Thread by @OurBodiesChoice

Good morning everyone! We resume at 11am today with formal house business, so the Bill and all the amendments will begin at about 11.30am. Tune in here: parliament.nsw.gov.au/Pages/lc-webca…

We are starting the day with yet more amendments. I have had a cup of tea and the clerk is photocopying and we are now into ‘which amendment is replacing which on the tracking sheet’.

We are on amendment 155, which is the same or very similar to 106E. This is the ‘person born alive’ after a termination. Niall Blair is moving, and has worked with Damien Tudehope on this. As he says- this is what already happens now, and only codifies what we already do.

He’s right, its not great that we have to make explicit legislation to say what already happens, and to ally concerns because people are lying about doctors and calling them baby-murderers and that they callously leave babies to die. This, to be clear, does not happen.

Note for those following on, there is no such thing as a ‘baby born alive’ after abortion that is left to die & our laws already deal with this, but b/c of hysteria whipped up by anti-choicers we now have an amendment that implies doctors were wilfully murdering babies til now.

Mark Latham starts on a speeech about the amendment which is off topic, Trevor Khan rises on a point of order, Greg Donelly rises too, and now we are off on an argument about Westminster democracy. Because this is a good use of our time.

Before we got sidetracked on this, Niall Blair said that her worked with Damien Tudehope on his amendment, and that Tudehope prefers Fred Nile’s amendment (surprise) but did have some input into the drafting of his.

Mark Latham is still talking. We would prefer to keep talking about Niall Blair. He’s been gracious about working with people who want to see the BIll fail in good faith to come up with this amendment.

Mark Latham is still talking. He’s now defending Fred Nile! There’s a surprise.

Mark Latham is now referring to Adam Searle being critical of Fred Nile & says, he’s been in Parliament for 38 years! (Implying how dare people criticise him) Fun fact Fred Nile has been in Parliament for longer than four of our five committee members have been alive. It shows.

It’s a whole mood that Mark Latham is basically reading a long love poem to Fred Nile ‘a great Aussie gentleman’ but we got another point of order and now Latham is accusing those of pointing out Fred Nile borrows his tactics from the US of being conspiracy theorists.

I mean, its not a secret. We can all google what the US tactics are, there’s a group there set up specifically with draft legislation and talking points for print and download. Nile & Co use these talking points.

Mark Latham is once again talking about how he doesn’t like that people impugn Fred Nile’s motives and to be honest, the lady doth protest too much.
You can call it what you like, but ‘cherish life’ is a euphemism for forced pregnancy and birth.

Lou Amati, he of the failed #libspill, makes a contribution and we zoned out, it was brief, but do want to direct you to the most memorable thing about the kamikaze bellyflop spill, which was everyone googling “who the hell is Lou Amato?” And that google shows, no one knows:

Penny Sharpe rises to contribute and says how much of the debate from those who are anti-choice have been incredibly disrespectful to doctros and health professionals. Yeah, same, we had no idea that there was a horde of Drs with no compassion slavering to harm and kill babies.

Because there isn’t.

It’s made up anti-choice nonsense IMPORTED FROM THE US.

Courtney Houssos- sidebar, has anyone else noticed that she waits until after Penny Sharpe has spoken before she rises? Is there some Parliamentary reason to do this?

Shayne Mallard in the chair is carefully outlining that QT (question time) is in 8 minutes at 12 noon, and that we may not get to a vote on Niall Blair or Fred Nile’s amendments.

In our view we have one too many Niall/Nile and we know which one we’d vote off the island.

Greg Donnelly’s just called pregnant people and doctors murderers again, Penny Sharpe rises on a point of order. Then Donnelly goess back to saying he isn’t a conspiracy theorist.

Greg Donnelly’s still going on not liking to be called a conspiracy theorist who imports all his talking points from the US (though if we are bing fair all his ideas are from BA Santamaria). We doubt we will get to a vote on this this morning.

Emma Hurst is on her feet and Shayne Mallard says she will be interrupted for QT. SHe notes for her and Mark Pearson think the amendment is unnecessary as it seeks to appease those who are spreading misinformation which may propagate misinformation and they will not support it.

‘The committee as a whole reports progress’ which means we are into QT. As one of our dear community says just now, you can’t stop progress. We’ll see you after the lunch break - depending on if they do ‘take note’ we will be back after lunch at 2.30pm or 3pm. We’ll let you know.

We're baaaaaaaack. Picking up on the two amendments we left off with regarding 'care of person born after termination.' First up is David Shoebridge who is speaking against the amendment as unnecessary.

He believes that the amendment may result in distressing care rendered to the person born after termination rather than palliative care. "In an unthinking way, this chamber has changed the duty of care a doctor has to a patient in those circumstances."

Natasha Mclaren-Jones has so far supported all anti-choice amendments and is continuing to do that by supporting both amendments, both that of Fred Nile and Niall Blair.

She is arguing that a person born after termination is at grave risk. She's basically accusing pregnant people accessing termination services of being a danger to the child they've just birthed. This is a disgusting accusation.

Anti-choicers keep using 'community expectations' as a stand-in for their own extreme views.

