Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you Mr Chair. I wish to speak to the excellent Supplementary Order Paper 479 in the name of my colleague Melissa Lee. This Supplementary Order Paper does a number of very important things. First let me start however by explaining that it relates to a person as defined in this Supplementary Order Paper who commits an offence if they do certain things in providing abortion services. For the sake of clarity let me spell out for this committee: the thrust of this amendment in the name of my colleague Melissa Lee is around conduct that is unconscionable by the doctor essentially or other health professional as distinct from the woman who is seeking an abortion.It highlights the founding fiction of this proposed law change overall that it is about removing the decriminalisation of women seeking abortion services when it is understood and noted that there has never been a single criminal offence prosecuted under the Act successfully in relation to the woman seeking the services as distinct from the doctor or the health professional conducting them. That is my first point. My second is that we are talking about a situation of disability or possible disability of the unborn child. The precautionary principle is appropriate in matters of life and death. We do not always know as a matter of factual certainty whether a child is disabled or may only possibly be disabled and so it's appropriate that I acknowledge the drafting by Melissa Lee in relation to the abnormality" as it might be described—but "disability" in the most straightforward terms—as reflecting the fact of possible disability being the basis under the law as introduced to this House without any such test at this stage.My next point is that it relates to the status of the unborn child in a similar way that SOP 475 of Parmjeet Parmar does. Dr Parmar stated in an earlier part of the bill that in her preference it would be that sex selection or gender selection as it's also known would be a practice that was explicitly outlawed in New Zealand namely that—and I relate it to this current proposal on a similar philosophical basis—the personal characteristics or the demographic characteristics if you will of the unborn child should not be determinative of her right to continue to be able to live. There is a symbolic element as well. We are not only talking about the ground of disability under the Human Rights Act 1993 as a basis for discrimination but also in the way that Ms Lee has drafted her proposal it would be outlawed to make an offence the abortion of any unborn child—and I use that phrase as it is used in the legislation—on any of the prohibited grounds of discrimination set out in section 21 of the Human Rights Act 1993. Those would be such as would apply to the unborn child if they had become a human being. So what we see there is an acknowledgment of the humanity of the unborn child and therefore the appropriateness that the Human Rights Act should apply clearly in that case. Any members of this committee and anyone who is watching this debate should surely realise that the prohibition in the Human Rights Act against discrimination is precisely what this proposal and again that of Dr Parmar were directed to seek to avoid. It is that discrimination with which we must concern ourselves and turn our attention to. The next point that I would like to make is that the formulation of the amendment by Ms Lee explicitly sets out the underlying tension between leaving in the Crimes Act the offence of killing an unborn child—and I use that phrase deliberately and precisely. It could be with quote marks and indeed it is a precise quote from a particular section of the Crimes Act. That will remain in force unaffected by the legislation as introduced by the Minister of Justice. The tension is this. I acknowledge the characterisation of the unborn child by Melissa Lee and she also goes on to talk about the applicability of the Human Rights Act if that unborn child would go on to "become a human being". So what we have here highlighted by Melissa Lee's SOP 479 is a situation where we're talking about a potential scenario according to the legal fiction that seems to be holding sway in this case that we can have an unborn child who is not a human being. Indeed we can have a child who is not a human being which in semantic terms is an absurdity. It's a logical absurdity that you could have a child being a subset of a human being described as not yet a human being on the basis of a legal fiction that she is not yet at that point able to be described as such. For that reason I feel strongly that other members of this House whatever their views might be on the legislation overall should acknowledge and take heed of the words of another colleague and friend Agnes Loheni when she said she was simply looking for a semblance of recognition of some kind of balance and acknowledgment of the status—some sort of recognition of the human rights status of the unborn child. Of course as reflected in this SOP and in the others that she was referring to the legal status should match the scientific reality or the physical reality indeed that we have an independent entity inside an adult human being—ordinarily an adult or at least one who is older than the unborn child of course—who is pregnant that person who is pregnant. We have an acknowledgment of the independent movement and the fact that in 50 percent of the time roughly speaking the unborn child would have the opposite gender from his or her mother and has unique DNA and so forth not to mention a heartbeat that beats out of time with that of his or her mother indicating clearly that with that along with the brain development function we have indeed what is in fact a human being as quite rightly described at least in passing by the SOP. But the SOP sadly is forced to acknowledge the legal fiction that an unborn child is not a human being. For that reason alone I think it is symbolically important that this committee should pass this Supplementary Order Paper. Two more points before I relinquish this opportunity to continue speaking on this SOP: the first is that the proposal is actually I believe stated in very reasonable and measured terms. It includes in the section that Melissa Lee is proposing be included an acknowledgment of a scenario where an unborn child may be affected by a condition that is likely to lead to her death either before birth or within 28 days thereof. That's an acknowledgment that the underlying intention is to preserve life. It is not proposed in a mindless fashion or oblivious to the fact that many difficult scenarios do arise but nevertheless that is a situation that should be taken into account in the context overall of the fact that we should not discriminate against our most vulnerable citizens most of all. Finally I just wanted to note the context of the debate in relation to this SOP around the concept of the wanted child. We've heard a lot about the status of a child being either wanted or unwanted—their very life depends upon it it seems. That much is so in the structure of the law as interpreted by the Government sponsoring the bill stating that the significance of the 20-week threshold at which one regime applies and the other becomes non-applicable and vice versa—it is said that at 20 weeks a decision has effectively been made that a child is wanted. It might be that a case is determined in such a bright-line fashion but I doubt it. But the bigger point surely is that human life should not be determined in relation to it being wanted or not by other human beings. We have sadly far too many examples in this country of human life not valued by others and therefore the law being taken into the hands of those who do not value it. For the law to perpetuate the idea that there is such a thing as a wanted child who has value and an unwanted child who does not is a very sad thing to say the least.My final comment is to acknowledge the wonderful correspondence that many of us have received from the group Downright Discrimination specifically advocating for the Down syndrome community in this country. Please know that your thoughts are understood acknowledged and in this Supplementary Order Paper of Melissa Lee recognised. I very much hope we can pass this for you today."