. So there is a general consensus that abortions after 20 weeks should be limited to extreme situations, and, actually, the Minister of Justice himself, Mr Andrew Little, has stated that late-term abortions are rare and should only be sought in extreme circumstances, but that is exactly the opposite of what this bill seeks to achieve.

In particular, I refer to new section 11 in clause 7 of this bill. New section 11 in this bill—and it’s stated in my minority view, as well. I gave an assessment of a better reflection of what I thought was coming through the submissions. In particular, one of the changes in new section 11 was to add the word “clinically” to make it “clinically appropriate”—that a health practitioner must reasonably believe that abortion is clinically appropriate. That is very vague and ambiguous. It is not the same as medically necessary.

Further down in section 11, it says that “a qualified health practitioner … must consult at least 1 other qualified health practitioner:”, and I’ve spoken in the House about this part before. There is no definition of what that consultation must entail. Does the second doctor cite the medical records, or even have a consultation in person with the woman? There is no accountability or checks and balances on whether that consultation actually happens. The bill is silent on what happens if the second doctor does not agree with the first doctor. So, in effect, that part is meaningless and doesn’t add anything into putting some real boundaries or accountability into the post - 20 week criteria. So, in essence, it is actually still one doctor.

Overseas jurisdictions: if we look across to Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia—all these Australian jurisdictions have a requirement for two qualified medical practitioners for later-stage abortions, after either 16 weeks, 20 weeks, or 24 weeks.

New section 11 also had an addition in subsection (2), which was to have regard to the gestational age of the fetus. This part is utterly meaningless and does not set any upper limits on when abortion can take place.

I’ve highlighted two key flaws in this section. The criteria is so broad and subjective that it is legally meaningless, and the tests in section 11 cannot be enforced in practice. There is no meaningful ability to review a medical practitioner’s application of this test, which is why I say that section 11 is critical, and, categorically, I will stand, again, by my statement—that is, abortion on demand up to birth. I oppose this bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m grateful to the Minister of Justice for his opening remarks in relation to my conscientious objection Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 469. Regrettably, however, the key feature that the Minister missed in relation to the SOP is about the unreasonable disruption aspect of what is currently in the bill, and I’ll return to that in some detail shortly.

But, first, let me say that the concept of conscientious objection as contained and upheld in my Supplementary Order Paper is one that’s long been recognised in New Zealand law and society. The word “conscience” comes from a root word meaning knowledge—indeed, the word “science” is within the word “conscience”. So it is appropriate that those medical professionals who wish to exercise their conscience in this regard are indeed relying on science in upholding the fact that the separate life that is the unborn child is scientifically upheld by such features as unique DNA, the capacity for self-movement, and so forth.

The key aspect of this, as I say, is around the unreasonable disruption that currently would be able to be used as a basis for precluding the exercise of conscience. I would like it to be noted for the record that the SOP that I have prepared on this matter is very much based upon that that a majority of this House passed in the End of Life Choice Bill—almost to the word, in fact, in a lot of different parts of it. So it is my hope that with a relatively modest proposal in relation to protecting conscience, the House and its committee that’s now considering this provision of the bill will look favourably upon it.

I would like to speak briefly to the mechanics of what it is that I’m proposing and then go into some of the situations in which an exercise of conscience should be upheld in a way that is not currently the case. I’m proposing, in what will be new section 19 of the relevant Act, in clause 7, “(2) A is not under any obligation to provide … [a] service requested if [that person] A objects on the grounds of conscience”. I’ve omitted some words, but I don’t believe I misrepresented the context. That person A is someone who’s carrying out a wide range of activities, which could include contraception services, sterilisation, abortion, or information or advisory services in relation to the continuation or not of a pregnancy.

The effect of the conscientious objection would not be to unduly delay the performance of the services being sought by the woman in question, because I’ve specifically said that the referral, effectively, would need to take place at the earliest opportunity, and the nature of the referral that would be required would be that person A must tell B—essentially, the woman seeking the abortion—that they can attain the services from another health practitioner. So I believe that’s pretty reasonable in balancing the different rights and responsibilities involved.

The unreasonable disruption provision within the bill as it currently stands is such that a person who is working in a medical field—and I use that term deliberately broadly—including a nurse at a public hospital, might be considered to be unreasonably disrupting the activities in a way that the employer considers unreasonable but which they—the person concerned herself or himself—does not consider unreasonable. It is a very vague definition and, as such, is not suited to the irreducibility of freedom of conscience in such a controversial area as this.

I’d like to address the argument that I anticipate would be made against the existence of a right of conscientious objection in relation to abortion, and it goes something along the following lines. They will say that a person should not seek employment where things will be done of which they disapprove. So we might give the example of a vegan who applies for a job at a butcher’s shop. Well, with all due respect, the hospital is not the same as a butchery—or, at least, should not be—and that’s because other activities that I would class as genuine healthcare also happen in hospitals. So it’s entirely reasonable for a person to seek employment in a hospital, a public hospital, that performs health activities that a person has trained for and is happily carrying out without needing to be forced into a regime with which they are not comfortable and, indeed, which they are against—which they are deeply opposed to.

I use the case of the public hospital deliberately. My chief correspondent in relation to this, who’s inspired me to put forward this proposed SOP amendment, is a female nurse. I shouldn’t need to point out that she’s a female, but it somehow seems relevant in the context of the Minister’s opening statement. She too has rights, and these rights, too, should be protected. In her case, these are to go about the work that she’s trained for, that she performs very happily to the benefit of New Zealand society in the particular area that she serves, without being discriminated against in this way. For the purpose of the debate, I’ll call her nurse Marcella—not her real name, but she did not want me to use that, and for that I can hardly blame her.

So I think there’s probably little more that I need to say in relation to the conscientious objection SOP. Obviously, I’d be happy with any interaction that other members of the committee of the whole House or the Minister himself would provide in relation to that, but I’d urge very serious consideration of that. It is a fundamental right, I believe, of New Zealanders that should not be undermined—that they have the right of conscientious objection, at least to the point of being required to refer on for other services.

In my remaining time on this call, I’d like to touch on a couple of other SOPs, not to steal the thunder of colleagues, but suffice to say that a number of them I’ll be watching closely because I think they make very sensible suggestions to improve the bill as it currently stands.

I did want to comment, though, on the SOP in the name of Jan Logie. I refer to SOP 326, which is one of the three that she’s put forward. This is the one—for those not having to hand immediately SOP 326—and I’ll quote from the end part of the explanatory note, because I think it actually summarises the issues involved very clearly indeed: “This amendment would also clarify that the offence of killing an unborn child applies only to death to an unborn child caused by an assault on the pregnant person, differentiating this from assault from an abortion sought by a pregnant person.” So that’s as stated in the SOP itself.

I think this is what the Americans call saying the quiet part out loud. Here we have, in black and white, an acknowledgment that the type of assault—bearing in mind that, as acknowledged by the SOP writer herself, we’re talking about a particular form of assault being allowed and another form of assault not being allowed. It seems to me extraordinary that the rights of the entity variously referred to as the unborn child—as it is currently in the Crimes Act—or a fetus, if one prefers, can be dependent on the intent of the violence that’s perpetrated.

It’s vaguely reminiscent of the classic line from President Richard Nixon along the lines that if the president does it, it means it’s not illegal, which is to say that the person carrying out an act against another is somehow significant to the commission of the offence. While there might be legal situations in which it’s possible that that’s the case, in the case of an unborn child it seems to me extraordinary that we could be even contemplating as a Parliament saying that if there is a deliberate act sanctioned by the law—by which I mean sanctioned in the sense of permitted—it would be OK to cause the death of an unborn child but in other situations that will not remain so.

That brings to the end my remarks on that particular SOP. Again, just to reiterate, I’d be grateful for colleagues to very seriously consider my points in relation to conscientious objection. Others have made other points in relation to conscientious objection. I note that Dr Deborah Russell is proposing a regime whereby some health providers would need to state their position in relation to abortion but others would not. That seems to me unbalanced and therefore unfair. I think that all health providers should be treated in the same way—namely that as the law would currently allow by default, an organisation would have to merely provide services in accordance with the law, accepting that conscientious objection should apply to individuals who want to exercise that within those organisations.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. Tēnā koutou katoa. I’d like to speak to three Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs): 471, which is in my name, and also 472 and 476 in the name of the Hon Ruth Dyson. I speak to these SOPs from a place of being responsive to Lisa Lawrence, who’s the president of the National Council of Women; also Terry Bellamak and Dame Margaret Sparrow, who, obviously, are champions for the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ).

The context of these three SOPs are that, essentially, we want to guarantee, to women who are raped, access to emergency contraception. From our perspective, women in those circumstances, who have been sexually violated—the proposition is that it is not only an unplanned pregnancy, but it’s also an unwanted pregnancy. I think people would be shocked to know that women who have been raped have gone to health practitioners and asked for emergency contraception and not received it. So that’s the reality of bringing these three specific SOPs to the House.

So the rationale is when a woman has been a victim of violence, a victim of sexual violation, of rape, that, actually, access to emergency contraception within that context should not only be guaranteed by the State but it also should be guaranteed by whatever medical practitioner that person discloses to. Herein, I guess, is the most controversial aspect of my Supplementary Order Paper, because, in fact, I do want to take away a conscientious objection for a health practitioner that has a person disclose rape.

Now, the reality of rape in New Zealand—we don’t actually know the comprehensive numbers, but based on sexual violation offences, there’s about 3,500 a year. Some people estimate that’s only 10 percent of the number of rapes that occur in New Zealand. So if a woman does go to the police and discloses sexual violation, my SOP will compel the police to have a relationship with a health practitioner that they can refer that person to, to ensure that they receive emergency contraception.

I guess the context of the definition of “emergency” contraception is really important, from a Medical Council perspective, about what a medical emergency is. I quote: “a sudden, unforeseen injury, illness or complication, demanding immediate or early professional care to save life or prevent gross disability, pain or distress. The immediate responsibility of the doctor faced with, or called to an emergency is to apply his knowledge”—the language in the particular document—“and skill to the saving of life and relief of suffering and to establish the most favourable conditions for his patient’s ultimate recovery. This is the basic philosophy of medicine”.

So I am clear that my SOP is controversial, because I’m saying to medical practitioners, in that circumstance, you don’t have a choice. There is a time limitation in terms of the efficacy of the two modes of emergency contraception. The first is oral contraception that, if you take within 12 hours, can almost guarantee the woman will not get pregnant, and up to 72 hours, that form of contraception may work. After 72 hours, the most effective form to ensure a woman does not get pregnant after she’s been sexually violated is an intrauterine device. So I’m asking the House to consider whether in that context we should actually suspend the right of individual practitioners.

Now, my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson is not focusing on the individual practitioner. Her solution, actually, is to have a responsive health system and for the Minister of Health, through the mechanisms that he has, to actually guarantee access to emergency contraception. The Minister of Health, through the Crown Funding Agreement, can ensure that a provider is available—not an individual practitioner, but a provider—to ensure that women in those circumstances receive the emergency contraception that I would hope she is entitled to.

So those are the different, I guess, strategies to achieving an objective that has been highlighted by the National Council of Women, by ALRANZ, but by other women around the country who, as victims of sexual violence, deserve us—[Bell rung]

Sorry, I rang that a second too early.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to speak primarily to the Supplementary Order Paper in my name that is looking, in effect, to implement option A from the Law Commission’s report and to remove the 20-week threshold. This, I’m very aware, sits in direct contrast to the debate on those who are opposing this legislation, so I welcome this opportunity to talk to some of the reasons and counter some of the concerns that I believe misrepresent the potential impact of this legislation.

So removing the threshold—there’s a perception that’s put out there that that will increase the number of abortions that happen post - 20 weeks. We have absolutely no evidence for that in any country that has done this. In fact, we have evidence to the contrary to that. Also, I do want to just say that it’s currently possible to have an abortion after 20 weeks right now, under our current legislative framework. This is just changing the criteria to enable it to be more—and I would say our proposition is to remove the criteria altogether to enable it to be a decision between the medical practitioner and the pregnant woman, the pregnant person, and her family, if they are involved.

The number of cases where this happens, it’s incredibly rare. It’s 0.75 percent, I think, of all abortions that happen at that stage, and almost all of them—and the evidence that we heard on the select committee was from people who’d been through it and supported others who had—where they were wanted pregnancies. They had the crib set up in their room. They had planned their future as parents. Making people go through additional hoops and feeling as if the decision is being made by this place and the law rather than, actually, the urgency and their medical need and their health needs and their own morals, to me, is just wrong.

I would say that we heard from the Cavanaghs, and they presented evidence from other people that they support. To give one example, Madison and her family chose peace after spending their life savings on IVF, and they chose an abortion at 24 weeks. Their baby had a rare disorder causing catastrophic brain malformations. That’s not a decision for this place, and when people raise the question of there not being any upper limit in this legislation, you are potentially preventing these people being able to save their own lives or make a decision to prevent developmental harm as a pregnancy continues.

I don’t believe that is an ethical decision that can be made on a blanket basis in this House. I believe, and the Green Party believes with me, that that is a decision that can only be held with the pregnant person and their medical practitioner, with the best evidence possible. I would also say that the Law Commission, in their review of this, found that this option was the option that was most supported by health practitioners, and that this is the option that best fits with international human rights legislation. This is not a kind of a “way out” option. It’s not frivolous. It’s not going to result in increased or frivolous terminations.

People are not frivolous. These are difficult, difficult decisions, and I believe that it is the job of this House to act compassionately to support those decisions to be made as carefully and appropriately as possible. And that is between a doctor—or doctors, as is almost always the case—and the people most directly impacted.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to, first of all, preface my statement in my speech—I’m hoping to speak throughout the debate in the committee stage—that from my side, and I know a number of us, we love them both: both the choices of the mother and also the choices of the child. And I want to state that out front, because there are many of those who would try to draw a line between pro-life and pro-choice when, in actual fact, we support both.

The Minister of Justice started off his statements by saying making abortions safer for the woman is the intent of this bill. I want to quote from the report that came from the Attorney-General, and it’s from paragraph No. 23, where he states this: “In considering limits on abortion access, I conclude there are two equally important interests at play: personal bodily autonomy, on the one hand, and a broad societal interest in the preservation of human life, on the other. … The broad societal interest in preserving human life is therefore a sufficiently important objective to justify a limitation on human rights, and limiting access of abortion is a rational way of achieving that objective.”

This issue is about two parts, not just one. And my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) actually describes that. I want to quote further from the quote from the High Court in their submission, where it states this: “Currently our abortion law seeks to balance these competing interests by requiring each prospective abortion to qualify under statutory criteria and by making lawful abortion subject to criminal provisions.” And here’s the point, I think, that’s important, that goes to the heart of some of my SOPs. The High Court states this: “the legislature has recognised, through the abortion law, that the unborn child has a claim on the conscience of the community. We therefore consider it both unprincipled and inconsistent with the aspects of our current law to entirely disregard the interests of an unborn child, as this Bill proposes.” There are both interests, there are two interests here, and I would like to speak to that in my SOP.

My first SOP is SOP 470 and this is in regards to section 40, set out in new clause 16A, about “(Commissioner may investigate breaches)”. This Supplementary Order Paper in my name amends the Abortion Legislation Bill by inserting new clauses 16A and 16B, which give the Health and Disability Commissioner a mandate to investigate contraventions of the regulations that govern the provision of abortion services under the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act of 1977 and the Crimes Act of 1961. This ensures that health practitioners are held to account in relation to the duties under this bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m sorry to interrupt the member—

This is SOP 470.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That’s right, but aren’t you in the wrong part? Isn’t that in Part 2? New clauses 16A and 16B—isn’t that in Part 2?

Oh, yes it is. Sorry, Madam Chair. I can speak to another part of my SOP. I’ll introduce another SOP then.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): You have another SOP in Part 1.