Damien Tudehope rises. He has already spoken in support of the amendment moved by Fred Nile.

Fun fact folks: there's now 36 amendments listed on the Parliamentary website for this Bill. Here they are for the other repro nerds out there: parliament.nsw.gov.au/bills/Pages/bi…

We're currently going through some case law re involuntary manslaughter through negligence/breach of of duty of care probably proving the point that this amendment isn't necessary since it's already covered by legislation and case law. But you know, here we are.

Damien Tudehope is repeating what he already said last night and some in the chamber are not too happy about that considering how much we have to get through today.

Taylor Martin says either of these amendments are necessary to remove doubt. Doctors might disagree.

Greg Donnelly is speaking. He will take any chance to speak. You don't need to hear what he's saying. It's so repetitive.

You know what probably creates ambiguity and confusion? Trying to codify every aspect of abortion care contrary to practice for any other medical procedure, particularly when many of these codifications are only to refute 'the ambiguity and confusion' anti-choicers have created.

Fred Nile is speaking to both his and Niall Blair's amendments. Says if his fails, he will support Blair's despite 'some obvious weaknesses' which, when coming from Nile, always means it's not punitive and restrictive enough to women and pregnant people.

We should've updated anti-choice bingo to include 'abortion survivors'. You'd all have bingo by now.

For someone who takes offence at people discussing his own motives, he's pretty okay trying to shade others. This time the shade is directed at Wes Fang (NAT) who actually gave a great contribution to this amendment last night.

He's called this Bill 'a very bad abortion Bill'. Any abortion bill is a bad one in Fred's mind.

He's once again disparaging doctors who provide abortion care, accusing them of 'leaving babies to die'.

Niall Blair is clarifying some points made about his amendment, "Fred Nile is right, our amendments are fundamentally different." Once again says he regrets that we're having to codify what's already in existence.

Says it's to address those in the community who have been misinformed or confused. Geez, I wonder who's been spreading that misinformation and confusion?!

Makes it clear that medical care includes palliative care i.e. his amendment is not about trying to change the obligation of doctors to sustain the life of a person born after termination (which is what anti-choicers want).

We're FINALLY voting. Firstly on Fred Nile's amendment (089A). Division called. Amendment is defeated. 15 ayes to 26 noes.

Now onto Niall Blair's amendment (155). Division is called with a short bell. Chair had to get a new teller as most people switched sides. Amendment passes. 35 ayes to 6 noes.

Lol. We just heard Penny Shapre (think it was her) say, "I wish that'd been dealt with faster."

We've now got two amendments regarding counselling to get through - 094B and 107C.

Courtney Houssos is moving 094B so this is obviously going to be awful and patronising cause, surprise, she's still super anti-choice. It mandates the offer of counselling prior to abortion cause obviously pregnant people don't know their own minds.

It allows no scope for doctors to determine whether that offer would be in the patient's best interests. It simply mandates it.

I'm just quietly scoffing over here and anti-choicers emphasising 'non-directive care under Medicare' cause these are usually the same people who want extra funding for crisis pregnancy centres. That's the 'care' they'd prefer.

TK is up. Says Niall Blair will be moving an amendment re counselling post 22 weeks that he'll be supporting.

Speaking to the amendment before us, he says that a lot of abortions that occur earlier on occur due to a failure of contraception which makes it inappropriate to mandate counselling or its offer (this doesn't mean it isn't available - it always is).

QLD Law Reform Commission said that mandating counselling reinforced stigma... "Women are capable of making their own decisions and may not want counselling... its offer may be disrespectful." Louder for the people in the back!

TK doesn't want to see us interfering with the normal doctor/patient relationship but says post 22 weeks its offer is appropriate so he'll support Niall Blair's amendment.

This is Niall Blair's amendment: parliament.nsw.gov.au/bill/files/365… It involves information about publicly-funded counselling be given to people seeking terminations after 22 weeks (which happen in public hospitals). Doesn't mandate counselling itself.

He states it codifies what already exists in those hospital guidelines for these terminations.

Failed libspiller Lou Amato has risen to speak in support of Courtney Houssos' gross amendment and he's straight into myths about abortion grief.

He's claiming most women don't actually want to have terminations, they just don't have enough support. Nah, we're pretty sure, dude. On a serious note: reproductive coercion stats show being forced into pregnancy is more common than being coerced into a termination.

Abigail Boyd rises to speak on behalf of the Greens to speak against both amendments. Says both presume women don't know their own minds. "We don't mandate counselling for other irreversible procedures, including vasectomy."

Says the intent of this amendment is to force pregnant people to second guess themselves and creates further delays to those seeking reproductive healthcare.

Emma Hurst (Animal Justice Party) will also be opposing both of these amendments. Says she "will not support the legislative imposition of mandating the offer of counselling." Says even the offer implies the pregnant person's decision is ill thought out.

Oh wow. I wonder what Greg Donnelly will think about mandated offers of counselling.

DING DING DING he supports Courtney Houssos' super anti-choice amendment.

