O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I rise in support of my cousin's Supplementary Order Paper—not because of my second name at all. I have been in this House for some time and this is the first time I have spoken on abortion legislation. Before everyone had considered me somewhat of a conservative. This time and when this bill was introduced I voted for it to go to the select committee and be considered. I have to say that in the many years I've been in here the one thing that has pleased me is to see abortion numbers go down from 18000 which was the case last time we debated this legislation now to 13000. So by I guess a reasonable measure you would say that the legislation is good. My heart goes out to any woman who faces that terrible dilemma of considering abortion. I would never in this House on this legislation point a finger in any direction. We are all entitled to our views. We all are brought up in different ways and have different values and every time you point a finger there are three pointing back at oneself. We talk and we hear a lot about rights and that does concern me because responsibilities go with rights and I don't often hear the term responsibilities" used when this debate is in this House. I have responsibilities as a member of Parliament and when it comes to a conscience vote it's to uphold my views and my values and my conscience—and I've done that all the way through. I am here to support the rights and advocate for the responsibilities of any New Zealander of any age of any gender of any ethnicity of any religious belief. I'm not standing here as a Catholic although I'm proud of my values that have been formed around that Church. But I'm not here in the way that many are in somewhat of a righteous way. I receive emails on this piece of legislation—and I have done on the euthanasia bill—and I just welcome and invite those same people to send me emails when it comes to support for solo mothers or when it comes to support for special education for the children who are born and who need extra care. Dare I suggest that there's some hypocrisy in being absolutely righteous about things prior to birth or close to death and not being very righteous when it comes to the responsibilities of looking after New Zealanders through their life? Each and every New Zealander—regardless of where they're born regardless of their parents' position—should have opportunities to a good life. We don't always advocate as strongly for that as we do for things around abortion and around euthanasia. I have a responsibility as a Minister for animal welfare. During this debate from the time that this bill was introduced I was confronted with an issue and a bit of advice that said that I had to consider zebrafish eggs of four days of age and the possibility that they are sentient. Sentience is a definition applied to animals which says they have feelings and we have a responsibility as a civilised nation to uphold sentience and the rights of animals—and that's my role. I struggle with a piece of legislation that doesn't recognise the rights I guess of a fetus. We got rid of inductions in cows because we consider it abhorrent that we would force cows to abort because it has an impact—obviously it kills the calf—and perhaps an impact on the cows. I'm not a vet and I'm not one to make judgments other than now receiving a bit of advice that says perhaps we have to look at a code of welfare for four-day-old zebrafish eggs shocked me into a position of thinking if we pass a piece of legislation about the rights of individuals but without the responsibilities to a fetus—and I'm not making a judgment on 12 weeks or 14 weeks or 20 weeks; I realised it's a medical dilemma in there and I'm not stepping away from that—but I have to say that there's an inconsistency creeping in to our consideration of life and our responsibility to New Zealanders when we consider—or we've been asked to consider—sentience and the rights of animals but we turn our back on the rights and the responsibilities to care for a fetus."