OK, yes, so I’ve got two SOPs that I’d like to—but what I’ll do is I will actually speak to, along with the SOP in my colleague’s name: SOP 459 in the name of Melissa Lee. And this is in regards to clause 12 and section 183 and section 184, “Abortion provided when sought on grounds of discrimination”. And in particular in this SOP, clause 184(1), it states: “A person commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 7 years if the person provides abortion services to a woman, having a reasonable belief that the abortion services are being sought on the grounds of—” and I move to clause (b) of this SOP—“any disability or possible disability of the unborn child (except as provided for in subsection (2))”—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m sorry but you’re still in Part 2. So clause 12 is in Part 2 of the bill. I’ll give you a third try.

Give me a third try—oh, third time lucky.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): If you talk to your first amendment.

OK, clause 7—how does that go?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That’s good. That’s excellent.

I was carried away; I hope I can seek your indulgence for it.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I can tell that. I will give you another go.

If I could speak on SOP 466, which I think is a great—this is in regards to [Bell rung] Thank you, Madam Chair—OK, third time lucky.

This is SOP 466 in my name and this is, in particular, around cultural considerations. This SOP amends clause 7 of the Abortion Legislation Bill inserting a new section 18 to require that persons in organisations with duties or responsibilities under the bill recognise the cultural considerations relevant to the woman requesting abortion services

There’ve been a number of submissions that have been submitted, out of the 25,000, that talked about the importance of these considerations. And in particular, I want to read from a couple of those submissions, and I want to refer to the submission that was made in regards to the issues for Māori in particular and why these considerations are critically important. In this regard, even under the Health and Disability Commissioner, cultural competencies are critically important to considering those issues and those needs that are prominent for a number of different woman and, in this case, who may have cultural considerations that are critically important.

I want to refer to the submission from Te Oko Hou, which is a voluntary tribal collective of Hunga Whakapono Māori from many tribal networks and territories throughout New Zealand. Their submission was quite clearly in opposition to the Abortion Legislation Bill, but was based on a number of cultural considerations that I think are critically important in this regards. First of all, they talk about—“Te Oko Hou claims the unborn child as a taonga under article two of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and believes this deserves recognition and protection [under] the Crown.” So the whole essence of cultural considerations is that we ensure—and we have this throughout different types of health legislation—that we provide an understanding of the importance of the roles of both language, of culture, and particularly of whānau and hapū in this particular case as stated here from the submission that was put forward in that regard.

They also go on to state, “We stand as a community on behalf of the traditional Māori status of the unborn child, to be confirmed as a ‘taonga’ as recognised under article two of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, just as the common notion of tamariki today being a taonga. Both our unborn children and our tamariki deserve protection through societal laws designed to preserve life.”

In their submission they are really clear. They felt that cultural consideration—those who’ve got competent services and also skillsets are critically important to the roles that they could play. We have this provision already in our health services, and we feel that this consideration as an amendment under SOP 466 will be critically important. As set out in new section 18(1) in SOP 466, “Any person or organisation accorded a duty or responsibility under this Act must perform those duties or responsibilities in a manner that recognises, in relation to one requesting abortion services,—(a) the woman’s ethnic background:”—in this case, I’ve given just some quotes from some of those submissions and many others that talked about, in particular, Māori and Pasifika in this case—“(b) the societal attitudes or customs of the woman and others within the woman’s community, including proper recognition of—”.

In a number of the submissions that were put forward, many incidences were given of woman giving, I suppose, the trauma and the tragedy that they felt after having an abortion and the lack of support services that were there for them. We believe that having cultural consideration, those who are skilled can not only provide that service but ensure that they ask a line of inquiry: have they considered the support of the whānau, of the hapū, and even the iwi that may be available there as well?

Also too, in cultural considerations, “(ii) the contribution those ties make to the woman’s wellbeing: (iii) the woman’s cultural and ethnic identity, language, and religious or ethical beliefs:” and “(c) the woman’s spiritual beliefs, which may include a lack of spiritual beliefs.” in this case. But more importantly, it’s having those who are skilled enough to be able to provide that service, in particular, that we think is critically important. “(2) A provider of abortion services must ensure that the services of a competent interpreter”—we know that we are not only just talking about women in this case, but many of the women that may come forward may have different language issues, and interpretation becomes critically important. We currently have those services available as a consideration.

So I believe that this SOP is important. I hope that both the Minister and other members will consider that this would be, to me and to my mind and to others who have submitted, an important consideration to ensure that we have those who have both the skillset and the ability to provide that particular service in regards to cultural considerations. I submit this SOP to the committee.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I am pleased to take a call on this part of the Abortion Legislation Bill in the committee of the whole House. I stand in support of the provision of abortion services to women who are not competent to make an informed choice and give informed consent. This bill does not—does not—offer these services to those women. These women do not have a voice. What this bill does is it treats all women as though they are all competent, and those that are not do not have a right here.

I am looking at clause 7—after section 11, the insertion of 11A. What this Supplementary Order Paper on the new section 11A proposes is the provision of abortion services to a woman who is not competent to make an informed choice and give informed consent. We want to be able to protect them and give them those choices. The vulnerability of women who lack capacity to consent was highlighted in a recent English court that found that it was in the best interests of a 24-year-old woman with a learning disability to compel her to have an abortion that she did not want. While this decision was overturned on appeal, it highlights the necessity for robust safeguards to protect these vulnerable women, and that’s who they are. There is currently danger of women being coerced and abused by virtue of their age or their intellectual capacity to have an abortion against their will.

The Human Rights Commission submission to the select committee stated that “The Code of Rights presumes every person to be competent to give informed consent unless reasonable grounds for believing otherwise. Where a person is not competent to give informed consent, a legal guardian or person holding an enduring power of attorney may consent on their behalf. Where there is no one available to consent on the consumer’s behalf, a health practitioner is guided to consult a suitably experienced colleague before proceeding.” While the Code of Rights may stipulate this, the bill contains no guidelines whatsoever related to the processes to be followed in the case of an inability to consent, and that is a real risk for vulnerable women. This amendment will ensure past and present views are fully taken into account and are facilitated as much as possible.

The new section 11A starts out through the “Provision of abortion services to woman who is not competent to make an informed choice and give informed consent (1) Prior to providing abortion services to a woman, the qualified health practitioner must determine whether the woman has capacity to—(a) make an informed choice; and (b) to provide informed consent to abortion services.” And this will take a test. It will take a test and, if it is found that the woman is incapable of making that decision, there needs to be some form of support for her, because she becomes so vulnerable. So my insertion of new section 11A protects vulnerable women. I think it actually adds to this bill. It makes it more robust and more protective of those women that have capacity issues, and I believe that there needs to be a legal guardian of the woman or somebody that is able to communicate with her to explain to her what has been put on around abortion services and allow her to make that informed consent without being bullied or coerced into that decision “by the court or an agent … following an application for the exercise of the court’s jurisdiction under the relevant provisions of—(i) the Care of Children Acts 2004: (ii) the Protection of Personal Property Rights Act 1988: (iii) and other relevant statute.”

We must look after these women who have capacity issues. We do not want to see them bullied. I believe that the insertion of new section 11A, in clause 7, does make this bill a better bill and more protective of those women who have competency issues. I don’t support the bill.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I am going to speak primarily to my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in my name—the Abortion Legislation Bill proposed amendment 474—which is in Part 1; it is clause 5. This amendment is, essentially, about the right to safely access health services, and my amendment outlines that protecting this right can happen in a way that does not contravene other freedoms. I see this amendment as a way of living our values—living Green values—of respectful engagement and allowing people to also access a health service with dignity.

If we go to the amendment that I am proposing, primarily it wants to improve the current provisions around establishing a safe area. There are three main ways that I want to improve the current proposals. The first one: I am proposing that it is the Director-General of Health who may establish a safe area instead of the Minister. This is part of streamlining a process for service providers to be able to establish a health area. This is also ensuring an independent decision maker is the way to establish the safe area rather than a ministerial or political appointment making the decision around establishing a safe area.

My SOP maintains the high threshold for the establishment of safe areas. The high threshold is, for example, where it says that the director-general needs to be “satisfied that the establishment of a safe area—(a) is necessary to protect the safety and wellbeing, and respect the privacy and dignity, of persons—(i) accessing abortion services:”—and it continues on.

My proposal also wants to give a clearer definition of restricted activities, such as restricting displaying signage with images or messages about abortion services or broadcasting or otherwise communicating such messages about abortion. The provisions as they stand are not clear, do not give a clear definition, and so my SOP goes a fair way to giving a little bit more certainty and definition for these safe areas to be established in the first place.

The third way that my SOP wants to improve the law, in the current proposals, is to actually provide that a breach of a safe area restriction is an infringement offence with a $500 fee as opposed to the $1,000 fee that is currently being proposed. This is because we do not want to criminalise protesting. We understand that the right to protest and the freedom of expression is a dearly held value across a society that affirms human rights, and indeed our bill of rights framework. For this reason, my proposal is wanting to reduce the fee but also do away with the power in the current provisions which enables a constable to arrest and take a person into custody without a warrant.

Again, we do not want to criminalise protest and valid freedom of expression behaviour. We do want to find a clearer and more defined way to set up necessary safe areas. We need safe areas to allow any person wanting to access health services the right to access them with safety and with dignity. So we do see an important need for being able to set up safe areas. We want those safe areas to be established in a way that is far more streamlined for the providers and in a way that doesn’t involve a political appointment and instead has an independent decision maker. I think I will leave it there for now. That is the SOP that I wish to submit to the committee.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Look, it won’t be any surprise to the committee that I oppose this bill. I think one of the things I’ve noticed in initial contributions is the assiduous avoidance of the fact that we’re talking about an unborn child, and when we try to reconcile that with discussions here around human rights, it’s the inescapable fact that what is gestating is a human child. I have yet to see any scientific evidence of a woman giving birth to anything other than a human child.

Fundamentally, I suppose the challenge I put to colleagues as they consider Supplementary Order Papers is to consider what they’re asking for post-utero—outside the womb. It’s been put to us, I think by a Green contribution much earlier, around children with deformities, and so forth. And while one can, I suppose, begin to appreciate the argument, the absurdity, if not the horror, of it, of what happens post - nine months—the idea that a child completely dependent on their parents or their mother, for a singular argument, could be dispatched, for want of a better word, simply because of their medical condition. Our lack of hope or compassion is, as I say, horrifying. So I suppose it’s just a simple thought experiment: if one accepts it’s a human being—and it’s hard to understand scientifically how one couldn’t—then human rights must apply. That has to be noted right from the start.

The other is in response to the initial Minister’s comment, and it is unfortunately coming from some members in the House who are, effectively, arguing with themselves. Again, a Green Party contribution earlier about how people feel around abortion and suggesting that others in this House see those decisions as frivolous—again, that’s argument with oneself. I don’t think anyone believes the decision to abort is frivolous, or easily taken, or one without emotion.

💬 Jan Logie: Why don’t you trust people?

That’s not the point. The simple thing in human life is that we don’t decide whether something is morally or ethically right based on emotion. If it were, we’d be in a very, very strange place. I suppose, to basically illustrate it to that member, it doesn’t matter how compassionate, upset, worried a person is about whatever the subject is, it doesn’t make something right or wrong. And just to really point it out, for post - 20 weeks, there is, in effect, absolutely no medical reason for either mother or baby that an abortion has to happen. Put it again in a very different way—the baby can be birthed and it has no medical consequences at all. We are now talking a very deliberate decision—a very deliberate decision—post - 20 weeks to end that child’s life. And again, it doesn’t take away from the fraughtness of the decision, but I stand here very clearly to point out that the emotion of the decision has very little impact on whether the decision is right or wrong.

There’s also been the suggestion from the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, that there are people who disagree here in principle and therefore are blocking the bill—well, of course that’s what’s happening. I do disagree with abortion in principle, and therefore I will oppose this bill. I mean, heavens, if we were going to apply this to other topics, would we have said this to William Wilberforce when he was opposing slavery and changes? “Oh no, no, Mr Wilberforce, you can’t oppose this bill on slavery, because the Parliament already decided it’s OK.” You know, train drivers in the 1930s and 1940s taking whole groups of people to terrible places—“Well, I’m sorry, you can’t disagree; we’ve already passed some laws saying that taking people to a concentration camp is OK.” I mean, it’s an absolutely absurd argument. So no offence to the Minister—I have respect for him—but if people are going to try and bring rational arguments here that take me for more than a J-1 level of understanding, then bring it.

Secondly, this whole notion of that distrust—distrust, OK. This whole Parliament, I’ve pointed out before, exists on the absolute premise that we do not trust people—men, women, anything else. Our entire job is making laws because we don’t trust people. And if you want me to illustrate the point really simply to those who are saying “Just trust women with this decision.”, well, why should the police ever prosecute a woman for driving in any other way than she chooses right? Just think about it—just think about it.

And then we had the question around doctors. We should have no structures around what doctors do. I just want to point out to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, that one of his colleagues has a bill in the ballot around therapy and conversions that will be limiting what doctors do—and I’m not trying to get into that debate itself. What I’m pointing out is that arguing that doctors should just be allowed to do what they want to do is contradicted by one of his own members. And then, on top of that, we’ve got the wider discussions around the whole conscientious—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Chair. There’s just a few points in response to that speaker that I’d like to raise.

I guess in my previous contribution and previously, I do feel an emotional connection to the experience of people that have gone through this. And that certainly does inform my position on this bill, which is that I hold compassion for their experience and I want us to have a law that enables them to be able to make the right decisions for themselves without stigmatisation or interference from this place.

But it is also rational. And I would point to the fact that there was quite a strong statement—and I wish I’d got it down to be able to repeat it back—about the position of wanting to remove the 20 weeks not being consistent with any human rights perspective, where, actually, that is not the case. In the Law Commission’s report, I point the previous contributor to page 79, where they note—and in chapter 3 additionally—that “international human rights law supports the removal of third party authorisation requirements and other statutory restrictions on abortion.”

I thank the member for also stating clearly his opposition to abortion—and I absolutely support people’s right to that view, and to express that view, and for that to be represented in this House. That is appropriate; there is not consensus in this country on abortion. However, one in four women are likely to have had an abortion in this country. We are not going to stop that. The numbers are decreasing because, actually, it’s about good medical practice and good relationships and access to contraception, and we are supporting more of that.

But I would also make the point that the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recognises forced pregnancy as a crime against humanity. The fact that the human rights agencies around the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women has been calling on this country through several reports now—three, I think—to decriminalise abortion in this country and to support appropriate decision-making in relation to abortion—and this is in consideration of ethics, of law, and of international comparisons, as well as human rights. There were, I think, quite a few submitters who pointed out some language in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as evidence against this piece of legislation, but did not look to the understanding of that language and the consensus understanding across different nations that—while it talks to the right to life—there is an understanding of the rights and sexual and reproductive health rights of women and that that does not stand against countries decriminalising abortion in any way. So while I do absolutely hold to this on an emotional level and see the importance of this House acting with compassion to the forefront, there is very strong logic supported by health practitioners that lies behind this.

And when I hear the previous speaker say that there is no medical reason ever for a post - 20 weeks termination, I do just want to point out that that will result in the death of a significant number of women—if his world view was put into legislation. And not just through taking their own lives, which we know happens when we suppress access to good abortion care, but also through removing the ability of doctors to save women’s lives, which was partly the case for the Cavanaghs, as mentioned earlier. That is a consequence I really suspect very few people in this House would have any support for.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. And thank you for the opportunity to give my contribution on this Abortion Legislation Bill. I would like to speak to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 468, which is in my name. This SOP provides for a new clause, 6AA, and this clause would be inserted after clause 6 on page 5, after line 2.

What it will do is replace the heading that now exists, which is “Administering of contraceptives to mentally subnormal females”. The new clause would read: “Administration of contraceptives to persons without capacity to make or communicate decisions”. This is really a technical amendment. It is designed to modernise the language of the Act and to remove the term “subnormal females”. This term is offensive in the 21st century, and I think it’s offensive to all of us in this House as a description of someone with an intellectual disability.