I think this is going to be long-winded. He's started with 'counselling in general'. Just speak to the amendment, dude. We already know where you're going. We don't need the scenic route.

We'll let you know when he's done.

Sorry, had to come back to refute his claim that 'offers can simply be refuted' like it's no big deal, just a simple yes or no, cause it completely ignores an imbalance of power dynamics and the potential adverse consequences of the offer alone.

Point of order being made my Penny Sharpe (THANK YOU). "This is well outside what this amendment is about."

Penny is MAD. We love it.

Sorry, we tuned out but seems that he's currently listing submissions by anti-choicers regarding counselling.

Donnelly: Penny Sharpe is jumping up and down and getting fidgety.
Sharpe: I'm fidgety cause I've been sitting here for hours listening to you.

He's onto coercion, something anti-choicers ONLY talk about when trying to restrict abortion access.

"We'll be talking (later) in much more detail about domestic violence and coercion and termination." Can't wait. Love when anti-choicers suddenly say they care about coercion while still trying to deny pregnant people access to healthcare which would seem to be pretty coercive.

Lou Amato is up to speak to both amendments. He is also talking about the anti-choice myth of abortion grief. Please refer to the Turnaway Study which shows the very real adverse outcomes of people who are denied abortion care - something he'd like to do.

"If we're talking about the protection of women..." we're not. We're talking about removing abortion from the criminal code and treated is as healthcare.

He's now reading in (anti-choice) submissions that did not make the deadline for the upper house inquiry but TK is up to make a point of order that he's speaking beyond the scope of the amendment. Chair will allow him to read the submissions.

Interjections from the other side of the house. Audience, this is going to be a long grumpy night.

Natasha Mclaren-Jones is unsurprisingly supporting Courtney Houssos' amendment. If that's not successful, she'll support Niall Blair's. Apparently she doesn't trust doctors to determine when an offer of counselling is appropriate and is now going off about conscientious objection

Anthony D'Adam (I don't think I've seen him speak yet) says he trusts the clinician and doesn't believe the offer of counselling needs to be mandated and says he'll oppose both amendments.

Fred Nile speaks in support of Houssos' amendment. Calls abortion a traumatic experience for women. I hate having to listen to him speak on my human rights.

Side note: there is a direct correlation between me live tweeting these debates and my skin breaking out so yeah, I find Nile pretty traumatic.

He's quoting Dr Rachel Carling, CEO of Right to Life NSW, so just ignore anything he's saying right now.

Ben Franklin is up. Says he wasn't going to speak but needs to on references made to a supposed link between abortion and suicide. He says those studies don't differentiate btwn existing conditions and other circumstances. More recent studies that do that, & dispute that link.

Penny opposes both amendments. "The point that I really want to make here is that medical practitioners are already being asked in this legislation to decide whether a termination can go ahead so surely they are able to decide whether counselling should be offered." (paraphrased)

"We do not need to get in the middle. Most of these amendments are trying to get in between a doctor and a woman."

She's calling out the disingenuous 'concern for women' and says we should respect women's ability to make their own decisions.

Matthew Mason-Cox supports Courtney Houssos' terrible amendment. If it fails, he'll support the less terrible but still unnecessary amendment of Niall Blair.

"We trust women to make those decisions, all we're looking to do is provide an offer of support. It's not meant to be patronising or disrespectful." Which means that's exactly what it is.

Dude, you don't get to talk about how everyone has their own unique set of circumstances and then argue for a blanket mandate.

Walt Secord rises, "Like Ben Franklin, I wasn't going to speak..." He believes it's a matter between a doctor and a woman, and counselling should be a determination between them. "Both amendments are intrusions and I'll be voting against both."

Scott Farlow supports Houssos' terrible amendment. "This actually provides more scope for the doctor than what the current legislation provides because it takes the guesswork out of it." That 'guesswork' is a doctor's discretion to act in the best interest of their patient.

Also going to add 'emotive issue' to anti-choice bingo.

"I respect the studies but will speak from personal experience." He's not actually speaking from personal experience (cause he's a cis man so literally can't), he's speaking to other people's experience while ignoring the data.

David Shoebridge is questioning the wording of Niall Blair's amendment (107C). Says 'necessary information' is unclear. "Is it different to reasonable information? What is needed to satisfy 'necessary information'?"

Asks what happens in an emergency situation, if the pregnant person is unconscious, as there is no exception for these situations in Niall Blair's amendments. Does not support either amendment.

Okay. We're voting on amendments now. Courtney Houssos' amendment (094B) is first. It mandates the offer of counselling prior to all abortions. Amendment is defeated. 15 ayes to 26 noes.

Next amendment is Blair's (107C) to mandate 'necessary info' on counselling for terminations post 22 weeks. Division called with a short bell (the chamber yelled in support of this). Amendment is passed. 24 ayes to 17 noes.

We're now onto sex selection. This is going to be heinous. The amendment is 057H (parliament.nsw.gov.au/bill/files/365…) being moved by Damien Tudehope.

Let's be clear. The opposition to abortions based on the sole grounds of sex selection (there are other reasons it might be necessary) does not mean it needs to be legislated because we absolutely know that doing so has some very adverse unintended consequences.

