Mallard TrevorAGNES LOHENI (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I am pleased to take a call in this third and final reading of the Abortion Legislation Bill. The abortion debate has always boiled down to a fundamental difference as to whether the unborn child is human or something less. If it is human it's entitled by definition to all the protections and rights any human being has in New Zealand. If it isn't human but merely not an unborn child—as the honourable Minister of Justice has stated in this House—then you are free to do with the not a child" as you want. This has enabled the Minister to clumsily sidestep the real and worrying legal issues raised around this proposed legislation and in particular clause 11 because the debate before us isn't on the legality of abortion and whether it should be allowed. Despite the clever albeit deceitful casting of debate as one of pro- or anti-abortion the real debate is about a radical liberalisation to the existing abortion legislation. Clause 11 of this bill by every reading of it states that it will allow for abortions up to the moment of birth and no amount of the Minister blocking his ears and saying "No it doesn't." changes this. It is a broad ill-defined vague section with no regard to the unborn child. There is far more definition and substance in the provision on conscientious objection in this bill than there is around clause 11. Clause 11 is the crux of this bill. It provides no medical boundaries as to when a post 20 week child up to birth can or cannot be aborted. It merely allows for a clinically appropriate test to be applied which itself is not defined. Our first responsibility in this House as legislators is to pass good robust laws and to recognise the humanity in our laws. Clause 11 is not good law. How can it be when it seeks to reject outright pre-born babies as developing human beings? I and those who share my view have acknowledged the difficult position a mother must be in to have to consider aborting her child. It's a tragic decision one that will leave lingering psychological effects. The answer is to not make it easier to eradicate one but we should be looking to find ways to support them both. To the progressive mind abortion is the linchpin to female fulfilment and kicking the door open and wide must therefore be presented as a victory for all women. But to rationalise this they must never speak of the act of abortion or speak of the baby inside the mother. Instead what we hear is "My right to choose. My body my rights. My reproductive choice. My health. My bodily autonomy."—"My my my." Who are we and where are we heading as a society if we allow our laws to attack the most sacred instinct a mother has for an unborn child: the maternal instinct to care to protect and to nurture our babies from the moment we know that we are pregnant. That is an attack on our own humanity. It is not progressive; it is regressive. For those mothers having to make the painful decision to abort a child for severe abnormalities my heart cries out for them. What an awful position to be in but it is clear that the current law supports women in those very rare and awful situations. But abnormalities are not the only reason women have abortions post - 20 weeks. Overseas research shows that women do have them for other reasons. These women are likely to be young unemployed and may be suffering from substance abuse depression or intimate partner violence. These are facts and despite the Hon Ruth Dyson claiming that all babies are wanted post - 20 weeks the facts don't support her claim. The Hon Ruth Dyson can be as offended as she likes but truth be told they are not always wanted babies and we need laws to protect them. Perhaps the biggest deception touted by some proponents of this bill was that this would decriminalise women knowing full well that no woman ever in New Zealand was criminalised. We hear that women will no longer face the stigma and will no longer have to lie about the reason for having an abortion as if women will now proceed to have guilt-free abortions on demand as though they are merely having an appendectomy. No law can alleviate guilt. No law will stop women who have abortions from feeling the full weight of the decision they have made. This proposed law will not change that and this is because we all have a moral conscience regardless of what is written in the law. For those who claim to be offended by harrowing images of what an abortion actually is: yes you are right. The images are repulsive and sickening. I find it hard to look at those images but I carry no ill feelings towards those who hold those images up to us. Those images show us the truth. They are real. If we harden our hearts to those images and deny the reality of what happens in an abortion then we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to further atrocities against humanity. I have found it disturbing that some members in this House have called for members like me to be open and honest about my lens view and they want to know if I am religious or not. Why is that? Is it because underlying this call is the perverse idea that religious views can be automatically discounted excluded—mocked even—in relation to the debate on broadened abortion laws?I hold strong to my Catholic values and my Samoan upbringing. Does this mean that a religious person who may be pro-life carries less weight than an atheist who may be pro-life? Does my being a Samoan New Zealander place my lens view higher than my being a Catholic New Zealander? You see the slippery slope that these calls for lens views to be declared can have. They are inconsistent with the liberal democracy values we have. They are bigoted and the cause for religious declarations must stop.We have heard that we need to reform our abortion laws because the current law is archaic and out of date or that it is onerous and bureaucratic. No I say. Our current abortion laws seek to balance the rights of the mother and the unborn child. No. What is archaic is this abortion bill which has been carefully shepherded in under the guise of health and decriminalisation. The reality is that we are voting on a bill that is about dehumanisation where some humans are excluded from being considered part of us part of the human family. They become excluded from our empathy our compassion and therefore easier to commit violence against them. This is what the bill is about. The unborn child is one of us. I urge my colleagues to vote No to this bill.SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think most members in the gallery are aware that they are not allowed to intervene. If they do it again they will be expelled. The Hon Ruth Dyson—for five minutes."