There is absolutely no change to the intent of this bill with this SOP. The description of the term “not to have the capacity to consent” is aligned with the provisions, the terms, and clinical tests within the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988 and the Care of Children Act 2004.

Finally, the SOP also clarifies that a parent or a guardian, including a welfare guardian, with a clinician may consent to the administration of contraceptives, but emphasises also that any decision must be made consistently with the promotion and protection of the welfare of that person.

I urge members in this House to support SOP 468 in my name. It is solely focused on language, it is not a policy change, and I believe that we all agree that describing a disabled person as subnormal has no place in the 21st century and certainly no place in legislation promoted by this House. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to take this opportunity to speak to my Supplementary Order Paper 475. This Supplementary Order Paper is to address one specific concern that I have about this legislation. I thought hard about this issue before putting this Supplementary Order Paper forward, because I don’t want to see any kind of ethnic profiling happening to address this issue that I am going to talk about, and I don’t want to see any kind of punitive measures put in place for ethnic communities. As parliamentarians, it’s our job to ensure that the legislation works for all communities and not leave it to the communities to ensure that the legislation works for them. So this is our opportunity in the committee of the whole House to address the specific concern that I have—that is, of sex-selective abortions.

This is a reality in the world. Yes, sex-selective abortions happen and in some communities they happen more than in others. I want to acknowledge overseas Governments. They have taken all possible measures to ensure that it doesn’t happen, but it is the mind-set that will take a while to change. So the changes I am proposing here, through my Supplementary Order Paper, can be put into two groups. The first group is about reducing the 20 weeks’ time that is allowed in this legislation for open access to abortion up to 12 weeks, and this is in clause 7, inserting new sections 10 and 11. I’m proposing that 20 weeks be amended to 12 weeks.

Why? Because when a person is pregnant, of course they have to go through several medical tests, but at week 18 we know that around that time women undergo an ultrasound scan. That is an important part of medical testing to ensure the wellbeing of the fetus, but at that time very easily the gender of the fetus can also be found out and that is actually a normal process in the whole medical care that is provided to a pregnant women. I fully support that; yes, women should get all possible tests they should have to ensure the wellbeing of their fetus, but that is something that is very easy to do at 20 weeks. So by reducing the time from 20 weeks to 12 weeks, it will not be that easy. I’m not saying that the gender of the fetus cannot be detected before 12 weeks, but what I’m saying is that it is difficult and by 20 weeks it becomes really easy.

So for someone who goes for an ultrasound scan at 18 weeks, finds out it is a female fetus—and I’m specifically talking about the mentality that is there to prefer a male child over a female fetus—they then have around two weeks’ time to access an abortion. I don’t want to see that happening here in New Zealand. The argument that there is no evidence of such abortions happening here in New Zealand, in my view, is baseless, because we haven’t gone out to collect that kind of evidence, so we don’t have any evidence, and with this legislation it will become really easy for people to access a sex-selective abortion. So the numbers might increase, but it will be really hard for us to know if they have been because of this reason, because I don’t think people will truthfully declare the reason for the abortion if they seek that abortion after their ultrasound scan at 18 weeks.

The second component of my Supplementary Order Paper is to insert a new subsection—this is after new section 20F(1). This is again in clause 7. This says that a qualified health practitioner must refuse to provide fetal ultrasound screening to a person where the qualified health practitioner has reason to believe that the person is undergoing that ultrasound scanning only to find out the sex of a fetus, and, secondly, that that information will be used to go out and get an abortion to ensure that the fetus that is carried to the full term is of a preferred sex.

So I have objection to this. In this legislation there is no protection for health practitioners to say no on this ground. So it’s really important that we provide this safeguard—this ability to health professionals. We put a lot of responsibility on them and they’re the best judge to decide if any kind of medical testing is needed for medical reasons or not. I can fully understand that families, when they have a woman that is pregnant, get quite anxious and sometimes they want to undergo some testing, and it should be the medical practitioner deciding whether that medical testing is required or not. And if the medical practitioner thinks that testing is only to identify the sex of the fetus, then they should be able to say no to that.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Can I just take a call to speak in support of my own Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) 472 and 476. I’ve had some queries from colleagues from both sides of the House, because the second part of SOP 472 looks remarkably similar to SOP 476. I’ve submitted SOP 476 earlier today to cover off the eventuality that the second part of SOP 472 might be determined as out of scope by the presiding officer, so that’s my back-up provision. But I’d like to just explain briefly what these two SOPs do and why the select committee that I had the privilege of chairing didn’t recommend these changes.

Members of the committee will know that in the bill there is provision for conscientious objection. So if there’s someone anywhere along the spectrum of engagement with a person seeking an abortion or seeking emergency contraception, the person to whom that request is made is able to say, “I don’t do this.”—they can register a conscientious objection. The Abortion Legislation Committee did a very generous and fair allowance for conscientious objection, in my view. The bill further says that if a woman is seeking emergency contraception which avoids her getting pregnant—that’s the purpose of emergency contraception—she might go to a chemist who says, “No, I’m a conscientious objector; I’m not going to dispense that prescription for you.”, the bill requires that chemist to give the woman the name of somebody who will dispense the prescription to her.

What the select committee didn’t think of, and what this SOP seeks to correct, is that there’s no requirement for that information about the non-conscientious objector to be nearby. So we could have a woman in Whanganui—a fine town, if I may say so—seeking emergency contraception, and the chemist says, “No, I’m a conscientious objector; here’s a provider.”, and the provider’s in Invercargill—hopeless. So all my SOP seeks to do is say “the nearest provider.” It delivers what the select committee’s intention was and clearly provides this House with security that any opportunity that we have to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and therefore abortions, should be taken. So that’s why I’m strongly supportive of that.

The second part of my SOP 472, which is now in new SOP 476, is to require the Minister of Health to ensure that emergency contraception is available throughout the country. We heard terrible stories at the select committee about a lack of equity of access to services, both in emergency contraception and in abortion services. We know that we have a large number of small, isolated communities, and if you happen to live in one of those areas—Kiritapu Allan will be able to name many of them from her part of the world—it is totally unacceptable for women in those towns to be unable to access emergency contraception solely on the basis of where they live. So that’s what the second part of SOP 472 and the new SOP 476 seek to address: making sure that the information that the woman gets is helpful—they will be able to go down the road or, you know, not too far away to get access to emergency contraception—and the Minister of Health will have an obligation to ensure that it’s provided. So that’s, simply summarised, my two SOPs. Mr Chairman, thank you for the call.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I would like to comment on a number of amendments proposed to Part 1 of this Abortion Legislation Bill. Darroch Ball is proposing that, much as the recently passed End of Life Choice Act, this bill become an Act that is passed only, in truth, when there’s a referendum to confirm it. I, of course, supported a referendum on the End of Life Choice Act; regretfully I don’t think there’s a need for that on this Act, and, therefore, I’m opposing that.

On the other hand, Jan Logie’s amendments on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 325 propose that Model A, as recommended by the Law Commission, be introduced or at least restored to this initiative. When Newshub’s Tova O’Brien did a straw poll of MPs asking which model they support, I’m proud to say that I was one of only three MPs who supported Model A. Model A would mean that there was no statutory test at any point of pregnancy. It goes to the practical reality that abortion is a matter between a woman and a doctor, and the only thing that the State can do by putting in place a statutory framework is to make it more difficult, more stigmatising, and more traumatic—and I’m opposed to that. I hope that Jan Logie’s amendment will get up and pass.

There is also another amendment by Jan Logie to replace “woman” with “pregnant woman or other pregnant person”. I understand the intent of what she is trying to do, but I do have to say that getting bogged down in these definitional debates is a great frustration for people who want to pass this law; I don’t think I can support that.

Melissa Lee, I have to say, is perhaps the most heartfelt person putting an amendment up on this legislation. She is deeply concerned about sex selection and disability. She has put two amendments that would prevent—in theory, at least—people having abortions for the purposes of sex selection or stopping a baby being born with a disability. I think it would be churlish not to think very hard about what Melissa Lee is saying. However, it’s also important that when we consider legislation that we look not only at the intentions, which in this case are absolutely noble, but also that we think carefully about the effects or the outcomes of a legislative initiative. In this case, it is very difficult to imagine how this law is going to prevent a person truly determined to practise sex selection.

The Abortion Legislation Committee that was chaired by Ruth Dyson, that I was a member of, considered this issue very carefully, and we decided to put a declaration that the Parliament does not approve of abortion for those purposes. We also recognised that we couldn’t effectively stop determined people; what we might achieve inadvertently, by putting such a condition in the law, is to create prejudice as a way of trying to detect who might be carrying this out. Unfortunately, the practical reality is that women who are from a culture that is thought to practise sex selection, for instance, are going to find themselves discriminated against. So in a bid to remove one prejudice we fail, but we introduce another. So I say, with some regret, to Melissa Lee that I for one can’t support that, and I don’t think others should.

There are amendments in the name of Agnes Loheni. I question some of the science around anaesthetising a fetus. In terms of the 20-week restriction, I think that just shows a real lack of compassion for that tiny portion of women who find themselves in need to abort a wanted pregnancy often to save their own lives. I really think that she needs to take a look at her SOP and, frankly, at herself before she brings things like that to this committee.

There’s Jo Hayes’ amendment saying that there needs to be informed consent. Well, we have a lot of debates like this over the End of Life Choice Act, and consistently what was found was that the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights already requires that, so it would be somewhat redundant. We then have Jo Hayes saying that children shouldn’t consent to an abortion. I think, ultimately, wherever you fall out on the side of this particular issue, you should be very cautious about how you impose it on children. So, obviously, no one would want children or minors to be pregnant; I don’t think that should be the case—it’s almost illegal—and I don’t think that they should be seeking abortions either. But given the circumstances that some people face, it’s really not clear how a prohibition on abortion is going to make matters better, as it won’t with adults. So I can’t support that.

There are a number of further amendments that have been tabled later, and I just want to comment on two of them. One of them is in the name of Ruth Dyson, which, as you might expect from her, is eminently sensible, and I think that deserves the committee’s support.

The other one is from Marama Davidson, which says that there should be amendments to the extent that the safe areas still exist but they’re initiated by the provider, the clinic in question, rather than the Director-General of Health, and that the test is more objective and that it’s any discussion of abortion services, and that it becomes an infringement notice regime. Now, as somebody who is always concerned about protecting freedom of expression, I think there’s a lot of merit in that particular amendment. However, there are also some major flaws in it. For one, an infringement notice regime, while technically defensible for those accused, in practice means that you can be suppressed simply on the basis of an officer or a constable deciding that they don’t like what you’re doing. You do not have the kind of defences when a prosecution must be brought.

Secondly, the issue that I find a little bit odd with it is that in a sense, it’s a pass for people to be able to protest according to ability to pay. That, from a civil liberties point of view, I find very difficult. So I do think that that Marama Davidson’s amendment is better than the status quo, but I think that it is actually not the best amendment for people who are concerned about freedom of speech.

I have an amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 464, which would remove the safe area provisions from this legislation. The reasoning for doing that is several. First of all, we all know that freedom of expression is critically important to New Zealand. We should only remove it if we feel that there is a very justifiable reason. Now, the Law Commission has said, “The commission has not seen any clear evidence that the existing laws around intimidating and anti-social behaviour are inadequate, as would be required to justify the introduction of safe access zones.”

It is also true, and I hope the Minister will get up and tell us—I’m sure he’ll tell us—that Crown Law has said that Crown Law believes that the impairment of freedom of expression is justified in this particular instance. Well, that’s all well and good, but I would rather that this committee takes the facts from the advisers and makes the value judgments ourselves. The Law Commission has done the most rigorous and robust empirical study of whether there truly is a problem out there with people harassing and intimidating women around abortion clinics. They’ve said that there is not a problem. It’s not up to Crown Law to make value judgments; it’s up to elected representatives.

Secondly, we need to think very carefully about the implications of this legislation, because what it means is that the society has decided that on an ad hoc basis, when there’s people we don’t like—and I, for one, don’t like anti-abortion protesters very much—that we are going to introduce a makeshift law that suppresses freedom of speech on an ad hoc basis. People might think very carefully about the words of a member who changed her mind and just told me in the last few minutes that she’s supporting this. She said, “Had a change of mind. You’re right. Freedoms of movement and the right to protest is a value that’s critical in a democratic country.” In New Zealand, we might want to think carefully about groups of students, about farmers, about oil and gas industry people who might say, actually, “We want the kinds of protection from protest activity that those people got in the Abortion Legislation Bill.” That’s the precedent that’s being set here, and I think we should be really careful about setting such a precedent when the Law Commission says there is not a problem. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Abortion Legislation Bill. Firstly, I’d like to ask Minister Little a question which relates to my Supplementary Order Paper 465. My Supplementary Order Paper seeks to make an amendment around the collection of data and the publishing of data which is in clause 7, in replacement sections 20D and 20E. My question primarily relates to why clause 20E has a limitation period of 18 months for the collection of information from abortion services which are provided. Now, I’d like the Minister to take a call and explain this. He hasn’t explained the rationale regarding this part of the bill yet, but I do think it’s an important piece because this bill does change the nature and change the way in which information in relation to abortions are collected in New Zealand.

Currently, the Abortion Supervisory Committee has the responsibility of collecting that information and publishing an annual report. Under this bill, the Abortion Supervisory Committee will be abolished and it will become the duty of the Director-General of Health to collect, collate, analyse, and publish information. Under replacement section 20D(1) “The Director-General must—(a) collect, collate, analyse, and publish information about the provision of—(i) abortion services in New Zealand; and (ii) counselling services in relation to, or in connection with, the provision of abortion services; and (b) develop and publish standards for the services described in paragraph (a).”

In the next section, replacement section 20E, abortion service providers are to notify the director-general about abortion services provided. There’s a range of pieces of information which they have to provide, some of which is provided in Schedule 2. Right at the end under replacement section 20E(5) it says, “This section is repealed on the expiry of 18 months after the date on which it comes into force.” I guess my first question to the Minister is why is there an expiry date in regards to this second part of the collection of information when there are other parts of this legislation which require information to be collected for much longer periods? One of these could be replacement section 20F(2), which requires that there must be “Not later than 5 years after the commencement of this section” a report around sex selection.

So what we’re seeing here is, I think, a discrepancy whereby the abortion service providers are only required to collect information about the abortions provided in New Zealand for only a period of 18 months, but there are other aspects of this bill which require information and reports to be created, which require up to five years or longer. So I’m asking the Minister if he could take a call and explain this discrepancy to me. And if it is his will, as is it would be mine, I would suggest that my Supplementary Order Paper may be an opportunity where we can look to remove this subsection 5 in replacement section 20E so that this section continues in perpetuity.

I’m not sure if that’s the intention, so that’s one of the reasons why I ask the question. But I would also argue that this should be the intention of this legislation, that we do want to see this information collected for a longer period of time so that it’s not only able to be used for the purposes outlined in other parts of this bill but also so that there can be comparisons made between the information provided by the Abortion Supervisory Committee in the annual reports that they currently provide and the reports which will then be provided under this new piece of legislation, assuming that it passes.

In my Supplementary Order Paper it also included a couple of additional sections which could be included in the Schedule, which would essentially mean that the report provided by the director-general is going to be the same as what was provided by the Abortion Supervisory Committee, so there is a direct comparison between the two. I do ask the Minister to be able to answer those questions, to outline to the Chamber the rationale for this discrepancy, and I hope that we can work together to fix it.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and I thank Mr Brown for his invitation to speak. I had intended to go through a number of responses to a number of contributions, but I’ll deal with his because I think Mr Brown makes a good point. It certainly has been the intention—I think that the committee had intended it—that there will still be a continued collection of relevant statistical information so that we know what is happening in relation to the incidence of abortion in New Zealand.