Tudehope says he doesn't support sex selective abortions even for sex-linked genetic disorders (calls it eugenics - it's not) but says this amendment is specific enough to not include that.

He's talking about the supposed preference for sons in some communities. He is ignoring evidence that shows Australian couples have shown a preference for girls during IVF but they aren't the ones he wants doctors to (racistly) surveil.

I think we're just going to hear an endless repeat of the anti-choice evidence we heard in the upper house inquiry on the Bill regarding sex selection.

We're going to hear a lot about 'missing girls' from the same people who are pretty keen on undermining the rights of women and people with a uterus.

When the anti-choicers start listing different immigrant communities just remember that they are trying to pass an amendment that would alienate women from these communities from their doctors and deteriorate their trust in the healthcare system.

When the anti-choicers keep misrepresenting the Latrobe study (which they're going to do a lot), please refer back to this: thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/…

Also read this joint statement from migrant and women’s organisations on sex selection amendments to the Bill.

https://twitter.com/_NCOSS_/status/1174132808463216640

Please note I'm trying not to repeat a lot of the gross claims being made by Tudehope that ignores nuance and data, and the fact that his amendment will makes things worse for women and pregnant peopel. We've heard it all before. We'll hear it a lot more in this debate

Abigail Boyd (GRN) speaks against the amendment. She says the way to deal with sex selective abortions is education and a better understanding of 'the intersex and gender non-binary community'.

The Latrobe study (that amendment backers will bring up a lot) actually talked about needing to tackle gender inequality in all its form, not about restricting abortion. Boyd says making abortion access more difficult would further entrench that inequality.

Boyd quotes AMA, "The implications of putting in further amendments... requires doctors to be mind readers... Our role, when women and patients walk in the door, is to not come at them with preconceived ideas and judgment."

This restriction does not fit in the framework of providing non judgmental healthcare.

She is referring to the joint statement from migrant and women’s organisations on sex selection amendments that we just linked. Here it is again though:

https://twitter.com/_NCOSS_/status/1174132808463216640

"The amendment will likely weaken the trust women from migrant and refugee backgrounds have in our healthcare system and have the potentially catastrophic result of women choosing not to access healthcare when they need to."

Trevor Khan is up. Notes we already had A LOT of debate on this issue in the lower house. There they agreed to a 12 month review on the data around sex selective abortions.

Attempts at bans on sex selective abortion were defeated in the lower house. "What's changed? Not a lot. This is really a second chop at what happened in the lower house."

Says that an amendment will be moved later to give effect to clause 14 from the lower house which relates to the collection of data on this issue.

Expresses concern for women from migrant community. Says his mother married an Indian-Australian man. "What are we saying to women from migrant backgrounds in this debate?"

Farlow supports the amendment. Says the Greens not backing this amendment means they've 'turned their backs on the intersex community'. It's getting gross in here.

He's using someone's (not caucasian sounding) surname to presume they would 'not be opposed to multicultural views.' The racial profiling is already happening.

He's currently treating India has one homogenous culture.

I love that the people who say we shouldn't look at what other jurisdictions are doing when that evidence supports improving abortion access are now very liberally referring to a multitude of international jurisdictions to support restricting it.

Donnelly is up. Please don't make me tweet it.

We're going back a few decades to a book on 'gendercide' so obviously we should base legislation regulating a modern health care procedure Donnelly's interpretation of that old book.

He loves that a 30 year old book used the word 'woman' not 'person'. Loves it. Would love to send him back 30 years where he belongs.

Seriously, this is just off the rails.

He's yelling about 'millions of missing females around the world due to gendercide.' Like actually yelling. So sure, let's pass an amendment to restrict abortion because that'll really improve the gender inequality that is behind such practices elsewhere.

He's talking about a 'high number of correspondence on this issue'. Of course, because anti-choicers have been using it to rile up their base.

"One cannot, with any degree of credibility, rely on the position of RANZCOG with respect to sex-selective abortion." Why listen to the experts?

His criticism is based on RANZCOG's position that abortion is a healthcare matter for a pregnant person and their doctor, not lawmakers.

He keeps mixing up the X and Y chromosome... in the middle of his pseudo science lesson.

Donnelly is furious he couldn't ask RANZCOG about sex selection at the inquiry. Probably because he only asked anti-choicers questions he wanted their answers to.

Funnily enough, not banning sex selective abortion because of its adverse consequences does not in fact mean NSW supports it. It means they support healthcare. It means they support improving gender equality. It means they won't give in to disingenuous anti-choice hysteria.

No supporter of this amendment has ever professed concern for sex selective abortion until we tried to decriminalise abortion.

Donnelly, "I'm not going to go on for the sake of it." Penny Sharpe laughed audibly (and so did we).

Debate is adjourned for dinner and we'll be back at 8pm. Enjoy this break. Eat something nice. Drink something nice. It's probably only going to do downhill from here.

Are you still with us? Cause we're back on. Sit tight. We've got four more hours tonight.

