Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party and speak for the electorate of Epsom in favour of the Abortion Legislation Bill—a piece of legislation that is overdue. Why? Well because it removes abortion from the Crimes Act and it ends the criminalisation of abortion. When we think about a policy we should ask ourselves three questions: what's the point of the policy is it effective at achieving its goals and what are the side effects.The criminalisation of abortion is supposed to reduce the rate of abortion. But we know from the excellent speech given by Michael Wood earlier that abortion rates and criminalisation are unconnected. Canada has no abortion law and lower rates than New Zealand. Latin American countries have had some of the most stringent prohibitions on abortion and much higher rates than New Zealand. So abortion criminalisation does not achieve even what its supporters think it should.Then we ask the third question about a policy: what about the unintended consequences? The criminalisation of abortion in New Zealand for the last 43 years has had legion unintended consequences. One of them is subterfuge: the idea that women in New Zealand have to—as Amy Adams said in an excellent second reading speech—invent a fiction that they are mentally unwell in order to access healthcare. That is a disgrace. We like to be able to tell the truth and be accepted for who we are not engage in subterfuge to satisfy other people's impositions.The second unintended consequence is inequity. As I said in my speech on the second reading of this bill women in rural areas face much greater practical hurdles under the bureaucracy and rigmarole created by criminalisation than women in large metropolitan centres who still face considerable challenge.The final unintended consequence is stigmatisation. It is a none-too-subtle misogynistic message that women are kind of like community assets who must be used to carry children to term whether they like it or not. Again a disgrace; not the kind of humanitarian message that I would hope New Zealand stands for in 2020. For all of those reasons I commend this bill and hope that it will pass tonight. Prohibition or criminalisation of abortion does not achieve its goal and does far more damage besides.Some people who agree with everything that I've just said I know were surprised that I and other members of this House opposed the notion of safe areas. Now let me be clear: I have very little time for the people who protest outside abortion clinics and a great deal of sympathy for women who are intimidated shouted at or made to feel bad for being in a situation that they often didn't choose. I oppose that intimidation; I support a woman's right to choose. However you cannot grow freedom by taking one step forward and one step backward. It would have been a mistake to decriminalise abortion while criminalising speech. It would have been a terrible constitutional precedent for this House to make a law where a Minister a politician can strike out with a pen freedom of expression—a right guaranteed to New Zealanders in the bill of rights.What should we do instead? Well the people who have got in contact with me about this issue over the past week have almost uniformly cited things that are illegal under section 4 and section 21 of the Summary Offences Act: intimidation insulting and obstruction. I implore the New Zealand Police to uphold those laws. I say to my parliamentary colleagues that if the police can't uphold the laws we have now there would have been no point in making new ones. That is why—and I wanted to put on record—I have opposed safe areas.I want to close by commending the Minister of Justice the Hon Andrew Little and all those in this House who have finally long overdue taken abortion out of the Crimes Act and affirmed a woman's right to choose and to control her own body. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you Mr Speaker.