That proposed replacement section 20E is a transitional section. We know that the Abortion Supervisory Committee collects information, collects data, and publishes that data. That was intended to ensure that that continues: the data specified in subsection (1) of that proposed section, as well as the data set out in Schedule 2 in accordance with subsection (2) of that proposed section 20E.

However, that part of the bill, and specifically replacement section 20D, requires the director-general to collect, collate, analyse, and publish information. It is set out there and describes the information that has to be collected. I would also refer the member to proposed section 21, which is a general regulation-making power where the Governor-General can provide, by way of regulation, requirements and stipulations on the director-general. That would also include a requirement in relation to the information that has to be collected and collated, analysed and published. So I think that is covered off.

I think where the member’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 480 goes a little bit far is in some of the information that he wants collected. So it’s not just the previous pregnancies but viable pregnancies and what have you. That is not necessary to evaluate the impact of, or the significance of, or the incidence of, abortions in New Zealand. So that is the reason why I don’t support his SOP.

If I could just go through some of the points that I and the other Minister who has sat in the chair on my behalf have recorded, the points that have been made. I’ll do my best to rattle through these, to provide a response to members who have put in effort to put in SOPs, and taking the time to speak to them. I think that is the right way for these debates to continue.

I do note the member Agnes Loheni’s reference to abortion on demand up to birth. It’s a sad trope that gets trotted out by the anti-abortionists about abortion up to birth. There is no abortion up to birth; there never has been abortion up to birth in New Zealand. We regulate in relation to up to 20 weeks. When the Law Commission was looking at the question about where you put the threshold, it was all about fetal viability.

Other jurisdictions that have reformed their abortion laws more recently: I think of Queensland in Australia that has a threshold of 22 weeks; I think of the state of New York in the United States that has a threshold of 24 weeks. Because the medical evidence, generally speaking, suggests that fetal viability is not possible until at least 23 weeks. We have set it at 20 weeks. I think that is the right thing to do, and reflects the law that has been in place since 1977. So it does not help the debate when we get into extreme—and, frankly, inaccurate—labelling like that.

I know the member wants to change the language from “clinically appropriate” to “medically appropriate”. That reflects, I think, the fact that our medical profession now is bound by a set of articulated standards that did not exist 40 years ago. When Venn Young was pushing the legislation through at the time, the medical profession was very much, sort of, operating like a conclave. It was even tighter and more secret than, you know, electing a pope, but that’s changed now. We have an openness and a transparency in our medical profession that we did not have 40 years ago. Those standards and the clinical standards that the medical profession of all types—health practitioners—operate to are known. They all have their own various colleges and professional standard-setting bodies—their disciplinary bodies. We didn’t have that 40 years ago, perhaps apart from the New Zealand Medical Association, which didn’t do a great deal at that time—a little bit more busy more recently, because people know their medical rights.

I want to go to the point made by Alfred Ngaro about his SOP relating to Treaty rights. I know he says that Māori he’s spoken to regard pregnancy as tapu, and therefore a taonga. But the Treaty deals with the obligations as between the Crown and Māori collectively. The Treaty was never intended to deal with the rights of a patient consulting a doctor—that is not what the Treaty was about, and so we do not need to go that far. So I don’t support the SOP that that member has put up.

The member Jo Hayes refers to her SOP 462, and she’s concerned about women being coerced to give consent, and the issue of whether or not they’re capable of giving consent. Medical professionals are required, as a matter of course, to determine the capacity of their patients, whether they can give consent. In a situation like this, where a woman is consulting her medical professional, an issue that a medical professional has to be alert to is whether there is an element of coercion. That has always been the case in relation to these things. Medical professionals must advise if they are concerned that the person who is consulting with them may be under some sort of coercion or intimidation, and what have you.

I’m going to come to the issue of safe areas. I know the member Marama Davidson talked about her SOP 474, and would prefer it if the decision was left to the Director-General of Health, rather than the Minister. For the reasons that David Seymour has well articulated—which is that it is, in the end, a political issue, and political considerations will apply—I think it should sit with the Minister, but I’ll come to that in a little more depth, to respond to the points that Mr Seymour has made.

I acknowledge my friend and parliamentary colleague Simon O’Connor and his amendment regarding births following abortion. I should say, although I said that that never happens, I am corrected. It does happen extremely rarely, when an abortion happens very late in the pregnancy. I’ll go back to the point that others have made: women do not decide on a whim, substantially through the pregnancy, that they’ve changed their mind, they don’t want the pregnancy. By 20 weeks, women want the pregnancy. They want that child, but something goes seriously wrong, and they have to consult their medical professional, and the question of abortion might arise. Now, he’s concerned about the situation—the very, very and extremely rare situation—in which, having consulted about an abortion, the fetus is viable, and can be delivered viably. I acknowledge that point, but there are medical professional obligations that already surround that particular situation.

I acknowledge the points made by Nicky Wagner in her SOP 468. I agree with her that the language is out of date. A lot of the language in the rest of that legislation is out of date, but I do note that this legislation deals solely with the issue of abortion. I would like to think at some point this House could come back at a later stage, at the very least, just to tidy up the language in the legislation so it is not cast in the offensive terms that it is at the moment.

To Parmjeet Parmar, who has raised her issue about ethnic profiling, I repeat the point that I think David Seymour made, which is to deal with that issue in the way proposed in that SOP, SOP 475, ends up, in effect, requiring a medical practitioner to exercise a level of prejudice that may not be helpful—in fact, may be harmful. I don’t agree with that SOP.

💬 To David Seymour: I won’t go through the SOPs he says he doesn’t support, because I largely agree with him on each of those. I make this point in relation to his SOP 464 about removing the safe area or safe zone provisions. I agree with him. I know he doesn’t think I do sometimes, but I totally agree with him and his concern. I look to him as the champion of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. It is the right thing for a party of his ilk to do. He does it very well, and I respect him for it.

He refers to the Law Commission saying there was no evidence of the need for this. I recite to him the age-old adage, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. So the Law Commission didn’t see it, but the reality is that others came to the Abortion Legislation Committee and expressed their experience. Just from some of them that went to the select committee—Scott Summerfeld said, “I want to be clear, these anti-abortion protests are harassment.” He was talking about things that have actually happened. They are directly targeted at people accessing abortion services in a very deliberate manner. There were other contributions as well.

I want to make this point too: the purpose of the safe area provision, with all the safeguards around it, it’s not guaranteed in any particular case. A DHB has to make the case to the Minister at the time, who has to be satisfied that there is a need, and that it is a justified limitation on the freedom of speech or freedom of expression. This is about prevention. It’s no good saying to a woman who’s been intimidated and harassed, “You can lay complaint afterwards.” They should not be subject to that when what they are doing is consulting a medical practitioner about a decision they must be entitled to make.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I stand to speak to Supplementary Order Paper 466, as it seeks to amend clause 7 of the Abortion Legislation Bill Part 1. This is in the name of Alfred Ngaro. The amendment seeks to include a requirement to have individuals or organisations who are tasked with responsibilities under the bill ensure that the cultural background of persons seeking abortions be taken into consideration when assessing their situation and giving them advice.

The House knows very well that I am a New Zealander of Filipino descent. I represent a community of first generation migrants. And due to the migration settings in the past decade or so, when Filipino skilled migrants arrived in New Zealand and doubled in number, the immigration settings had Filipinos arriving with young children, children in their teens, and young adults. The relevance of these facts goes to the probability that when a young person comes seeking an abortion, the request is made out of a desire to keep her pregnancy secret. This desire is based on many, many factors, but most likely on the basis that the father is absolutely absent or is coercive towards that point. There is also, in our culture especially, that feeling of shame or desire not to cause distress to her parents and extended family.

I speak for families in this situation—Filipino families, families of other migrant communities, I also speak for all families who will identify with the words that I am speaking. These circumstances place the person asking for an abortion in a vulnerable state, where she makes the request already predisposed to having an abortion due to her circumstances and, quite truly, not really out of her own free choice. Culturally, for Filipinos and many migrant communities as well and families out there, there would be an overwhelming desire for families to come in support of a pregnant teen, to make sure that she gets that support from family and allow her to carry on, give birth, take care of the child, and continue to live a life where she can study and work—a meaningful life.

Taking that into consideration will allow the advisers of the person who seeks an abortion to be able to take into consideration and include these circumstances in their advice, especially, on top of these considerations as new migrants, where English is not their first language. A perfect storm is gathering, where young women are driven to decide to have abortions, even as their families would be more than willing to help them through a pregnancy. The full extent of the abortion process, therefore, must be described in clear detail—taking all of their circumstances into consideration and including the level of physical pain and, of course, the possibility of resulting isolation due to her cultural circumstances must be described to her clearly to help her and give her the advice that she needs at that point when she seeks this advice: looking for an abortion. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’d just like to comment on some of the Minister’s remarks in regard to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 460 in my name. I mean, it’s clear to me in the reading of section 11, which I notice that the Minister never refers to the actual parts that I’ve raised in this bill on section 11, on what is not defined, what is now not accountable. And it is, actually, in my SOP that I am striving to find just that little bit of recognition—just a small semblance of recognition for some rights of the unborn child, which makes up the two parts of what happens: the two people that are involved in an abortion. That is what I’m seeking to get some little balance on, because it is totally out of kilter in this bill—totally out of kilter. All the rights now are with one party, and I’ve said to the Minister, Andrew Little, that in the wording—and I think I’ve been very, very clear in the wording—about why I believe that this will lead to abortion on demand. He’s very quick to dismiss that. Just, “Oh, this is just ridiculous.”, but, actually, he doesn’t actually come back and argue the points that I have made into section 11 and the new criteria in this bill—they are so broad as to be meaningless, and I stand by what I say. So that’s what I’m trying to do: try and get some little semblance of recognition which has been totally wiped out in this bill.

I won’t comment any more on that part. I’d just like to make some comments in regard to member Jan Logie’s SOP—her SOP 325—which is, ultimately, to go to option A. And I noticed one of the comments raised was that this was the option that was most supported by health practitioners. So is that the suggestion by the member—that health practitioners should be the legislators for this bill? Because I’m pretty sure that the member was in the same committee with me, where there were over 25,000 submissions on this bill, of which over 91 percent were opposed. The member also stated, and it’s been heard before in the Chamber a couple of times today, “wanted pregnancies”—“Every pregnancy post - 20 weeks is a wanted pregnancy.” Well, we would like that to be the case, but actually we know as legislators that we have to provide a law to account for situations where that is not the case, because I’m not a mind reader and I’m pretty sure the Minister’s not a mind reader either.

So we have—in the current law, and I’ve heard this before—very rare and exceptional circumstances for abortions post - 20 weeks. We have a law now—the current law now allows for those very rare and exceptional circumstances. So I have laid claim—and I’ve put in an SOP here—to make sure that we leave it; to make sure that it is restricted to those very rare and special circumstances, and that’s what’s in my SOP.

The other one that I’d like to comment on is that the member continues to say in this House that one in four women have abortions. That is completely false—that is completely false. Statistics New Zealand—very recent data—have confirmed that for every 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44, between 13 and 21 of them have had an abortion that year, and, over the last five years, that has averaged at just under 14 abortions per 1,000 women. There is another study by the University of Auckland, which found that it was one in 10 women. So even if you take that number—that one in 10—it is completely out of the ballpark and is completely wrong and misleading.

I would just like to, quickly, in my short time remaining, raise that I do have an SOP around fetal pain. This is around trying to find some humane treatment of those unborn babies post - 20 weeks.

Thank you, Mr Chair—good choice. It is the first time that I’ve had an opportunity to get up and speak on this particular bill. I’d like to state, first of all, my intention to vote against this bill once again and actually put on record how offended I was at the very thought that some members actually think that, just because I am voting against this bill, I am opposed to abortion purely because of my religious views, and that I must be some sort of a religious zealot. I actually find that very offensive, and I’d like to state that before I actually get going.

I have a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), which I will speak to in the second part of this bill—SOP 459. It is in Part 2, so I won’t go into the detail of it right now, but I have also flagged to members that I intend to split the bill so that there is a differentiation between the gender selection and the disability selection in terms of discrimination.

One of the things that the Minister of Justice spoke about earlier when he was responding to some of the SOPs that were presented by different members and one of the things that he talked about in regard to Dr Parmjeet Parmar, and the fact that he reflected on Mr David Seymour’s response to that and on how that was going to be creating more confusion—I think he was actually confusing Dr Parmar’s SOP with my SOP in relation to the gender selection issue, and abortion for the sole purpose of sex selection and how that might actually create ethnic profiling. I think the only person who has so far done any kind of ethnic profiling is that Minister, because there is nothing in my SOP that deals with anything that is actually ethnic. He has already decided that some ethnic communities are profiling the gender of the child in utero and are choosing to abort.

What I wanted was purely to remove the discrimination, because I know for a fact that there are parents of children who actually have three boys already and they don’t want another boy; so they want to have a girl child. The reverse is also true, which is that there are some families who have three girls, for example, and they don’t want any other girls. They want a boy child. I want to remove that discrimination that exists.

Sure, we have ethnic communities in other countries—for example, in China, they’ve actually had a one-child policy, where only the boy child was preferred. The boy child was preferred because in some ethnic cultures—not just China, but including Korea—boy children are actually known as the superannuation guarantee for the parents, because boy children are thought to be the ones who will look after their elderly parents when they are older. So that is the reason why they are wanted. But what happened in China, for example, was it was a Government policy, and more than 30 million boy children, who are all grown up now, don’t have wives, because there they aborted girl children because that’s what they wanted. That was a policy. But what my Supplementary Order Paper—and new section 20F in clause 7 of this particular bill, dealing with abortion for the sole purpose of sex selection, is something that I am really concerned about.

If the select committee members and the Minister are concerned about that particular issue and saying that New Zealand doesn’t actually agree with doing abortions on the basis of gender discrimination, we should be doing something about it. Just to say that “Oh, it’s going to cause ethnic profiling.” I don’t think is enough of an answer. We already know there’s a problem. We need to actually deal with it.

The other thing is I find it offensive when women in this House, or any other people, say that abortion is the sexual and reproductive right of every woman and that a child in utero—a baby in utero—is another part of a woman’s body. A baby growing in a woman’s uterus is not like an appendix. Cutting out an appendix and cutting out a child in utero is not the same, and I particularly oppose this bill because of that post - 20 week to no-limit abortion. I think it is absolutely abhorrent, and that is the reason why I oppose this bill.

I will get to my SOP further down the track when we’re discussing Part 2.

I rise to speak in this debate. I am supporting this legislation for reasons that I have previously spoken about: the importance of ensuring that women have equal rights in New Zealand and that they have access to safe abortions. We know there are significant issues around access in terms of New Zealand, but also I believe that we have a very archaic law.

The specific issue and Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that I wanted to deal with is actually David Seymour’s SOP 464 around safe zones. This has been an incredibly hard decision for me on this SOP, because I am what I would consider one of the most liberal members in the House. I believe in freedom of speech and I believe in freedom of political communication, but I will not be supporting David Seymour’s SOP, which is a very hard decision and I’ll tell you why.

Basically, I don’t buy the argument that there isn’t some harm that does occur with some women, and some of the submitters turned up to select committee and actually said that. This is not an unusual provision across the world, and, in fact, I’ve just been reading a lengthy judgment from Australia—a 200-page decision—whereby, as I understand it, most of the jurisdictions and territories in Australia have something like these safe zones. Basically, when you look at that particular case and you look at the balance that is being struck here, there is this recognition that with freedom of speech and freedom of political communication, there are limits to that if there is harm that is being caused by individuals. I accept David’s argument that the Law Commission has said that there isn’t significant evidence of this, but with all due respect, we are dealing with a different legal framework.

