Little AndrewHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you Madam Chair. I'll take the opportunity to respond to the last few speakers but I'll start with my colleague Greg O'Connor who spoke just now in relation to his amendment. I understand the point he's making. I think following the Law Commission's consideration—and they put up the options and we drafted up a bill and the Abortion Legislation Committee considered it—it was very clear from the submissions received and the deliberations by the select committee they wanted that gestational threshold of 20 weeks to require a stricter test than had originally been intended for the reasons I think that Mr O'Connor talked about. They are that at 20 weeks it is a very serious decision. That said the women who are making the decision know that. Women at 20 weeks don't feel they are called upon to make that decision on a whim. They are called upon to confront that judgment because of their own health and potentially the health of the fetus. So it's a situation that women don't want to be in and typically it is a wanted pregnancy but a crisis has emerged in their pregnancy. So I think we all get the significance and the seriousness of the situation. The problem with Mr O'Connor's amendment and his proposed amendments in clause 7 of the bill in proposed new section 11 is that it creates a set of criteria that are more restrictive than the current legislation and arguably even more restrictive than that proposed by Agnes Loheni. So he requires that the woman has to be more than 20 weeks pregnant and there is a risk to the life or serious harm to the physical or mental health of the woman and the fetus is so medically impaired as to be unlikely to survive beyond birth and it is appropriate to carry out the birth in order to avert the risk—it refers to the" risk but there are multiple risks referred to. So that would suggest that the woman might be seriously compromised but if the fetus is not so seriously compromised then the woman's life is to be expended. Conversely if the fetus is severely compromised but the woman is not subject to serious physical harm or mental health then the pregnancy must continue to term. That's what that provision means Mr O'Connor and I can't support it and I won't be supporting it. Let me start with Paulo Garcia and his contribution in support of Supplementary Order Paper 466 and the references to "cultural background". The same applies I think to the remarks made by Melissa Lee in support of her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 459—actually it might be her other SOP. In fact it might not be Melissa Lee at all. In fact I think it is Harete Hipango in her SOP 467. In relation to both of those that call upon the medical practitioners to take account of cultural considerations—or in the case of Harete Hipango's SOP the Treaty of Waitangi—I just say that that is entirely inappropriate in a consultation between a woman of whatever ethnic background consulting with her medical practitioner on an abortion. The only considerations that apply are her health and possibly the health of the fetus depending on what the circumstances are. It is not relevant to the determination that that woman and her medical professional have to make that the community from which that woman comes has a set of cultural considerations that may counter her decision. That's not relevant and we should not be legislating for that because that is to undermine the autonomy of women in those circumstances and that is not something that this House should countenance. It cuts across basic human rights that are enshrined in our human rights legislation and indeed in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and we should not countenance it. I reject those two SOPs. I reject them strongly and I invite the rest of the committee to do so. Agnes Loheni referred to her SOP 460. She talked about recognition of the rights of the unborn child and I know there's the language of the "unborn child". Abortions that take place before nine weeks or even before 12 weeks do not entail an unborn child. It is not an unborn child and I reject the language of that—that this somehow is a debate about unborn children. It is about women making a decision early in their pregnancy and being able to do so safely and properly. I reject Agnes Loheni's arguments and indeed the arguments of others who have said including Simon O'Connor that the criteria set out in proposed section 11 in clause 7 of the bill are somehow meaningless. They are not. They are very clear about the post - 20 week decision on abortion that a woman takes with her medical practitioner and so they refer to a qualified health practitioner only providing abortion services to a woman who is more than 20 weeks "if the health practitioner reasonably believes that the abortion is clinically appropriate". That does have meaning. There's got to be a medical basis to it. It has to meet clinical criteria. I go back to the points I've already made about the standards to which our health professionals now must conduct themselves as way different and way beyond anything that prevailed 40 years ago. It is different. Those standards are set they are articulated they are accessible to the public and they are enforced by professional organisations as well as the Health and Disability Commissioner. So there is meaning attached to that. Then in considering whether the abortion is clinically appropriate there's a set of circumstances that a health practitioner has to take into account having consulted at least one other health practitioner—and that would be standard anyway; by 20 weeks this is a surgical procedure and health professionals are consulting colleagues and others. They have to do so and they have to have regard to the "relevant legal professional and ethical standards" to which they are subject. Those are clear as well. This is something new—or reasonably modern—in the last 20 or 25 years: the idea that health practitioners not only have standards but can be held to account for them. We possibly have the Cartwright Inquiry into National Women's Hospital to thank for that. But that is the way the medical profession operates. I know medical professionals who at some point in their medical professional career are terrified at the standards that they are held to—or some of the older ones anyway because they never expected that when they entered the profession. It is a good thing for consumers of health services that we now have that in New Zealand and the same will apply to women seeking an abortion. So in addition to those relevant legal professional and ethical standards the health practitioner has to consider the woman's physical health mental health overall wellbeing and the gestational age of the fetus. That threshold does mean something. It has to mean something and it has to be taken into account. So I reject those who submit that that is somehow meaningless. I know that Agnes Loheni rejects Jan Logie's SOP calling for effectively going to option A of the Law Commission report. I have to agree with her on that because I know that the process we've gone through in terms of dealing with parties in Parliament as well as the select committee is that we've arrived at the framework that we've got which is basically option C of the Law Commission's report but modified to take account of other considerations. So I simply acknowledge that. To Melissa Lee who raised her SOP 459 and sex selection or disability discrimination I simply say that that is already taken account of. The sex selection issue is taken account of by an expressed statement in the bill and issues of any suggestion that a woman would be seeking an abortion on those sorts of grounds—that is for health professionals subject to their relevant legal ethical and professional obligations to deal with. But what we also cannot legislate for is a situation where those health professionals are called upon to exercise their own prejudices in relation to various ethnicities in order to do so and I reject that. I acknowledge the contribution from Nikki Kaye and from Louisa Wall. I've spoken to Harete Hipango's SOP and I have nothing further to say about that. In answer to Kieran McAnulty's question he raised about the communications he is receiving about whether the bill will allow up-to-birth abortion—no it won't; there's no such thing as abortion at birth. Let's have a look at the figures. The number of abortions after 20 weeks is a very very minuscule amount. The number at 22 weeks is an even more minuscule amount. Abortions typically do not take place after 24 weeks. There is no such thing as full-term abortion. In relation to Down syndrome again the health professional advising the woman is subject to all of those legal professional and other considerations before giving that advice. The critical criteria are the woman's mental health and physical health and wellbeing and indeed if it comes to the distress of the fetus the status of the fetus as well. Those are the considerations that apply. That's what must be taken into account. I've dealt with Simon O'Connor's issues and I've dealt with Greg O'Connor's issues. I see there is another tabled amendment from Greg O'Connor relating to proposed section 11. In the remaining seconds I'll have a quick read of it and I see that it proposes "there is a risk to life". It now introduces the alternative—the "or". It is a skimpied-down version; however I reject it for reasons I've already articulated."