Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We have heard previously in this debate that there have been no complaints raised about item 16525. I think there is a very good reason for that: the people most likely to complain are all dead! The issue is that the purpose of this process is to kill people aged between 13 and 26 weeks. I agree with Senator Fielding that, at the very least, this process must be done in a public hospital with a public ethics committee to oversee what someone defines as a ‘gross foetal abnormality’. As there is no clear definition of this, it can be open to all sorts of interpretations. I find it completely and utterly abhorrent that people are being killed in private clinics because of some practitioner’s decision about what a gross foetal abnormality is. In fact, I find abortion utterly abhorrent because we are determining the value of someone’s life through our eyes and not through theirs. We do not even give them the opportunity of seeing life through their eyes at all. That is the crux of this issue.

I am also very disturbed about the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development and the fact that it has become apparent that people feel that they have been verballed by their inclusion in this process. That is also completely disheartening. In this debate we must ultimately move the pendulum back towards life, towards those who rely on us in this chamber as their only means of protection. We are their only vestige of hope, and we need to move from our completely anachronistic and arrogant stance that we are the determinants of the value of someone’s life.

This debate also reignited what is basically a eugenics type of approach. It is the ultimate in economic rationalism—if you cost too much we will kill you. That should be completely abhorrent in our nation. You cannot have it both ways. You have to be consistent; you either believe in the protection of life. Whether or not the death of an innocent person is paid for by the state is irrelevant; the crux of the issue is that you are killing them. That has to be brought back to mind. I hope and pray that at some stage in this debate people will start to consider exactly what we are doing here. As soon as there is an ultrasound, it should be game, set and match. I look forward to getting a result the next time that we approach this issue.