I have personally experienced and many other members in the House have experienced some of the bullying and intimidation that has come from some of the people who have been submitting. I have heard the stories of some of the people who have put in submissions, and I can’t, with my conscience, support David’s SOP, because I don’t actually have confidence in the bullying and intimidation laws in New Zealand. So the ideal thing here for me, from a parliamentary perspective, when our schools are rife with bullying and our country has a major bullying issue, would be to properly deal with that with a legislative perspective, but we don’t have that bill before Parliament.

So I have been in a very difficult situation on this bill because my absolute instincts are to support David’s removal of these safe zones, but I know that the rest of our law is deficient and that there will be women who will be intimidated and who will be harassed, and the reality is that it is not an unlimited provision. The reality is there will be protesters outside those safe zones. They will have the ability, as was noted in a 200-page legal case in Australia, where there are limits and proscription around these safe zones.

I will also be supporting, unusually, Marama Davidson’s SOP 474 because, again, and I know that there will be lots of different views in this House, I think there has been an attempt to better balance—and I think David noted this in his speech to the committee—the right of freedom of expression and the right to protest and to be able to have people’s views heard. Thank you very much.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Actually, it’s appropriate that I follow the Hon Nikki Kaye, because I too want to speak to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 464, in the name of David Seymour. In doing so, I do want to acknowledge that, within his SOP, he has referenced the Law Commission, and it’s true that they didn’t recommend safe areas. It’s also true that Crown Law said that in implementing these, the right to freedom of expression is impaired.

But I’ve managed to find two pieces of evidence that actually will help us, as a Parliament, decide on the balance that is being struck, I believe, within this bill. The first is from the US, and it’s titled “Effect of abortion protesters on women’s emotional response to abortion”. It was conducted by looking at 30 facilities. They interviewed 956 women who were going to those clinics for an abortion, and 25 percent of the women interviewed said that it had little effect and 16 percent said that it had quite a lot, or that they became extremely upset—that it was a difficult enough situation.

The second piece of research I want to highlight is titled “Anti-abortion protest and the effectiveness of Victoria’s safe access zones: an analysis”, and it looks at safe access zones in Tasmania, ACT, Victoria, the Northern Territory, and New South Wales. Tasmania was the first jurisdiction to implement these safe access zones, in 2013.

Essentially, this is what they said about what the protesters actually say and do: they intrude into people’s personal space—of patients and of family members who choose to accompany people wanting to have an abortion. They dispense propaganda, including fetal dolls. They implore them not to kill their babies. They castigate them as murderers. They heckle them. They threaten them. They verbally abuse them. Some of them are stopped from exiting their cars, and some of them are physically stopped from entering the clinic. This is not just the women and their families and friends who take them to these abortion clinics but also the staff.

I actually think we need to think about that context of our health practitioners working in those facilities who have to endure all of that type of abuse every day. I believe there is a health and safety element to the provisions in the bill, and, therefore, when we think about the health and safety provisions—that a provider will go to their DHB, who will go to the Ministry of Health, and then, in consultation with the Ministry of Justice, they will then designate a particular clinic as requiring a safe zone. So when we look at the, I think, quite logical step that the Abortion Legislation Committee has recommended and the Minister of Justice has recommended—we’re not having blanket safe zones; what we’re doing is providing a mechanism so that the Governor-General, by Order in Council, on the recommendation of the Ministry of Health after consulting with the Ministry of Justice, can put these in place. They will be in particular sites, I imagine. I know Dunedin has been particularly awful. We know that—the people on the commission heard that.

So when I think about the context of the bill, the context of abortion—and we’ve all seen it: the emotion; the placards outside that are supposed to scare us into not voting for this piece of legislation. Let’s all be real about the efficacy of these safe zones and the need of these safe zones.

So do I believe that it’s a justified limitation on freedom of expression? Absolutely. No woman, no parent, no family member, no friend, and no staff member who is going into a facility to enable what is already a very difficult situation should have to be abused in such a way—to interfere with a woman’s right to a medical procedure.

So I welcome the Minister’s comments, because I do think the health and safety aspect is particularly crucial. As Nikki Kaye pointed out, we have a bullying and harassment and intimidation culture in New Zealand. For us not to futureproof this legislation to ensure we have the tools to deal with it, if it does happen—it may not happen now; that’s David Seymour’s argument. But, actually, we’ve seen what this bill has generated. We’ve received it in our inboxes. We’ve seen it out on the front steps of Parliament. For us not to actually have the tools and the mechanisms to rid ourselves of this abuse and harassment, and, as I’ve already highlighted, women who are already in a difficult situation, to upset them even more is unconscionable. So I want to thank the Minister and thank the select committee for ensuring that these safe zones will exist but they will only exist if they’re needed. Kia ora.

Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Chair, for the call this evening before going into the dinner break. My contribution is in relation to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 467, amending clause 7 of the Abortion Legislation Bill by inserting new section 18. I invite everybody to look at that, because it is rather lengthy. I particularly invite the Minister of Justice also, who carries the responsibility as Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, to factor in—and I hearken to the phrase from my colleague across the House Louisa Wall—futureproofing this legislation.

My SOP is in relation to the placement of cultural considerations to be recognised within this bill. This bill deliberately omits, for some unknown reason, when we have a Government—and it is a Government bill—that talks about the importance of diversity within our nationhood, our nationscape, but also the importance of welfare, caring, and transparency.

I’m returning to clause 18 as proposed: cultural considerations to be recognised. In addressing the House, the explanatory note to this Supplementary Order Paper—for the benefit of members of the public listening in—is very much prefacing the health disparity and outcome for New Zealand Māori, which is far worse and disproportionate than for non-Māori in our nation. This bill is very much focused on the accessibility and availability of a quality abortion service. This debate is to reform health outcomes for women, the pregnant women, many of whom are in fact children under the age of 14, and it’s also very important, with this health reform, to be cognisant of the fact that we are not absent of cultural context and the relationship of the Treaty of Waitangi and where that is positioned in our nationscape.

This bill is very much consequent on the Crimes Act 1961 and the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977, both of which have no specific reference of any cultural construct or context or mention of the Treaty of Waitangi—thus the very reason for my Supplementary Order Paper for the inclusion and the inclusivity of this in terms of equality, abortion service, and the provision of care.

This bill should be—as our Government has repeatedly purported in many bills that have been introduced to this House—about the welfare and wellbeing of our most vulnerable. In this instance, we’re talking about abortion service and the availability and accessibility of that for women. But we must not forget the fact that the unborn child has a touch of humanity and humanness about this.

This SOP, in terms of cultural considerations, looking to the wording of it—and I would seek to take another call because it is very lengthy, in fact—talks about “(2) The performance of duties or responsibilities in accordance with … a responsible organisation [which] must ensure”—and it goes through the detailing of the wellbeing of a woman being the centre of that decision making.

Now, I’ve heard repeatedly before the House, throughout the debates on the first reading, the second reading, and now the committee of the whole House, this is all premised on the woman’s rights—all rights; less responsibility, if any responsibility. So I’m inviting the House and the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Treaty settlements, to factor in the significant place of Treaty rights within our nationscape and this bill around the responsibility with the organisations, the service providers, for abortion treatment.

I will refer briefly—and again seek to extend a call if permitted—to the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000. It’s noted that it has as its specific purpose, “to provide for the public funding and provision of personal health services, public health services, and disability support services,” and, at section 3(1)(b) of that Act, “to reduce health disparities by improving the health outcomes of Māori and other population groups:”. That’s a purpose that is under the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 in relation to the specific provision of healthcare services, which the Abortion Legislation Bill is premised upon.

Under section 4 of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 is the specific section there to do with the Treaty of Waitangi, which states, “In order to recognise and respect the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”—to recognise and respect; there’s no mandatory requirement in terms of the inclusion of that with the provision and delivery of services, which is the very point that my SOP is seeking for the inclusion under the Abortion Legislation Bill—“and with a view to improving health outcomes for Māori”—and I’ve returned to section 3 again of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act—“Part 3 provides for mechanisms to enable Māori to contribute to decision-making on, and to participate in the delivery”—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry to interrupt the member, but it’s come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Madam Chair, thank you for permitting me to resume the call.

Prior to the dinner break, I was speaking, addressing the committee, on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 467, in my name, in relation to clause 7, seeking to introduce clause 18. I was speaking to the committee in relation to section 4 under the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000; that section specifically relating to the placement of the Treaty of Waitangi. My contribution to the committee is signalling that under the Abortion Legislation Bill—inviting all members of this committee for the inclusion of cultural considerations, particularly premised on the recognition of the partnership rights and principles under the Treaty of Waitangi.

I was speaking to the committee around section 4, talking about, in particular, the services that district health boards must provide, as has been detailed under the commentary on the Abortion Legislation Bill, and around the availability of the services. It is my view, in a submission, that there is a compromising of that, absent the SOP issues that I raise. Section 4 is outlining that there is a requirement under the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act for the provision of health services by the district health boards, that there is a view—it’s only a view; there’s nothing mandatory around that—for the improvement of health outcomes for Māori. Part 3 under the particular New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act also speaks about providing for mechanisms to enable Māori to contribute to decision making and to participate. There is nothing mandatory within the provisions of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 for the district health boards to factor in more than just consideration or enabling contribution and participation, but the actual equity of access to health services.

Now, I invite members to look at page 13 of the commentary under the Abortion Legislation Bill, and there’s specific concern that’s outlined there where submissions made to the select committee detailed the inequity of access to abortion services throughout New Zealand. So the very purpose of Supplementary Order Paper 467, that I’m introducing, is inviting all members of the committee and, in particular, the Minister of Justice, who is also the Minister of Treaty settlements, to factor in the due placement and consideration of my Supplementary Order Paper. Although it may be specific in terms of cultural construct and context around addressing the disparity and inequity of Māori, this is not just specific to Māori. It is about a Māori cultural lens and the placement of that that is of benefit for all of those who seek to access the abortion services that are provided, as is outlined in the Abortion Legislation Bill.

I also reference that when it comes to looking out for, caring, and protecting our vulnerable—and certainly under this bill there is a focus on the woman, and much has been spoken about the woman’s rights—my SOP is about the responsibility of health service providers in the provision of that care. I will invite all members also—when the Government under the Children’s Act of 2014 looked at the strategy for improving children’s wellbeing and an Oranga Tamariki action plan, there is a specific section under section 4A, again, that details the duties of the responsible Minister and the service provision around addressing issues pertaining to principles under the Treaty of Waitangi.

Time is limited. This is a detailed bill. The SOP is to improve the bill. The whole point of my Supplementary Order Paper is inviting all members to consider the improvements that this would give to women accessing abortion services.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I wish to take the opportunity to ask the Minister a very simple question. It has arisen from a number of emails that I’ve received from local people in Wairarapa, who I believe are sincerely and genuinely concerned around what they believe is in this bill. Given this is the committee of the whole House stage, I’d like to invite the Minister to address their concerns. Their emails read that they believe that this bill, as it’s written, would allow up-to-birth abortions, with a specific concern around those babies that have been diagnosed with Down syndrome. Now, it’s my view that if this bill allowed that, then I don’t think there’s a single person in this House that would vote for it.

But given the nature of this debate and the stage that we’re in, we have an opportunity to ask the Minister a very specific question, and that is what I would like to pose to the Minister. Can you please, Minister, take the opportunity to outline to members here tonight, and those that are watching, how that is not the case in the bill as it’s currently written. I believe those who have written to me sincerely and genuinely worried, perhaps they have been informed of this or perhaps this is a conclusion that they have come to themselves, but nevertheless I think that this is a good opportunity, through the parliamentary process, to reassure these people that what they fear is actually not the case.

I call—um. Let’s have a look.

💬 Chris Penk: Chris Penk.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Ha, ha! Simon O’Connor.

Had I had to defer, I probably would have deferred to Greg O’Connor. Look, I just want to make another quick contribution—I suspect before we start hearing attempts to shut the debate down. I might actually come down to the whole Down syndrome thing at the end—obviously, the question’s to the Minister.

But can I acknowledge those hundreds of people who are writing in, and I certainly sit on the side that does believe—and actually not a belief: knows that this bill does allow abortion up to birth. It’s a fallacy to suggest otherwise. This does allow it. Infrequent—I think the Minister has touched on that. I’m certainly not here suggesting we’re going to see thousands, necessarily. But this bill does allow it; a little similar to another death bill that progressed through this House last year. The meanings that are put through in clause 11 to what are to be the requirements or criteria are meaningless medically and legally. Suggesting that a clinician—who actually doesn’t have to be a doctor, strictly speaking, because it now talks about health practitioner—is to consider, by the way, the gestational age of the fetus, sounds great, but “considering” is not actually an imploration of any nature. So actually I do have concerns for the community at large.

I obviously, and it has been articulated before, have concerns for the babies because as I keep saying, they’re human beings, and I’m a great believer in human rights. I do have real concerns for the Down syndrome community in particular, for two reasons. There are many, many instances, in fact—some of it was noted on The Project last night; I have to say it’s actually good to see the media doing at least one story that actually tries to comprehensively look at this book rather than acting as a tool of propaganda. But they’re saying actually the pressure that’s on parents with Down syndrome children to abort—and I think it’s weird, in the most polite way I can put it, to think that it’s magically going to stop post - 20 weeks. In fact, all it’s going to do is continue—that pressure will now continue.

I would just ask the Minister if he takes a call—I’d love him to get his officials’ advice and tell me in the last 10 years how many Down syndrome children have been born in Iceland. I think I could count the number on one hand.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Rubbish!

And someone says “Rubbish!” because everything that Ruth Dyson doesn’t like is rubbish.

So then—[Interruption]—and now they get upset. So I invite the Minister to give us a breakdown in recent years.

Look, very quickly on a couple of points, I won’t be supporting Jan Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 455. [Interruption] You know, I’d just love it if they had that passion for unborn children—what a difference that would make, that little bit of care.

Jan Logie’s, we won’t support. Unfortunately, for me it just dehumanises to the nth degree. The SOP even focuses on changing the causes of death. Fundamentally, in her SOP 326, the fact that, actually, the death of a child is to be so ignored that any crime or harm must only focus on the mother is an incredibly dehumanising element. It won’t surprise the member that I won’t support her SOP around women, men, and others—women have babies; that’s a scientific fact, and I’m all for clear conversation there.

I will just turn my last attention to what was my tabled amendment around children born after abortion. I want to thank and acknowledge the Minister of Justice for coming and, in effect, correcting an earlier statement—that this does happen. Again, this doesn’t happen often, but I would suggest to the committee that just once is conceptually enough. Most abortions at a late stage are successful—it’s what the clinicians want—but it is possible, and it has happened numerous times—again, not saying hundreds—that the child is born; the abortion is, effectively, botched. So it’s a bit of a concern. And I want to make it absolutely clear in this legislation that if a baby is born, it is birthed, that the abortion is botched—it could be a surgical abortion or a chemical abortion—healthcare must be provided to that child. And I want members to allow that to sink in: that if the abortion is botched, all that this amendment is asking is that a doctor or doctors in attendance, or the nurses, if it’s not being done surgically, I’m asking—Madam Chair? [Bell rung]

I hadn’t rung the bell.

💬 Greg O’Connor: Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I call Greg O’Connor. Just before the member starts, can I just remind members that this is a very serious debate, and actually people have quite deeply held views and we should all be respecting one another. And I’ll remind some particular members that they cannot move their seats in order to gain advantage for interjections. And they have particularly loud voices. I call Greg O’Connor.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to speak to my tabled amendment, which relates to section 11 in clause 7 of Part 1, and this is purely about the provision of abortion services to women more than 20 weeks pregnant.

I agree wholeheartedly with the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice, who spoke at the beginning, who said this is not a rerun of the abortion debate. Those who are watching who are hoping that this is an opportunity to rerun abortion—they will be disappointed. What this is about—and I agree—is taking it out of the Crimes Act. This is about a provision that was introduced legally in the 1970s and we are now looking at where and what legislation it exists under today. So my amendment speaks purely about the provision of abortion services to women more than 20 weeks pregnant. I fear that without proper criteria, we will end up with a larger number of abortions post - 20 weeks than any of us here intended or thought would happen.

