McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I think this will no doubt be the most difficult speech that I've made in my time in this House. In the first reading of this bill I outlined why I supported this bill and nothing has changed in that respect. I completely trust a woman's judgment in these matters. I believe they have the right—as I do in fact—to make decisions about their body their lives and their family's lives. The issue I have is that I don't believe the State has ever provided enough support to women and young families to women in violent relationships to rape victims and to unwanted children. Frankly the State doesn't provide enough support there now and hasn't been able to resolve any of those issues in my lifetime and I think that's one of the tragedies of our society.I want to congratulate the Hon Andrew Little on the manner in which he's brought this bill to the House. I think it's been outstanding. He's explained at every step his reasons—and the Government's reasons in fact—for bringing this bill to the House. He's gone out of his way to answer questions and explain much of the bill. I most certainly support this matter being taken out of the Crimes Act and being treated as a health issue.However there were two issues I raised in my first reading speech which I was not happy with and I hoped would be shored up during the select committee process. They are primarily the support for women as they go through this process. I don't think there are adequate safeguards or support for women as they go through this process. And I don't think there is any long-term follow-up to ensure that woman who are forced—not forced"; that's a bad word—who enter the abortion process to receive adequate support and counselling later in life. And I don't like the word "counselling" either because really it's support they need. I'm hugely concerned about those young people who are not able to talk with their parents before going into this process and in fact for whatever reason they end up with a stranger supporting them. I look at my two oldest grandchildren who are in those young teenage years and I wonder what on earth would happen if they ended up in this process without strong support from either family members or other people they knew well. I'd think it would be the most terrifying thing that could ever happen to you and I don't think this bill puts enough support around those young people. I think that anyone going into an abortion process no doubt gives huge consideration to it and is hugely concerned about it. So I think that the support mechanism around this bill for me is not strong enough. The second issue I raised in my first reading speech was the fact that I don't believe there's adequate protection for those woman entering the abortion process post - 20 weeks. Also I don't believe there's adequate protection—and I suppose I'm not so much talking about protection or safety mechanisms advice and support for those people who find themselves at 20 weeks carrying a child with serious disability. I can't imagine what I would do in those circumstances. The other thing I don't think there's enough protection around is when it comes to the sex of the fetus. I don't know whether that will make any difference at all but I think it's a risk we're taking as a Parliament to go into this process without enough support and without enough knowledge in fact of what might happen as a result of that. At present I think there were some 56 abortions post - 20 weeks in 2018 so it's not a significant issue from that perspective. But I do think we're taking some risk with it and I feel uncomfortable about it. So I find it really difficult to I guess—having gone through this process supported the process to this point I'd have to say I haven't had a comfortable two or three days wondering where I was going to get to with this. But actually I find that my conscience won't let me support the bill as it goes through its third reading today not because I don't think that the bill basically is a good bill; I just think there's some pieces in that bill that are far too risky for me to enable me to support it as it goes forward. So that's my contribution and I won't be able to support the bill."