So it's sounding like debate on the now called Abortion Law Reform Bill will continue tomorrow. There is talk about whether the hard adjournment (midnight) is in place for tomorrow. Yes, unless the house decides otherwise.

David Shoebridge says that if it sits until midnight tomorrow, the house will have dedicated 5 sitting days to the Bill, more than for any other bill he can recall so for anyone to still argue the process is rushed is absurd.

Ugh. Honestly, we forgot Greg Donnelly was last speaking before the break. Means he's first back up so yeah. Here we go.

He says we should listen to women from migrant backgrounds but is literally not listening to the majority who are saying do not legislate a sex-selective ban.

He said he appreciates the sensitivity of the issue, then claimed it'll destroy the very fabric of society.

Taylor Martin is supporting Damien Tudehope's amendment. He's quoting a poll that shows the majority of NSW is opposed to sex-selective abortion. NO ONE IS DISPUTING THIS but legislating it in this way harms more than it helps.

At least he didn't speak long. Greg Donnelly, take note.

The anti-choicers out the front of Parliament could just now be heard very loudly cheering and yelling and I'm sure it's no coincidence that it occurred when Fred Nile started talking his usual sexist, racist nonsense.

Apparently not legislating this amendment will entrench a problem no one can prove exists here.

We've just had our first mention of Nazis. Honestly, surprised it took this long. Then again, they usually leave that for social media not Parliamentary speeches.

He's talking about societies that undervalue girls creating pressure to abort them. This is coming from the man who does not believe in a woman/person with a uterus' most basic right to bodily autonomy.

He's talking about Australia being out of step with other civilised societies. You know what puts us out of step? Continuing the criminalisation of abortion.

Love that anti-choicers have suddenly discovered the difference between gender and sex and a newfound (read, very very disingenuous) respect for intersex people. They'll literally use anyone has a prop to undermine reproductive rights.

Reminder: Fred Nile hates Safe Schools so he's really into the binary.

Who Amato, amirite?

He just very angrily demanded 'some respect' when other MLCs interjected. Shame he won't show women and people with a uterus some basic respect.

Up is David Shoebridge (GRN). "When we're talking about a provision that is purported to be protecting women of colour, perhaps we should be looking to the lead voices of that community." He's talking about today's joint from migrant women's groups: ncoss.org.au/news-and-event…

"Mr Chair, the Greens take their guidance from these groups and other groups that have consistently stood up for women of colour. They are saying that if this amendment gets through, there will be racial profiling when women go to seek reproductive healthcare." David Shoebridge.

"The current law does not have this protection and yet I have not once heard those supporting this amendment, before the Bill came into this house, heard them raise this issue." Yeah, neither.

Point of order from Taylor Martin that Shoebridge was not speaking to the amendment. Really? Cause it was the most on point contribution so far. Martin doesn't like the motives of other MPs being impugned. Well we don't like the motives of women seeking abortion care being so.

Emma Hurst is speaking against the abortion. She is questioning how doctors are supposed to know the real motives of an abortion. See this from Gina Rushton: buzzfeed.com/ginarushton/ns…

"No body in this house has said that they support sex selective abortions. Everyone is in agreement on that." But she says that making it specifically illegal means that detection of this issue becomes less detectable.

Matthew Mason-Cox claiming proponent of this Bill had not properly thought through this Bill. Then he got Brad Hazzard's (Health Minister) name wrong. Both Alex Greenwich and Brad Hazzard are in the chamber, it seems. Shout out to these co-sponsors!

He's questioning the meaning of the phrase 'sole purpose' in the amendment being debated: parliament.nsw.gov.au/bill/files/365… it's because some people have abortions due to sex-linked genetic disorders but he's on a rant right now.

He is 'disgusted our communities have been sidelined on this issue.' They haven't. They've been very loud and given a LOT of airtime. They're just not in the majority.

"If you feel the guilt, wear the guilt." Matthew Mason-Cox to Penny Sharpe just now.

Mason-Cox says he trusts women and doctors, just not enough apparently.

Racists get REALLY offended when you call them racist. More so than at actual racism.

YAY Rose Jackson is up and straight into quoting Julia Gillard, "I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not."

She's calling out the fake concern of supporters of this amendment. Says if they were genuinely concerned, they'd want the evidence and that is what the lower house has asked for it. Data.

She says if they were genuinely interested in stopping sexism and gender inequality, they would join with her and other feminists in the chamber.

She says the makeup of this chamber sends a message that boys are preferable to girls. She says the makeup of our major religious institutions send a message that boys are preferable to girl.

Rose Jackson rubbishes the idea that this one amendment will topple the patriarchy because that is actually what leads to boys being preferred over girls.

She asks them to support legislation for equal pay, to support legislation for reasonable childcare. She asks them to send a measure on any single other measure and then we can talk. "But no, it's just this. It's clearly a political tactic."

"It is not racist to highlight the discrimination that women of colour face but it is racist to make women of certain ethnic backgrounds face additional barriers to accessing healthcare in this country." (paraphrasing)

Mark Latham says he's lived a life of gender equality. Says because he provided childcare in his own home, to his own children, "I will not be lectured to."

