Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the Abortion Legislation Bill a piece of legislation whose time has come—decades ago—a piece of legislation that will take abortion out of the Crimes Act because it should never have been a crime. As earlier speakers have made a point of saying there is no other medical procedure that is legislated the way abortion is. I should start by acknowledging and thanking the Minister of Justice for bringing this bill to the floor of the House—good on Andrew Little. And I should also thank and acknowledge my fellow members of the Abortion Legislation Committee a specially formed committee with members from every party in this House to consider this bill. It was deftly chaired by Ruth Dyson and supporting her was Amy Adams with her legal skills. It was a very constructive committee that worked through some very different difficult issues extremely efficiently. And I have to say as the only bloke in the room for most of the time I developed a strange new empathy for Elizabeth McCombs who must have often felt exactly the same.I most of all want to acknowledge the submitters. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for people to come forward and tell such heartfelt stories about such harrowing experiences in their life and do it not only in public but in front of a group of politicians often in the full glare of the media's TV cameras as well. I think those New Zealanders who came to the select committee deserve our admiration. They deserve our admiration because one of the things that they did was they absolutely gave the lie to the claim we've heard that there is no problem to be solved here. Actually the submitters showed us that in the real world of New Zealand there are serious problems with our current abortion law and I would name three of them. One of them is that the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders believe it is important to follow the law. One of the most stigmatising things that can happen to most New Zealanders is that they are labelled as a criminal. We heard from one woman in particular Jacqueline Cavanagh who told us some of the most horrendous stories about the grotesque evil bullying that she has suffered because she had had to have a late-term abortion and one could only think that when this Parliament tells New Zealand society that having an abortion is a crime of course some of those odious comments and bullying are going to come forth. But I want to put on record what Jacqueline Cavanagh bravely told the committee because I think it deserves to be recorded in the Hansard of this House. And I also think that she said it much better than perhaps any of us will be able to. She says a person does not wake up at this gestation of pregnancy and decide that they simply no longer want a child. These are crisis pregnancies."—she refers to those ending in late-term abortions—"These are heart-wrenching and soul-destroying decisions. Names [have been] picked out nurseries decorated birth plans thought through baby clothes washed and at the ready. We carry shattered dreams inside us. To travel the road of abortion at this stage of gestation is an altruistic decision made from a place of love and despair." She had an abortion because it was the only way that she could stay alive and be with her already born child and her husband. That's why she did it. And she doesn't deserve the stigma that criminalisation has placed around abortion. But another problem the submitters told us is inequity. We had somebody who had had two abortions in their life. This woman had had one whilst living in a smaller provincial centre in her late teens and another later in life in a larger metropolitan city in her late 20s. The difficulty and the rigmarole and the trauma that she went through were like night and day. Doing it in provincial New Zealand; having to travel as we've had so well described by Amy Adams in her excellent speech; being able to make it work and get through a second certifying consultant with all the rigmarole that our current law requires was incredibly difficult. Doing it in a large metropolitan city in her late 20s was somewhat easier but still needlessly difficult.Now in any sane world for which of those two people at those two stages of life would it have been easier to access abortion services? Of course it would be the younger more vulnerable more geographically isolated woman in that story who would've been able to get more support. Under our current law it's the opposite. I say to those people who are the doyens of the regions who want to do things for regional New Zealand one of the things you could costlessly do is vote for this bill because those people would be not only helping all women but disproportionately helping those in rural New Zealand.Finally the problem that is related to the first two is the subterfuge the idea that women have to invent a fiction that they are somehow mentally unstable in order to access healthcare. It's actually completely crazy and until you say it you don't realise how crazy it is.I realise there are people who have moral objections. I admire the speaker who spoke before me Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki who said "I'm a Christian; this is my view." That was refreshing honesty. I think we should have more of that because an earlier speech by Agnes Loheni said there was no problem criminalisation wasn't happening and yet somehow decriminalising it is going to change the world. I think that gives the lie and the illogic of the opposition to this bill.The Abortion Legislation Committee did not choose model A a model that would have no statutory framework much like say Canada a country with lower abortion rates than New Zealand. The select committee has gone with option B which has a statutory test after 20 weeks. I want to put on record that I think that's a mistake. The select committee chose to continue including these protest zones these restrictions on freedom of expression. Now in my view abortion protesters in New Zealand are not like American ones. They're not scary they're not dangerous; they're people to feel sorry for. They are not a threat in the way that American abortion protesters are. However these protest zones in this legislation are an impairment of freedom of speech so arbitrary and so ad hoc that those particular impairments of freedom of speech could be used as a precedent for any other restriction. I intend to put up a Supplementary Order Paper that will remove that section and allow other parts of our law such as the Summary Offences Act to deal with harassment as it should and I'd invite members who are in favour of this cause and in favour of freedom of speech to join together and support that amendment which is already prepared.Finally I want to talk about the moral case behind this bill. I get messages saying "Do you support abortion?" Of course I don't. Nobody does. Nobody wakes up one day and thinks "That's what I'll do today." It is a difficult and harrowing experience to go through. But that's not the question. The question before this House tonight is: what should be the role of this Parliament and what should be the role of the State when it comes to abortion law reform? If any member thinks that it is somehow helpful for the State apparatus for this Parliament to ask the police and corrections and the courts in this country to run around and try and compel women to take unwanted pregnancies to term against their will then I don't know how else to argue with those people but I hope they're in the minority tonight. Thank you Mr Speaker."