Now, somewhat personally, I call this the “Michael clause”. Michael’s the name of my son who is disabled, and we weren’t aware before Michael’s birth that he was disabled. But had we been and had we existed under the proposed provisions, considerable pressure would have come to bear: a little bit of an unspoken pressure on us as parents, on probably the medical people who were advising us that this option would have been—certainly, it was never compulsory, certainly it would have always been a choice, but this is something where, actually, all of a sudden, a pressure would have come on not to bring a child into the world who was somewhat less than perfect.

Now, I’m not opposed to having a provision which allows abortions post - 20 weeks. But the current provisions are far too wide. Simply, if you look at the bill as it’s proposed, new section 11(1) set out in clause 7 states, “A qualified health practitioner may only provide abortion services to a woman who is more than 20 weeks pregnant if the health practitioner reasonably believes that the abortion is clinically appropriate in the circumstances.” That is the criterion. Now, there are considerations. They must consult at least one other qualified health practitioner—consult. They can consult. As we know, consultation is not decision making, and what is consultation? And they must have regard to all relevant legal, professional, ethical standards to which the qualified health practitioner is subject. Well, again, that is the same as any decision any doctor makes.

So my amendment to section 11 outlines some relatively simple, but I think safer, criteria that will ensure that where consideration is being given to abortion post - 20 weeks—and there will be occasions when it should be given—there are some relatively simple provisions that should be applied: that the woman is more than 20 weeks pregnant, that there is a risk to the life or of serious harm to the physical or mental health of the woman, and that the fetus is so medically impaired as to be unlikely to survive beyond birth. And they are relatively simple criteria, but it just ensures that there will actually be some consideration there beyond simply—and I have to say there is some very subjective terminology around what is appropriate in the circumstances—“if the health practitioner reasonably believes that the abortion is clinically appropriate in the circumstances.”

So I would encourage those members in the committee, anyone who is watching, to actually look seriously at this provision because it will simply give the reassurance that many—my colleague from the Wairarapa Kieran McAnulty just spoke of some of the emails he’s getting. We are all being inundated with emails. And these are good people. People who are opposed to this are not bad; these are people who genuinely understand and believe in what they’re doing. But what they want is some reassurance, particularly beyond 20 weeks. And please, I would ask those members present in the Chamber or considering their vote to look at section 11 and my tabled amendment, which is simply putting some safety criteria that will ensure that those considering abortion after 20 weeks are guided by this committee and what they should consider. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll take the opportunity to respond to the last few speakers, but I’ll start with my colleague Greg O’Connor, who spoke just now in relation to his amendment. I understand the point he’s making. I think, following the Law Commission’s consideration—and they put up the options, and we drafted up a bill, and the Abortion Legislation Committee considered it—it was very clear from the submissions received and the deliberations by the select committee they wanted that gestational threshold of 20 weeks to require a stricter test than had originally been intended, for the reasons, I think, that Mr O’Connor talked about.

They are that at 20 weeks it is a very serious decision. That said, the women who are making the decision know that. Women at 20 weeks don’t feel they are called upon to make that decision on a whim. They are called upon to confront that judgment because of their own health and, potentially, the health of the fetus. So it’s a situation that women don’t want to be in, and, typically, it is a wanted pregnancy, but a crisis has emerged in their pregnancy. So I think we all get the significance and the seriousness of the situation.

The problem with Mr O’Connor’s amendment and his proposed amendments in clause 7 of the bill in proposed new section 11 is that it creates a set of criteria that are more restrictive than the current legislation and, arguably, even more restrictive than that proposed by Agnes Loheni. So he requires that the woman has to be more than 20 weeks pregnant, and there is a risk to the life or serious harm to the physical or mental health of the woman, and the fetus is so medically impaired as to be unlikely to survive beyond birth, and it is appropriate to carry out the birth in order to avert the risk—it refers to “the” risk but there are multiple risks referred to. So that would suggest that the woman might be seriously compromised but if the fetus is not so seriously compromised, then the woman’s life is to be expended. Conversely, if the fetus is severely compromised but the woman is not subject to serious physical harm or mental health, then the pregnancy must continue to term. That’s what that provision means, Mr O’Connor, and I can’t support it and I won’t be supporting it.

Let me start with Paulo Garcia and his contribution in support of Supplementary Order Paper 466 and the references to “cultural background”. The same applies, I think, to the remarks made by Melissa Lee in support of her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 459—actually, it might be her other SOP. In fact, it might not be Melissa Lee at all. In fact, I think it is Harete Hipango in her SOP 467. In relation to both of those that call upon the medical practitioners to take account of cultural considerations—or, in the case of Harete Hipango’s SOP, the Treaty of Waitangi—I just say that that is entirely inappropriate in a consultation between a woman of whatever ethnic background consulting with her medical practitioner on an abortion. The only considerations that apply are her health and, possibly, the health of the fetus, depending on what the circumstances are.

It is not relevant to the determination that that woman and her medical professional have to make that the community from which that woman comes has a set of cultural considerations that may counter her decision. That’s not relevant, and we should not be legislating for that, because that is to undermine the autonomy of women in those circumstances, and that is not something that this House should countenance. It cuts across basic human rights that are enshrined in our human rights legislation and, indeed, in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and we should not countenance it. I reject those two SOPs. I reject them strongly, and I invite the rest of the committee to do so.

Agnes Loheni referred to her SOP 460. She talked about recognition of the rights of the unborn child, and I know there’s the language of the “unborn child”. Abortions that take place before nine weeks, or even before 12 weeks, do not entail an unborn child. It is not an unborn child, and I reject the language of that—that this somehow is a debate about unborn children. It is about women making a decision early in their pregnancy and being able to do so safely and properly. I reject Agnes Loheni’s arguments, and indeed the arguments of others who have said, including Simon O’Connor, that the criteria set out in proposed section 11, in clause 7 of the bill, are somehow meaningless. They are not. They are very clear about the post - 20 week decision on abortion that a woman takes with her medical practitioner, and so they refer to a qualified health practitioner only providing abortion services to a woman who is more than 20 weeks “if the health practitioner reasonably believes that the abortion is clinically appropriate”. That does have meaning. There’s got to be a medical basis to it. It has to meet clinical criteria. I go back to the points I’ve already made about the standards to which our health professionals now must conduct themselves as way different and way beyond anything that prevailed 40 years ago. It is different. Those standards are set, they are articulated, they are accessible to the public, and they are enforced by professional organisations as well as the Health and Disability Commissioner. So there is meaning attached to that.

Then, in considering whether the abortion is clinically appropriate, there’s a set of circumstances that a health practitioner has to take into account having consulted at least one other health practitioner—and that would be standard anyway; by 20 weeks, this is a surgical procedure, and health professionals are consulting colleagues and others. They have to do so, and they have to have regard to the “relevant legal, professional, and ethical standards” to which they are subject. Those are clear as well.

This is something new—or reasonably modern—in the last 20 or 25 years: the idea that health practitioners not only have standards but can be held to account for them. We possibly have the Cartwright Inquiry into National Women’s Hospital to thank for that. But that is the way the medical profession operates. I know medical professionals who, at some point in their medical professional career, are terrified at the standards that they are held to—or some of the older ones anyway, because they never expected that when they entered the profession. It is a good thing for consumers of health services that we now have that in New Zealand, and the same will apply to women seeking an abortion. So, in addition to those relevant legal, professional, and ethical standards, the health practitioner has to consider the woman’s physical health, mental health, overall wellbeing, and the gestational age of the fetus. That threshold does mean something. It has to mean something, and it has to be taken into account. So I reject those who submit that that is somehow meaningless.

I know that Agnes Loheni rejects Jan Logie’s SOP calling for, effectively, going to option A of the Law Commission report. I have to agree with her on that because I know that the process we’ve gone through, in terms of dealing with parties in Parliament as well as the select committee, is that we’ve arrived at the framework that we’ve got, which is, basically, option C of the Law Commission’s report but modified to take account of other considerations. So I simply acknowledge that.

To Melissa Lee, who raised her SOP 459 and sex selection or disability discrimination, I simply say that that is already taken account of. The sex selection issue is taken account of by an expressed statement in the bill, and issues of any suggestion that a woman would be seeking an abortion on those sorts of grounds—that is for health professionals subject to their relevant legal, ethical, and professional obligations to deal with. But what we also cannot legislate for is a situation where those health professionals are called upon to exercise their own prejudices in relation to various ethnicities in order to do so, and I reject that.

I acknowledge the contribution from Nikki Kaye and from Louisa Wall. I’ve spoken to Harete Hipango’s SOP, and I have nothing further to say about that. In answer to Kieran McAnulty’s question he raised about the communications he is receiving about whether the bill will allow up-to-birth abortion—no, it won’t; there’s no such thing as abortion at birth. Let’s have a look at the figures. The number of abortions after 20 weeks is a very, very minuscule amount. The number at 22 weeks is an even more minuscule amount. Abortions, typically, do not take place after 24 weeks. There is no such thing as full-term abortion. In relation to Down syndrome, again, the health professional advising the woman is subject to all of those legal, professional, and other considerations before giving that advice. The critical criteria are the woman’s mental health and physical health and wellbeing and indeed, if it comes to the distress of the fetus, the status of the fetus as well. Those are the considerations that apply. That’s what must be taken into account.

I’ve dealt with Simon O’Connor’s issues, and I’ve dealt with Greg O’Connor’s issues. I see there is another tabled amendment from Greg O’Connor relating to proposed section 11. In the remaining seconds, I’ll have a quick read of it, and I see that it proposes “there is a risk to life”. It now introduces the alternative—the “or”. It is a skimpied-down version; however, I reject it for reasons I’ve already articulated.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I rise in support of my cousin’s Supplementary Order Paper—not because of my second name at all. I have been in this House for some time, and this is the first time I have spoken on abortion legislation. Before, everyone had considered me somewhat of a conservative. This time, and when this bill was introduced, I voted for it to go to the select committee and be considered. I have to say that, in the many years I’ve been in here, the one thing that has pleased me is to see abortion numbers go down from 18,000, which was the case last time we debated this legislation, now to 13,000. So by, I guess, a reasonable measure, you would say that the legislation is good. My heart goes out to any woman who faces that terrible dilemma of considering abortion. I would never, in this House, on this legislation, point a finger in any direction. We are all entitled to our views. We all are brought up in different ways and have different values, and every time you point a finger, there are three pointing back at oneself.

We talk and we hear a lot about rights, and that does concern me because responsibilities go with rights, and I don’t often hear the term “responsibilities” used when this debate is in this House. I have responsibilities as a member of Parliament, and when it comes to a conscience vote, it’s to uphold my views and my values and my conscience—and I’ve done that all the way through. I am here to support the rights and advocate for the responsibilities of any New Zealander, of any age, of any gender, of any ethnicity, of any religious belief. I’m not standing here as a Catholic, although I’m proud of my values that have been formed around that Church. But I’m not here in the way that many are, in somewhat of a righteous way.

I receive emails on this piece of legislation—and I have done on the euthanasia bill—and I just welcome and invite those same people to send me emails when it comes to support for solo mothers or when it comes to support for special education for the children who are born and who need extra care. Dare I suggest that there’s some hypocrisy in being absolutely righteous about things prior to birth or close to death and not being very righteous when it comes to the responsibilities of looking after New Zealanders through their life? Each and every New Zealander—regardless of where they’re born, regardless of their parents’ position—should have opportunities to a good life. We don’t always advocate as strongly for that as we do for things around abortion and around euthanasia.

I have a responsibility, as a Minister, for animal welfare. During this debate, from the time that this bill was introduced, I was confronted with an issue and a bit of advice that said that I had to consider zebrafish eggs of four days of age and the possibility that they are sentient. Sentience is a definition applied to animals which says they have feelings, and we have a responsibility, as a civilised nation, to uphold sentience and the rights of animals—and that’s my role. I struggle with a piece of legislation that doesn’t recognise the rights, I guess, of a fetus.

We got rid of inductions in cows because we consider it abhorrent that we would force cows to abort, because it has an impact—obviously, it kills the calf—and perhaps an impact on the cows. I’m not a vet and I’m not one to make judgments other than now receiving a bit of advice that says perhaps we have to look at a code of welfare for four-day-old zebrafish eggs shocked me into a position of thinking if we pass a piece of legislation about the rights of individuals, but without the responsibilities to a fetus—and I’m not making a judgment on 12 weeks or 14 weeks or 20 weeks; I realised it’s a medical dilemma in there, and I’m not stepping away from that—but I have to say that there’s an inconsistency creeping in to our consideration of life and our responsibility to New Zealanders when we consider—or we’ve been asked to consider—sentience and the rights of animals, but we turn our back on the rights and the responsibilities to care for a fetus.

Well, it’s an interesting thing to follow three O’Connors, and I’ll put the Scottish Presbyterian view because clearly they don’t share the same view I do. I suppose in a funny way it’s a privilege to take a call on what I’ve probably found in my time in this building the most difficult bill I’ve had to deal with. I want to congratulate, firstly, the Minister on bringing this and promoting it in the manner he has, because I think he’s considered it extremely well. I voted for this bill at first reading and second reading with some very strong concerns about it, I guess, and those concerns have been recognised in the course of some of the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that have been presented right now, and I just want to talk about those SOPs briefly.

I want to talk firstly about Agnes Loheni’s SOP that she’s introduced to the committee, and I think that it deals with an issue that concerns me greatly, and that’s the way we manage the abortion beyond 20 weeks. That concerned me in my first reading speech. The Minister has addressed that, and I’m not sure that we’ll ever know whether we’re right or wrong on this issue. It’s a very tricky issue; it’s a difficult issue to deal with. And Greg O’Connor has introduced an SOP which takes the attitude a little differently to that point of view, and I support his SOP as well. So, at the end of the day, you can’t support all this stuff, but I think we’ve got to make a judgment on this that gets us out the other end, so that we’re confident that we’ve gone in the right space on it.

I wasn’t going to comment on Damien O’Connor’s speech, but it’s a very interesting point because I think it is a very different issue between the issue he was talking about and my view of this, which is primarily to preserve the rights of a woman to deal with things as she sees fit. I’d have to say I’m no judge of this and I don’t pretend to be a judge of it—I would get into a great deal of difficulty or trouble if I ever thought I knew what I was talking about with respect to that—but I do think that this is all about a person’s right to be what she or he wants to be in life and to deal with things that challenge them in a manner that allows life to move on and the world to get on in a manner that that is best for us all.

I want to make a very important point here, because I think that we’ve failed historically in New Zealand to manage the issues that would have prevented us from ever having to pass this bill. I think that’s a challenge that we can’t deal with. We’ve clearly tried many times to deal with that challenge and we’ve failed. So I think that the alternative is to put in place a bill that manages the situation that humanity has been unable to manage, frankly. I think that’s the greatest challenge we’ve got in this House.

A couple of other things I want to deal with, with respect to SOPs. One is Darroch Ball’s SOP, which, frankly, I think is typical New Zealand First—dodge the issue and put it out there. The interesting thing about that is that, if you’ve listened to the debate in this House over the last two readings and this debate tonight, the issues that we’ve had to deal with as members of Parliament—and I’ve certainly been removed from it from the perspective of being on the select committee and things—are hugely complex and very complicated, and I think the Minister’s gone to great lengths to explain that. But for the people out there to understand the issues that he’s had to deal with, and that this House has to deal with, is almost impossible. So I think to put it out there for the public to make a judgment on issues that we’ve had to deal with—hugely technical, very complicated, and very controversial—is extraordinarily irresponsible of this House. We’re put here to make the difficult decisions in life for people. We’re given the tools to do it with and we’re given extraordinary resource to make sure we understand it. So I’ve got to oppose that SOP on the basis that I think it’s not the proper way to go about business, and I don’t think we should do that.