Rose Jackson just interjected about his abuse of Rose Batty and now we're onto points of order.

Mark Latham, "I was the matriarch. I was the matriarchy if you want to get down to it." Because he wrote a cookbook? Way to actually double down on gender stereotypes, dude.

Catherine Cusack said she came down to the house following the 'very angry speech' by Rose Jackson. (It was one of my favourite speeches of this whole entire debate). But we can't have shouty women, can we?

"For me, as a feminist..." And yet she's supporting a pretty sexist amendment.

She is accusing opponents of this amendment of "letting women down" for not listening to blatantly anti-choice proposals.

Mr Moookey is up. He spoke VERY briefly during the second reading. We'd be happy to hear him speak longer this time.

Says we've seen the hardest forms of parliamentary tactics applied in this Bill. "No stone has been left unturned, in the level of parliamentary force, that have been brought to bare by those who want to see these amendments get up." As well as the hardest rhetorical language.

He says he is not laying the charge of racism at this debate. Says he knows what real racism is, being a person of Hindu faith and Hindu background. So he doesn't throw it around casually but he has heard some of those tropes used in this debate.

*Mookhey

It includes the tropes and language that have historically been used to legislate certain ethnicities. These tropes and language are being used in this debate.

He says to invoke these tropes is within their rights but that they should do so with evidence, with facts. That is not being done.

We're onto the Latrobe study and Mookhey notes that the authors said their findings were being misrepresented. The authors also said more data is needed. thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/…

Notes that for doctors to comply with this amendment and avoid potential gaol time, they have to actively inquire as to the reasons a woman is seeking an abortion presuming it may be sex selection. "This sets up the pathway to racial profiling."

Daniel Mookhey says, "I'm not going to speak for women of colour because they're capable of speaking themselves." Says the people in his community fighting for gender equality are women.

He rightly says that these issues (sexism and misogyny) is not unique to communities of colour, just look at the rates of domestic violence in Australia.

Just a special thank you to Daniel for mentioning his wife, who is a 100% boss and all-around stannable person. Oh, and that he’s in a mixed-race marriage and the white person is the foreign born one of the two.

He says he is proud of his mixed race marriage, "The irony is I am native born and my wife is not." In more irony, he says while his wife had a preference for sons while he had a preference for girls.

New tweeter here! Hello! I have a glass of water and a tea and Farlow is up.
How anyone can follow Daniel Mookhey after that powerhouse is unknown and tbh we advise Farlow not to try.

We are back to people who want to know the REASONS for someone’s abortion. Have you all noticed how obsessed the anti-choicers are with knowing WHY women and pregnant people have actions? But WHY tell me the REASON!! To which we say:

Pregnant people don’t have to say why they want an abortion. That’s the whole point, that our reproductive autonomy isn’t contingent on criminal sanction or the decisions of others.

A note for Scott Farlow and all others: irregardless is not a word.

Not. A. Word.

Courtney Houssos is up again, and unsurprisingly is in favour of the amendment, because obviously, as its anti-choice.

Courtney Houssos is bemoaning that the House hasn’t come together around sex selective abortion.

She’s now talkin about her relationship with Rose Jackson, and that she agrees we can do more to address sexism.

We sure can! Like stop criminalising our reproductive choices.

There’s a but.

I mean fair cop she has acknowledged that some cultural groups prefer girls or boys (which was in our Chair’s evidence, btw).

**white Australians have spent thousands of dollars and said so in the media to go overseas to select using IVF for girls.

Greg Donnelly. Again. Is this some Catholic flagellation and punishment ritual? For us? For him? Who can say.
Donnelly acknowledges that Brad Hazzard in in the house as an observer. This is another one of his long run ups, where we all die of exhaustion before he gets to a point.

Oh this is going a whole way, he’s referring to the NHMRC guidelines about IVF for sex selection.
There is no way he would know about this if our chair hadn’t given evidence on this, we would put money on it. The NHMRC doesn’t allow sex selection in embryos.

He’s skipped over a whole huge point we gave in our evidence about the NHMRC guidelines review- that when the NHMRC made it known they were reviewing, people came out and said they had travelled overseas to get sex-selective IVF.

He’s about to quote someone. Dude, its not a striptease. Just name them.
Look, if you want to see something sensible about IVF and sex selection go read our submission and ignore Donnelly: parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/submiss…

I feel like its time for a point of order as we are a long way off piste talking about IVF. Everyone in the chamber appears paralysed.

Which is not a criticism, listening to Greg Donnelly is like

Only Greg Donnelly is marginally less interesting than Nagini.

Yep, point of order from Penny Sharpe, who is doing a lot of heavy lifting on points of order. Can other MLCs help a sister out?

Greg Donnelly finally stops talking. Penny Sharpe is up! Always more of this.

First point: she is opposing the amendment. She refers to Daniel Mookhey’s excellent contribution. No evidence around sex selection in Australia- worldwide, yes. Here? No evidence. She also points to the review in the Bill.

She reads into the Hansard that the authors of the LaTrobe study that their study DID NOT cover abortion and that their research had been misquoted.

