O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm sad and disappointed but not surprised to have to take a call today. Topics of death have a strange thrall if you will for humans and as a Parliament in as many weeks we're here talking about issues of life and death again last week around the sick the elderly and the disabled and this week we talk about unborn children. I oppose this bill—that's no surprise to the House—and I always will but the fundamental reason I oppose this bill is I believe in human rights and human rights are for all. They're for mums and they're for babies and where rights start to occur for some and not for others we no longer have human rights. Across history we as humans have a very sad legacy of where regimes have sought—often when they're in positions of power—to remove the rights of others. These regimes of the past and certainly in recent centuries always start by defining a category of people as non-human as not the same as us. Once that change of definition is done that denial of human rights is done the abuses start.So for me this debate is simply really a question of whether the unborn child is a human or not and I stand with those who say that it is for it can be none other. Consequently the unborn child has human rights. In fact it has the most fundamental of all human rights and that is the right to life. My wife said to me that every pregnant woman gives birth to a human nothing else. She is pregnant with a human being and this is incontrovertible. Those in favour of terminating the unborn work exhaustively to avoid this fact but as I say what develops at conception is simply each and every one of us—just a little bit younger. As some have said they're just cells in the womb. Oddly too we are cells—just a little older.The sad irony of this debate is those who proclaim their love of human rights are actively seeking to remove it from some. It has been said I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born." I think the sort of statement of those born and advocating abortion would be what progressives call the position of privilege where those with power exercise it over those without. I think those who call themselves progressives in this Parliament will find themselves in the uncomfortable position in the debate of the unborn of actually being the privileged the people of power and those who can dominate others. They already have rights but they are open and willing to remove them from others. The unborn child is arguably the most vulnerable of all human beings those with disabilities and those who are unborn girls even more so. For us to say we believe in human rights then the truth of what is said comes down to whether such rights apply to those who need them most and I would argue in this case the unborn.As a colleague of mine in Australia has said recently the best chapters in our history have been when we have recognised the innate dignity of others but our worst have been when people with rights have decided that others should not have them. I always have and always will stand and speak for those who promote human rights for all. I'll always stand with those who speak without a voice. I'll always stand and always will with the unborn and those who are becoming mothers. I'll always stand with the most vulnerable in our community and challenge those who use their power against them. I will always stand with those who struggle to be themselves in a society that demands able uniformity. And I'll always stand behind those hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders working every day to promote the rights of all human beings—mothers and babies; not just those deemed worthy. And so I turn my final comments to those on the side of right—of full human rights of those who long for the best chapters of history. I cannot use the term "you" so excuse my talking in the third person. But these people are amazing who fight for the most vulnerable who use their voice to speak for those who have none who sacrifice their time to help others and fight every day to promote human rights—not for themselves but for those who have none; those who fight not for themselves but against those who seek to deny the rights of others. They suffer much abuse and with increasing complicity of the media have their voices and stories ignored and silenced. But I can offer some hope in what may seem another day of darkness in this Parliament for I've spoken of history and right. That which is right will always win for the light will never be extinguished. And history shows that just when those who promote and celebrate death think they have won life triumphs."