So the other couple of SOPs I wanted to talk about very briefly—one which concerns me and has, I guess, been an important part of my life, and that’s the Down syndrome issue, which has been highly publicised in the last couple of days. I think, again, that’s a very challenging issue for a mother to have to confront, for a family to have to confront. I think that—given the explanation the Minister has given us tonight and the position we’ll probably end up at on that—it’s too difficult to deal with, frankly, and I think that the bill deals with it in a manner that’s probably the best way we can deal with it. I think, knowing what I know about Down syndrome kids, it would be a massive privilege to have a child who had Down syndrome, because they’re extraordinary people. Not everyone thinks like that, and that’s an issue we’ve got to deal with.

A couple of other things—very briefly because I haven’t got long to go. I wanted to talk very quickly about David Seymour’s SOP, 464, because I frankly think that if we’ve got a bill, we’re confident, and we can pass, it should pass on its merits, and the world should face it on its merits. And so, in an odd way, I support the SOP of David Seymour.

So that’s the issues I wanted to deal with. You could talk for hours on this. It’s an extremely difficult topic to deal with, and I think that we’re in the best space we could get to in this Chamber. I’m sure the results of these discussions will get us where we want to be.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and can I thank the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, for highlighting the mistake I’d actually made in my amendment? It was a mistake, and it just shows for those watching that this political process, the committee of the whole House, is actually a very good process. It is designed to make sure that the legislation that goes forward from here to its third reading has gone through the sort of scrutiny that it should do.

So I’m pleased that the Minister actually did point it out and I now have a new tabled amendment—which, can I just make clear to those here, we’re talking about “or”, not “and”. So where a woman is able to avail herself of an abortion over 20 weeks, provided the woman is more than 20 weeks pregnant and either there is a risk to the life, or of serious harm to the physical and mental health of the woman, or the fetus is so medically impaired as to be unlikely to survive beyond birth.

Again, as I said in my first speech, I’d invite those listening to think about this and to just think about that we are now dealing with the issue around the mental and physical health of the mother, which is important; it is what we’re here to do and what we should be talking about. But we are also addressing those concerns that much of the correspondence we’ve received is about, which are those of: what is—let’s face it—a viable human being? Generally, around 22 weeks. We’re talking about a period between 20, 22, and 23 weeks, but we’re well aware now of cases where there are children who are born at 22 and 23 weeks who survive and thrive. So it was always going to be a certain amount of arbitrariness among those who designed this bill. I know there was considerable debate about 22, 20 weeks. I know in overseas jurisdictions—I was speaking to some Australian colleagues tonight, and we were talking about the different states over there haven’t been able to settle on 22, 24, and 20 weeks. So there is that period we are talking about, around about that 20 to 25 weeks.

Again, can I implore those who believe that this is a debate on abortion to bring your minds down closer to what the real issue is, because the issue you think you’re debating, if you’re debating abortion per se—that’s not what we’re debating here. We are debating now about—and certainly as part of my amendment—post - 20 weeks, and what the criteria should be before someone can avail themselves.

I think we can actually come together much more as a country. I believe that those emails we’re receiving, if people actually really seriously thought about this and we agreed, and it will take a certain amount of agreement, that the viability of a fetus, the viability of a child, is around the time where a debate should be—that’s where this debate should be. I know there’ll be those saying that, no, it should be—and even my cousin talked about that stage of two, four days. I think we’ve matured enough as a society and the debate is mature enough that we can just bring it down, and I’d ask those who are going to be voting tonight and those listening to this post - 20 weeks and just give our electorates, those out there who have the concerns—I think, with the inclusion of this amendment, we can give some of that security. We can give some of that reassurance that my colleague—again, I refer to my colleague Kieran McAnulty—talked about, with all those emails we’re receiving. That’s what we also want to do.

It’s not just a matter of being dogmatic here. We have so many different things as MPs, but one of the things is we actually all want to do the right thing by our constituents, and that’s what we’ll be doing. Those who are on the polar sides of this debate, let’s just see if we can find a little bit of middle ground that will actually bring this together. I’m going to ask people in this Chamber who are going to be voting, or those who may be even considering their proxy vote, to have a good look at this amendment of mine. I believe it might just arrive us in the place where we will all go back to our electorates, back to our offices, and while we won’t keep everyone happy, we will reassure many more people than we would if we stick to our polarised positions on this bill. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There’s a few Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) I’m hoping I can cover off in this contribution now, but, firstly, I do just want to clear up that in a previous speech I gave the statistics of one in four women in this country having experienced an abortion. That was challenged by the member Agnes Loheni saying that that was just not true. Well, actually, it’s in the Law Commission’s report, at chapter 2, page 31. They cite research that women born in 1972 and 1973—they found that one in four had had an abortion, and the Abortion Supervisory Committee states that around 30 percent of women have had an abortion in this country. This is verified data. I am not making things up in this debate. This is the reality in this country.

Before I get on to the SOPs, but also just talking about some of the tone around some of the debate, we have had quite a few people opposing the legislation on faith grounds, and I respect that.

I also do just want to share what a member of my electorate in her Facebook post this evening—because I think it applies to all of our communities—said: “As a Samoan woman, we’re not encouraged to talk about these things, but I have to because the silence of this is deafening. I’ve sat with young, vulnerable Pacific women who made this choice because of a circumstance they felt they couldn’t control. I’ve taken them to counsellors who have helped them through the tough times because of a decision that they know will be with them for life. I’ve also heard the stories of young Pacific women who had their pregnancies, gave birth in bathrooms, and left their babies in dumpsters. Sadly, there are also those who are not here to share this pain. Then there is this truth. There are daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends that may have experienced this and you don’t and will never know because it becomes their shame that they carry.”

That relates to this legislation and my advocacy for option A, because at the heart of option A is removing the stigma and enabling people to talk about their accessing of healthcare needs, as so many women are doing, but are living with shame because we stigmatise this and pretend it’s not happening.

I also would like to speak to three amendments—specifically, Marama Davidson’s SOP 474 to improve the safe zone provisions from the existing legislation. I want to say that I don’t see this as a freedom of expression debate. I see this as how we can prevent a specific form of harassment that is proven to cause harm. We’ve got really, really strong evidence of that harm. It’s not about protesting; it is about intimidation and harassment and the fact that our current settings, as I’ve seen in some communities where there have been attempts to get councils to pass bylaws, where there’s been the attempts to get the police to enforce harassment laws, when women have come to others and are saying that they’re feeling really harmed by these approaches, and nobody would intervene—and my concern is that criminalising is too high a threshold. We’re not going to get the police intervening when they think it’s going to criminalise people. So this is a compromise in terms of setting up an infringement process, and I think it balances freedom of speech and having an active vehicle to prevent harassment.

I’d also like to speak to my SOP 455. I’ve been getting some flak for this amendment, which is to change the language from the legislation that just refers to “woman” to talk about “pregnant woman and other pregnant people”. But I do just want to say that we were presented with evidence from trans men who are or who have been pregnant, who recounted to us the barriers that they’ve encountered in reality, in life, accessing maternity services. Just adding these simple additional words in this piece of legislation would help remove those actual barriers to decent healthcare that people are experiencing.

To many in this House, this may be the first they’ve heard of trans men having babies, but let me assure you, it happens—and non-binary people as well. This is something that not many people are aware of, but there’s a growing number of people who are coming out. The Youth 2000 survey of 2012 found that 4 percent of young people either identified as trans or were unsure of their gender. If we’re going to futureproof our legislation, let’s do this.

I move, That the question be now put.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. Actually, I’ll pick up from where my colleague Jan Logie left off. I support Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 455, and I think the question is why do “woman” and “other person” and “pregnant woman or other pregnant person” actually matter.

I managed to find, like I always do, a nice little definition from the European Parliament which was published in 2018. It says this: “Gender-neutral language is a generic term, covering the use of non-sexist language, inclusive language, or gender-fair language.”, and the purpose of this gender-neutral language is “to avoid word choices which may be interpreted as biased, discriminatory or demeaning by implying that one sex or social gender is the norm. Using gender-fair and inclusive language … helps [to] reduce gender stereotyping, promotes social change and contributes to achieving gender equality.”

That’s why this SOP matters, and it’s up to us whether we think it’s relevant. We may say it’s PC BS, but, actually, for some people this helps them feel included in society because we’ve named them and acknowledged them.

I want to speak and acknowledge my mate Greg O’Connor, because I know that his contribution tonight is because he loves his son Michael, his 27-year-old son. I also want to acknowledge Colleen and Barry Brown, whose 40-year-old son Trav—he’s a Down syndrome boy.

So some of the issues we’ve had about this post - 20 weeks, I’d just like to give us some statistics. I do have to thank Dr Helen Paterson, who’s a gynaecologist, obstetrician, and surgeon. She performs a lot of abortions over 20 weeks. So we know that 89 percent of abortions in New Zealand are performed before 13 weeks. In 37 percent of those abortions, the women actually were using contraception and the contraception failed. Forty percent of pregnancies in New Zealand are unplanned, and I guess the size of these unplanned, unwanted, could be encapsulated as part of the total number of abortions.

From the 21st week, which everybody has been talking about this evening, there’s actually been 56—56 of 13,282 in 2018. Why? Well, 75 percent were because of congenital abnormalities. Those abnormalities are trisomy-21, which is Down syndrome; they are trisomy-18, which is Edwards syndrome; and they are trisomy-13, which is Patau syndrome. Now, the reality is that parents can have these tests. At 14 weeks, you have a blood test and you have a scan, and also at 20 weeks there’s a blood test. We provide this information to parents, and we have done so in New Zealand since 2004 so that parents can make a decision, an informed choice, about whether they want to continue with the pregnancy. In 8.3 percent it is maternal conditions, and we heard from the Cavanaghs. I wasn’t at the Abortion Legislation Committee but, actually, this is about mothers who may die. That’s why they have abortions—because if they don’t have them, the mothers will die.

The big statistic that I want to leave the committee with before I finish my contribution is that 22 abortions happen for children under the age of 15 years. For 62 fifteen-year-olds in New Zealand in 2018, 74 percent of those children had parents involved in the decision about whether to have an abortion. And this is the cracker, everybody: in 25 percent, the father of the baby that has been aborted is the child’s father. So we’re actually talking about incest.

So that is the reality, and I will take this opportunity to share one of those case studies. It was a 12-year-old girl who presented at the 28th week, and the doctors decided that actually the baby was healthy and happy, but for the 12-year-old child the trauma of having a baby resulted in an abortion. So, based on the statistics, they’re the nine outside of the 75 percent congenital abnormalities and the 8.3 percent maternal conditions. So that’s what we’re really talking about, ladies and gentlemen.

I would have thought that we would empower our medical practitioners—those who are actually performing these abortions—to do what is in the best interests of the mother, the pregnant person, and that we have faith and trust in them. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wasn’t going to take a second call, but I felt, just with some of the comments that were made, especially by Jan Logie just in regards to, I suppose, some of the cultural considerations for Pacific—and she made some comments in there.

So my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 466 particularly talks about cultural considerations. I know that the Minister of Justice has commented on them and he’s talked about the fact that the Treaty of Waitangi and other issues like that are not relevant to this case because an individual is an individual. I’d like to remind the Minister—and I want to commend him because up in Waitangi, his kaikōrero on the paepae was something to be acknowledged, and I do acknowledge him for that. But, see, it’s one thing to be able to speak on the paepae; it’s another thing to understand the culture and the understanding of the culture. The cultural consideration here is not about the fact of the rights of the individual; it’s about the issue of—and we talk about tino rangatiratanga, self-determination, but whakawhanaungatanga is also about the aspect of the collective, communal support. See, what I’d like the Minister to understand is that when we talk about cultural considerations, it’s not just about the Treaty; it’s the understanding about the cultural construct that wraps around that person, and the reasons why, at the moment, there’s an element of shame for a number of those.

I’ve been involved in cases, whether it be family members or those in the community, where I’ve seen the shame. I have to say to the member Jan Logie and the incidences that she’s given, you know, just to make it more accessible and more liberal does not deal with the issue. The issue is the connectedness and a sense of belonging to whānau and to family, as to the reasons why they weren’t able to. So the member can talk about that and give these instances, but making it more liberal will not deal with the issue. It may help in some instances, right? But here’s the truth of it: wouldn’t we all want them to be reconnected back to the love and the care and the sense of belonging in whānau and family? That’s what we’re talking about.

When we’re talking about this cultural consideration, I wanted to read to the Minister from this submission that was made by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, which, by the way, do support the bill and the reforms. However, they make a proviso in their submission. On page 6, they declare this: “These rights include [need to have] access to a health system that has culturally competent health professionals to provide [a] quality care that best supports the client”. Minister, what we are talking about there is not whether you can quote the articles of the Treaty; what we are talking about is understanding the cultural constructs here. It may be Māori, it could be Pacific, and there are a number of others that are there, but if we don’t have people who are appropriate, who are skilled and able, then we miss the point altogether.

Making it more accessible, making it more affordable, and making it more liberal won’t deal with the heart of the issue for, often, a number of these young women, and all the incidences that Louisa Wall has actually shared with us tonight, because it comes from a place of brokenness. That brokenness will not be solved by the fact of making things more liberal. Hence the reasons why I seriously put towards the Minister—

💬 Hon David Parker: The incest has already occurred. How do you fix that?

—cultural consideration, which is about having the appropriate—Mr Parker, you might want to listen to this—people who have the skills and the ability to deal with that. That’s what we’re talking about. That’s what was in the submission and many other submissions. Do we have that consideration? We do that in other Acts, we do that in the health system already, and now we’re going to have one of the most contentious issues in places where there is brokenness, and often there is shame, and you cannot consider to have people who are skilled enough to deal with that? I have to say that would be a shame. That would be a shame on this Parliament that we could not consider that issue—we could not consider that issue.

The Minister made a comment about that and in regards to, actually, the SOP that David Seymour put forward—SOP 406. He made this comment, and, as he said, it’s an old adage: “The absence of evidence does not mean there’s the evidence in that absence”. I want to tell the Minister: when he first commissioned the Law Commission, there were no conditions to talk about in a regulatory impact report as to the reasons why we were amending or changing the law—there was an absence of that. Instead, what did we do? It was already predetermined politically that this was going to happen. So I have to say to the Minister: you cannot turn around and say there’s a lack of evidence, when there was no evidence right at the start as to reasons why we should change this.

I come to this point: people can stand up in this Chamber and quote these different issues that are relevant, stories of those that are there, but this bill as it currently is will not heal the brokenness or the shame that often isn’t considered in there that the mother, the whānau, and the family need to heal themselves. Those are the reasons why I commend this SOP to the committee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Remind me again why this bill is needed. We were told that this Government bill emerged from a policy decision from the Government, an idea conceived to apparently decriminalise women who had abortions by removing it from the Crimes Act and by making it a health issue. Many of us felt, “Fair enough.” But why do we really need to have new legislation to do that?

The Crimes Act already specifically excludes women from liability for having an unlawful abortion, and women are not criminalised now for accessing abortion services. No woman, indeed, has ever been criminalised in the 40 years that this supposedly inadequate law has been around. I contest, therefore, it is fit for modern purpose.

But if women are uncomfortable about this, and many of us in this House are motivated to see that the right thing is done, then why not take a review—the sort of review that could be done by the royal commission? A straightforward amendment to the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act, section 44, would achieve that aim of removing criminality for the woman.

But this is a bill that goes so much further than just shifting it across into a health issue, because it decriminalises women but it also decriminalises abortion. Many of us in this House and many people who have written and talked to me about this are deeply uneasy about the later-term abortions, and, you know, this is a bill that significantly expands the criteria for abortion after 20 weeks and does go so far as to repeal criminal sanctions against any health practitioners who provide an unlawful abortion. So decriminalising abortion and doing later-term ones are things that do not sit easily with many of us.