She says: there is no ego in dealing with this Bill (cop that, Mark Latham). There are people who are passionate about providing health care. She says she’s cranky at times, but we have to accept there are irreconcilable differences on this.

Yes. Thank you, Penny, for describing this so clearly: you cannot reconcile the two positions, regardless of how respectful or otherwise the debate has been.

She says that for those putting up amendments they have to convince 21 people their amendments are worth voting for.

Penny speaks to her membership of the PGPD! (Parliamentary Group on Population Development) and her work on son preference.

She’s referring to a PGPD report on sex selection.

She’s talking about the least successful interventions: banning abortion and technology.

Penny refers to Courtney Houssos and Rose Jackson’s evidence and says, you can’t insert this into the law and think it will simply be fixed.

She refers to Korea’s work to improve gender ratios: make women more equal.
She says (to summarise) those who support this bill have considered this issue and should be credit for doing so and caring about fixing it- but supporting a ban isn’t how you do it.

Penny is now listing the organisations that oppose this amendment, and takes a sidebar to note how horrible the things are that have been said about RANZCOG. We agree. It’s been quite astonishing to see anti-abortion MPs so willing to trash such august professional bodies.

Penny is putting what the AMA said on the record, andsays we should listen carefully to those what want to interfere between women and their doctors.

Some women will only disclose domestic violence to their doctor, she notes (per AMA). We should not to anything to diminish the trust women invest in their doctors.

Big Sigh.

We feel you, Penny.

Big truth- if we make terminations more difficult to access, we make them less safe. She goes to quoting the stats on how many unsafe abortions take place and that 40,000 women die of unsafe abortion every year. 7 million women are hospitalised.

She says this amendment is serious enough it would take some women back.

We agree.

We won’t go back.

She wraps up, and thank you again Penny for being such a fierce advocate for all of us.

Natasha Mclaren-Jones is up. She says NSW should have a higher bar and that is a good thing.Except this isn’t the year 8 cross-country, this is whether or not you want to racially profile pregnant people, interfere in Dr-patient relationships and drive people to backyard abortion

Greg.

Donnelly.

Again.

Do we have to?

We have decided that when Greg Donnelly says ‘we aren’t doing this thing’ he is definitely doing a thing.

He seems incredulous people can accuse him of bad faith in bringing amendments and that its about anything other than whatever he says its about, as opposed to delaying it

He’s just mis-quoted the NHMRC, potentially misleading the house?

NHMRC don’t ban sex-selective abortion, they ban sex-selection IVF.

But for Santamaria acolytes its all the same thing, we guess.

Look I dunno about you but I don’t see Greg Donnelly voting for this Bill and I also don’t see why we all need to keep doing this to midnight.

ANYWAY. Back to reporting on what Donnelly says.
He’s saying “are we serious that this Parliament will revisit this Act? Will we review it?”
I mean, he is a literal MP. He can... move a motion to do so.

Tudehope is addressing Daniel Mookhey’s contribution. He’s trying to be reasonable and say he accepts the LaTrobe study wasn’t about abortion and we think he’s trying to thread the needle of saying thing about certain migrant communities without being racist. Good luck with that.

Tudehope’s an interesting character.

Ugh, and it is beyond creepy he’s saying to Mookhey “I rejoice in your boys”

Tudehope rejects that pregnant people will go back to backyard abortions. Just doesn’t accept it will happen.
So, this comes across as pretty callous to the lives of pregnant people who risk criminal sanction now- to suggest we should risk our lives too.
NO THANK YOU.

He wants to embrace this amendment to send a message around sex selection.

What message does it end that he wants abortion to remain in the Criems Act?

Matthew Mason-Cox. He’s objecting to the idea he’s dragging out the debate when Niall Blair calls him to order.
(Blair is a great Chair BTW).
Greg Donnelly is on his feet making a point or order and uses the word ‘arse’ to the Chair.
Niall Blair is having none of it.

It’s hard to not form the fierce Mason-Cox and Donnelly are dragging this out when they keep doing stuff like this.

Blair is laying down the law, and we are here for it.

Matthew Mason-Cox is saying that unless you consult with ‘key faith groups’ you can’t credibly have a Bill.
Let’s be honest, he wanted anti-choice groups to get forewarning and a heads up to tool up a campaign, yeah?

I mean how does that conversation go? “Archbishop Jensen, wanna decriminalise abortion” “yeah nah but go off, I won’t stand in your way”

Cool story, bro

These are the people and groups that are implacably imposed to decrim (and contraception in a lot of cases) and they can’t have that view reconciled on pro-choice law reform.
I mean we are all ears if there is some way to square that circle but we don’t see it.

Division called. Bells ringing.

15 ayes 26 noes, amendment lost.

The gallery got called to order for being disruptive, calling ‘shame’ to MLCs.

Shaming, favoured tactic of the anti-choice brigade.

Latham is moving amendment c2019-056C.

It’s about the right of doctors to deny patients services. We avoid saying ‘conscientious objection’, because that’s a euphemism, Ike ‘pro-life’. We try to call things what they are.

