O'Connor Greg; Mallard TrevorGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I stand in opposition to this bill. I voted for it at the first reading because I felt that the bill needed to go through a select committee to see if it could be made palatable. I've read the Abortion Legislation Committee report. I've read the bill.For those who are watching tonight those who believe this is an abortion debate it is not an abortion debate. As the previous speaker pointed out that debate was had several years ago and abortion is now part of the New Zealand landscape. Whether or not it's abortion on demand is debatable. I believe from what I have learnt it is abortion on demand. However I do not agree with those who believe we should go back to a day where all abortions were illegal because you will end up putting it back where it was—in the hands of criminals. If you think it's bad—anything now to do with abortion—wait until you end up back in those days. Most abortionists were caught because they had butchered a job or butchered a woman—butchered a victim. That was how they were caught. So I would implore those who believe that this is a re-debate of abortion to think again.What this is is about post - 20 weeks. I've read the report and I've looked for anything that would assure me that the situation we have now would not become the post - 20 week situation—where you have the consultants where you have to have the reasons; but that is what you have now. There will be those who'll disagree but from my own experience it is not difficult to get an abortion in New Zealand today. That is where—there will be those who are in favour of full rights; they will say no—this debate really belongs.I'm the father of an intellectually handicapped son who's now 27 years old and what this post - 20 week legislation will mean is that for parents who do find out that they have a child who may not be normal" who isn't what they had hoped the child would be all of a sudden a whole new set of pressures are going to go on as a result of this legislation. While we have the same consultative process pretty much we have now pre - 20 weeks which will be imposed post - 20 weeks I look at the committee's report where they say "We have confidence that doctors base their decisions on these legal and ethical guidelines. However we note the bill does not explicitly state the legal and ethical frameworks a doctor would use." This is the essence of the debate. There is going to be a considerable amount of discretion able to be used by those doctors.I note—as I researched that—there have been a number of abortions over the last 10 years that have been refused. But actually the statistics don't tell us whether those abortions actually carried on—whether the women went to another person or another physician.So again I stand here looking. I've examined this legislation. I've examined the report and I don't believe that anyone can look at this and believe that there's not a whole new set of pressures going to go on to parents—those who are now going to be forced to make a decision around whether they will abort their child. I fear that post - 20 weeks—this part of this legislation I simply cannot vote for. Taking the legislation out of the Crimes Act as I said I agree with. That is something that I think there are sufficient safeguards in there now to keep it outside the Crimes Act. It does belong as a health issue as some of the other speakers mentioned. But post - 20 weeks there is just simply not enough safeguard to ensure that those—SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."