I am particularly worried about the provisions for making decisions about terminating a child’s life in the terms of this bill. It’s unenforceable and there is no genuine—it’s hard to imagine the circumstances in which an abortion would not be allowed. Let’s put it this way. As others have pointed out—and I refer to Melissa Lee’s contribution and her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 459—there are potentially grounds for discrimination on the basis of the gender of the fetus and also whether the child has a disability, because taking it beyond 20 weeks means that the ability to determine whether a child has a disability is far more apparent. The provisions that she set out in her SOP to provide a certificate confirming that the doctors “are of the reasonable opinion, formed in good faith, that the unborn child is affected by a condition that is likely to lead to the death of the unborn child either before or within 28 days of birth.” spells it out very carefully, I think.

Others have mentioned, you know, the Downright Discrimination NZ submission that has come before us, that Down syndrome children will be actively discriminated against and aborted before they are even born. I believe that, again, SOP 459 in the name of Melissa Lee does provide some safeguards there. Downright Discrimination, which represents not only the whānau but also the people living with Down syndrome themselves, point out that in jurisdictions such as Victoria in Australia, where they changed the law 12 years ago, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of children who are aborted between 20 weeks and birth. The data shows that since 2008, there have been 1,685 abortions of babies specifically with a disability. So the idea that later-term pregnancies at the moment, under the current law, will not increase—I think if you look across the Tasman and look at what’s available there, then you will find that there are ample measures and ample room for worry that this will occur here in New Zealand.

I agree also with the amendment in the name of Greg O—Greg O’Connor. I did nearly choke on that one, but I do support your amendment, Greg. I think that it is something that has been a careful consideration around trying to come to terms with the unease in this House about having more than 20 weeks allowable and freed up for abortions. I think that the two medical specialist practitioners that are spelt out in your amendment who can determine whether there’s risk to life or of serious harm to the physical or mental health, and also if the child is impaired—that there should be something done about it. I’d like the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, to answer this question, and it’s been skirted around. When does life begin, Minister: at conception, at birth, at 20 weeks—for those of us who’ve felt the kick, who’ve seen the heartbeat? Where does it start?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’ll just briefly make a couple of comments in response to two earlier speeches.

The question is not whether we like abortion. The question is not when life begins. The question is not are we particularly disturbed by the idea of abortion to select sex or to even discriminate against people with disability. Those aren’t the questions. The question in this House is what the law should be. It’s incumbent on those who want the law to be State intervention in abortion to show that the intervention will achieve the outcomes they seek—that it will reduce abortion and that it will reduce discriminatory abortion—and, in fact, there is no evidence, anywhere in the world, that it does. There is great evidence that it stigmatises, criminalises, and inconveniences women in discriminatory ways. That’s what the evidence is. So let’s stop getting up, peacocking, parading, and saying how righteous we are and how terrible it is—we know that. Everyone knows that. The question is what the law should be and how effective the law is.

I just say, in support of Jan Logie, that she claimed that a quarter of women have had an abortion, and she was pilloried for that. Well, actually, for someone that has an engineering degree and knows a bit about maths, it’s not difficult to work out. There’s 13,000 abortions a year. There’s 30,000 females born in each cohort. So, if you do the maths, that’s actually 40 percent, but some people have more than one, which takes you to 25 percent. So there you go—you do the maths.

That’s actually not what I’m here to talk about. I took a call to talk about Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 464. I briefly outlined the amendment and the case for it earlier, and I’d like to make that case again and respond to some of the criticisms that have been levelled at it.

The cause of free speech makes you some unexpected bedfellows. In the course of standing up for this cause, I have dealt with and stood up for some of the most odious ogres that cannot claim a part of humanity. I have stuck up for the rights of people with odious views about race, even. At one point I was defending Nicky Hager, and you may have seen on the news: “David Seymour to host radical feminist conference at Parliament”. I gave sanctuary to people who were having their right to freedom of speech challenged in that instance, unexpected as the headline was.

So the question when it comes to safe areas, and the interaction between freedom of speech and having the safe areas, is not whether we think the people that do it are odious—I think they are, personally. It’s not whether they cause harm. I have no doubt that they will harm and distress women attempting to access abortion. The question, again, is what the laws should be. That’s why this committee exists. That’s why this Parliament exists.

I want to make the case to the committee that a law that attempts to criminalise, or even just make it an infringement, to protest and talk to people outside clinics and tell them that abortion is bad—a law that does that, first of all, is redundant. For the worst of the harm that people have talked about, people need only look at section 4 of the Summary Offences Act—something that in my view already goes far too far—which says that to offend, intimidate, insult, or threaten somebody, or to make someone feel uncomfortable, almost, is already a crime under the Summary Offences Act. It’s an offence, so we have laws to stop that. The Law Commission found that those laws are currently effective and that they do restrain people from causing the kinds of harm that we’re worried about.

I think we’ve spent too much time importing a foreign narrative, but too many members of this Parliament, or at least the ones that have told me that they won’t vote for this amendment, have said that they are worried because of the abuse they personally have received, being members of Parliament in this debate, and they don’t want that visited on other people. Well, that’s very compassionate. But what I’d finally say to people is that if we pass this law as it stands, without the amendments on SOP 464, and we continue on our path of banning people from expressing themselves in an arbitrary area, the protests will be right on the 150-metre barrier, the resentment will be all the greater, and, actually, this Parliament will be creating exactly the division that those members are opposed to.

I’m hoping, Madam Chair, you’ll give me another minute, because I just want to finish this—[Bell rung]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take a second call on the Abortion Legislation Bill. I just want to take on from where my colleague Kieran McAnulty was asking questions earlier of the Minister of Justice around the issue around Down syndrome children and whether this legislation would allow for them to be aborted. I don’t feel the Minister actually adequately answered his question, because the question was shrouded in the language—and I know that Kieran McAnulty has probably been receiving the same emails that I’ve been receiving. I acknowledge everyone in my electorate who have been emailing me around whether this legislation will allow for abortion up to birth for those children with Down syndrome.

I ask the Minister to answer the question. Remove the language “abortion up to birth”—it’s not language that I’ve used. I ask the Minister to answer the question as to whether this legislation will, post - 20 weeks, allow for the aborting of a child who is at a gestational age post - 20 weeks at any point. That is the question that my constituents are asking in that email. That is the question which I believe he needs to stand up and give a straight answer to.

I just want to acknowledge the amendment that Greg O’Connor has put forward. I will be supporting his amendment and Supplementary Order Paper 460 in the name of Agnes Loheni. They both seek to do the same thing, in many ways, which is to ensure that for those rare cases where there are—and I’ve heard it being said by the Minister and I’ve heard it being said by members on the other side. “Rare and exceptional cases”—that there are very clear and defined terms as to what those rare and exceptional cases should be.

Greg O’Connor is very right to say, when he looks at this bill and reads it, that the terminology post - 20 weeks is very vague. When I spoke on this bill at the first reading, I said that one of the key concerns that I had on this bill was that it was around the post - 20 week criteria. I accept the argument which is being put forward around—and I think Greg O’Connor said it—removing the argument of abortion from it. Well, I ask people on the other side of this debate from me to also remove the argument of abortion from it, and whether it is right or wrong, and ask the question: what should the law be post - 20 weeks?

I think the vast majority of New Zealanders would accept that if the law was going to be the same as it is now, then that is where the law should lie. That is something which I’m asking the Minister: on what basis does he believe that post - 20 weeks in New Zealand, the law needs to be changed to the criteria that are in the bill that is before Parliament? What examples can he give of women seeking abortion and requiring abortion now who can’t get it but will be able to under this law, or who can’t get it but should be able to under this bill?

I ask the Minister to give some examples to the committee, and to explain that to this committee as to why he thinks that that change is justified, because I’ve heard from the Minister that we have to justify our reasons why the change shouldn’t happen. I think the Minister needs to stand up and actually take a call and explain why the change does need to happen. What’s the justification for making the change? What are the cases where there is a need for the law to be changed to legislation which is more vague, which is more permissive, and which he is arguing there is a case for the change, because I haven’t seen it. I ask the Minister to take a call and explain to this Parliament and explain to the public and explain to those people who have been emailing me—my constituents—that one question: will it allow for the abortion of those children with Down syndrome post - 20 weeks?

I implore Kieran McAnulty—he said that if it happens once, he said he would oppose that. So I ask the Minister to clarify: will it happen once?

I’m happy to take a call to respond to a number of speakers, but I’ll start with Simeon Brown’s contribution just now, which requires me to address Greg O’Connor’s latest amendment, which does remove the cumulative requirements to justify an abortion after 20 weeks. But what it, effectively, does is returns us to the status quo, and the challenge in relation to that is the very reason—and as so many women told both the Law Commission when it did its inquiry and, indeed, the Abortion Legislation Committee, is the current law requires women to lie to get an abortion. It requires women to lie and to say they would have some serious mental health condition as a result of it. So the whole intention was to move away from there.

Even at the post - 20 week level, even where women are not required to lie, let’s remember that at that point the decision is about a wanted pregnancy, and the woman has been thrown into a health crisis that calls on her to confront a decision about abortion. So to Mr Brown and to others who say, “Give us an example of why it shouldn’t carry on.”, it’s because life has moved on. Our understanding has moved on. Women do not, at a whim, decide at 20 weeks or 24 weeks that that’s it—they’ve had enough of this, they’re out of here. That’s not how life works.

The law should reflect the way people actually live their lives and should reflect the way that women can be trusted to make decisions about their bodies. That’s what the law should reflect; not some sort of male paradigm that doesn’t trust women and wants to have a whole heap of obstacles and hoops that women have to go through. That’s the difference. That’s what people asked for. That’s what the law change is reflecting. That’s what the Law Commission inquiry threw up. That’s what the select committee heard. That is what the bill is that came before this House, and it is not for me to justify that any longer—that has been justified already.

It is incumbent on members who want to retain the status quo or go even further backwards to justify why their view of women, and why it is they cannot trust women, means that the rest of this House should legislate accordingly. I reject it entirely—I reject it entirely.

I’ve dealt with Greg O’Connor’s latest amendment. Jan Logie made a contribution, and members will decide whether or not they want to change the language. As I’ve said, the bill got to a point as a result of compromises from a range of people across the political spectrum that gave us the bill we’ve got now, and I think that is the best way to achieve enduring change. I acknowledge the contribution of Louisa Wall.

I acknowledge the contribution of Alfred Ngaro. Again, I say Alfred Ngaro has misconceived the situation. Of course our health system should be reflective of our Treaty-based multicultural world that we’re in, and our legislation does that. The legislation that deals with the health system does that. It calls upon health providers to be sensitive to different cultures, but principally our Treaty obligations in our Treaty partnership. But this is legislation covering a decision that a woman makes in conjunction with her health professional about a medical procedure that she is considering undergoing, and that is abortion. That is not a matter for the Treaty.

Where the Treaty is relevant is where that woman is able to go. Is she able to go to a practitioner who has been trained in a way that is culturally sensitive to her needs, to an institution that is culturally sensitive to her needs, and to a system that is culturally sensitive to her needs? Those are the system issues which our Treaty obliges us to ensure is sensitive to our Treaty obligations, and to other cultural needs. I repeat, with all due respect to my good friend the Hon Alfred Ngaro, I think his Supplementary Order Paper 466 is misconceived in that regard.

I acknowledge Maggie Barry’s contribution, which covered a lot of ground, but really challenged why we should have abortion at all. I’m sorry, Ms Barry, but that train has long left the station. We’re now talking about the legal framework we want in place. There will be a legal framework after this debate. There will be no such thing as no right to have an abortion in New Zealand, so it would be helpful if people focused on the actual debate, not on something they’d like to have.

I conclude—unfortunately, in my last remaining seconds—by responding to David Seymour yet again. Nothing in the safe zone provision is stopping people expressing their view. What it is is preventing women from being intimidated and harassed when they go to get an abortion, and if he wants to know by way of comparison, every Australian state or territory apart from the ACT has an automatic safe zone. This is discretionary.

I move, That the question be now put.

Members, we come now to the voting on Part 1. We will deal with each amendment in the order they would appear in the bill. This means that all amendments to clause 5 will be taken before those amendments to clause 6 and so on. Where two amendments would appear in the same place, we will vote on the one released first. Because many Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) contain amendments to different clauses, there may be multiple questions on a single SOP, so members should look closely at the specific amendment they are being asked to vote on.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 460 in the name of Agnes Loheni to clause 5 be agreed to.

Members, before I put the next question, can I ask all members that are holding proxies to make certain that they vote correctly and that all members present also make sure that they vote correctly. These votes are taking longer than they ought to. I just want you all to take care.

The Hon Nicky Wagner’s amendment inserting new clause 6AA set out on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 468 is out of order as being outside the scope of the bill. The question is that Jan Logie’s amendment to amend new section 10—

💬 Jan Logie: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I was just mindful that the House is the master of its own destiny and was wanting to seek leave of the House to actually consider Nicky Wagner’s SOP. If there is unanimous support for it, then I think we can pass it and take this opportunity to rid this piece of legislation of that terribly disablist language.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Yes, and as the member said herself, that is the power of the House, not the committee of the whole House, and an instruction should have been—a motion for that instruction—moved before we went into committee, so the ruling stands.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Without wishing to challenge your ruling, Mr Chair, the difficulty with that is that the Chair’s decision on whether the SOP is out of order is not made until we get to this stage in the voting process of the committee of the whole House. So we have something of a conundrum where there is reasonably widespread support for the bill. I’m not sure we can do this during a vote, but we could report progress and consider that matter in the House, but you can appreciate the difficulty that the committee has that we’ve only now found out that the amendment is out of scope.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’ve accepted a closure motion. That means that all of the motions relevant to this part need to be put. The only way that that can be overruled is by leave of the committee to report progress to the House.

💬 David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. According to Standing Order 4, I move that any Standing Orders preventing this amendment being voted upon be suspended.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Only the House can give that power, not the committee of the whole House.

💬 David Seymour: Really?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Yes.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 325 in the name of Jan Logie to clause 7 be agreed to.

We have a correction, I think, for the previous vote, on Supplementary Order Paper 325. Before I give it, can I again stress that members should take care when they’re voting, particularly if they have given their proxy to another member and they are also present and they vote differently to the proxy they have given. Therefore, on the previous vote, the Ayes are 12; the Noes are 106.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 475 in the name of Dr Parmjeet Parmar to clause 7 be agreed to.

Marama Davidson’s amendments to replace new sections 15 to 17 and amend new section 21 in clause 7 set out on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 474 are out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee in relation to SOP—[Interruption] They agreed to that.

💬 Jan Logie: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. Could I just check the vote and how it evolved around David Seymour’s SOP and what the outcome of that vote was?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I put the vote. I said the Ayes have it.

💬 Jan Logie: Yes, I’m just wanting to check and to see if I needed to correct my vote.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Well, it was a vote on the voices, so I have no way of knowing—the committee has no way of knowing.

💬 Jan Logie: But what was the outcome for us to note—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): The outcome was that the amendment was agreed to on the voices. No one called for a personal vote, no one called for a party vote, so the amendment was agreed to. That’s perfectly in order.

💬 Jan Logie: And is it possible to go back and ask—no?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): No. Oh, I’m sorry, you could seek leave to go back.

I seek leave for a personal vote to be taken on that vote.

Leave is sought. Is there any objection to that?

💬 Hon Members: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m afraid that’s fairly—OK. OK, so just to repeat then, that knocks out SOP 474 in the name of Marama Davidson.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 466 in the name of the Hon Alfred Ngaro to clause 7 be agreed to.

The Hon Ruth Dyson’s amendment to insert new section 20AAA in clause 7 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 472 is out of order as being outside the scope of the bill.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 476 in the name of the Hon Ruth Dyson to clause 7 be agreed to.