He’s spruiking it as ‘freedom’ which we all know is an emerging Pavlovian bell to the alt-right.

Mark Latham has just had a crack at Penny Sharpe for interjecting. Frankly given what she’s had to listen to over the past few days, interjecting is the soft option.

Latham is saying that people who believe in G*d think abortion is murder. This is categorically untrue. There are people of faith who are pro-choice and don’t think that. There is no ‘people of faith’ monolith and it is inaccurate to say so.

He continuously refers to abortion as ‘murder’.

Latham is now lecturing people on ‘Labor values’ and given he’s onto his fourth (third?) political party I feel like people in the ALP maybe won’t take too seriously his commentary on how to represent Labor values.

Latham is now quoting the words given in a St Thomas More lecture. Spare us, the St Thomas More Society is the Catholic lawyers guild and supplies office holders for a lot of anti-choice organisations.

Abortion, murder. Abortion, murder. Yadda yadda.

Latham is now addressing that a bunch of people have tweeted that video of him from 15 years ago saying some pro-choice things. We’ve seen it. We lol’d.

Sorry, we zoned out and stared through time for a second there. Latham is now talking about Dr Joe McGirr (anti-choice) in the other house & he makes what he thinks is a killer point that people only listen to the Drs they agree with.
Well, yeah, dude, stop telling on yourself.

Spaced out again. He’s mentioned Barnaby Joyce, which is a bold move.

Look I dunno what to tell you. Repeating this in type will make my eyes as sad as my ears are having to listen to it. Mark Latham is anti-choice and wants Drs to be able to deny services to people.

He commends the amendment to the House.

Niall Blair is moving a second set of amendments on this issue, c2019-103D.

Blair says we have to make sure we provide a system to assist people who present to a service who wants assistance and care.

He’s outlining what’s in the Bill currently. Someone who objects to providing a service has to tell the patient who has presented to them how else to find care.

Sorry, our stream dropped out there for a bit. We are back.

Fred Nile is supporting Mark Latham’s amendments. He’s reading the amendment.

He’s saying the current bill ‘conscientious objection’ provisions are meaningless as a doctor who wants to refuse a service to a patient is required to send them to a doctor who doesn’t object to proving services to a patient.

The reality is if an anti-choice doctor doesn’t send a patient on to someone else they are denying that patient care from anyone, not just from themselves.
People trust doctors and go to them for advice and health services.

Fred Nile and those who are anti-choice LOVE talking about one Dr Hobart, who says he was asked to perform a sex-selective abortion and was refused. The reality is a bit more nuanced: heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/d…

Nile has just said that its really easy to find an abortion clinic. Yeah, nah. It’s not. Try googling it. Try finding one, it is not easy, particularly outside major urban centres.

Fred Nile has said he can spend hours detailing all the doctors he knows who serve the community.

Please don’t.

Also don’t imply pro-choice doctors don’t serve the community, they do, and they do so without sitting in judgement.

He is done, Trevor Khan is up.

Sidebar we are very fond of one of our excellent Qld community who is so taken with TK’s work on this Bill that a photo of him doing a Megan Rapinoe-style gesture on the livestream is their new facebook cover. We feel it.

Ok, look, Trevor is never not excellent on this and he’s pointing out the Bill reflects the advice of the AMA and RANZCOG and current practice, and he is 100% right.
It’s nice to see an MLC not being dismissive and awful about the professional colleges.

Trevor is now going to the Latham amendments, that remove all of sub section 9 and removes all the lines. He refers to lines 5 and 6, which deal with the obligation to provide emergency help.

And so we again record our witness of Savita Halappanavar, who died because she was not given emergency medical care by anti-abortion doctors.

Their ‘conscientious objection’ was the reason she died.

Trevor Khan makes the point there is no balance sand says: everything for the doctor. Nothing for the patient.

Nothing.

This. Is. How. Pregnant. People. Die.

So ‘pro-life’ that they don’t care if women die.

How does that sit on your ‘conscience’?

He points out that the current Bill provides a step of removal between the doctor who refuses to provide a service and a patient getting a service.
“Do you simply say to the patient, get out of my surgery- in Brewarrina? Go your own way?”

Trevor Kahn is outlining the hardship this places on regional and rural people and the reality of practice in regional NSW.

To paraphrase a powerful closing argument: Whatever anyone thinks about terminations... the worst thing to do is delay, much around, fail to provide a proper party, what you are doing is the patient will have the termination later.

Trevor Khan winds up noting the time and that we rise at midnight and asks everyone to reflect on where the amendments are at, and refrain from cheap shots.

He’s wrapping up noting that there is a balance to be struck and it is not always easy to reach an appropriate balance, but giving preeminence to an objection over the care of the patient is inconsistent with the Hippocratic oath.

Penny Sharpe- moves Shayne Mallard leaves the Chair and reports progress and we will be back on the next sitting day.

The Committee report progress and seeks leave to sit at a later day, President adopts report and we will be back tomorrow.

Good night everyone! Back 10am tomorrow.

See you then. We will do an amendments update tomorrow am, but for now its bed bed bed. Thanks again!

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