PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr LLEW O'BRIEN (Wide Bay) (13:11): I rise to speak to the motion today and to acknowledge International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month and Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day on 15 October. Human life and the inalienable rights that belong to it begin at conception. If that were not so, then recognising the death and loss of a prenatal human being would be no more meaningful than recognising the loss of hair, fingernails or any other clump of human cells.
From its earliest beginning, an unborn child is a distinct human life, developing in its own right, but, like every one of us, it is not independent. From conception to death, human life is never truly independent. At every stage, we rely upon others to survive, to grow and to flourish.
To be human is to know vulnerability and need. There are times in every life when we depend upon the strength, care, patience and sacrifice of others, but that truth also carries a responsibility. Just as we have depended upon others, others will depend upon us.
Nowhere is that responsibility felt more deeply than in family and, particularly, in parenthood. To become a parent is to experience, in its most profound form, what it means for another human life to depend upon you for protection, for provision for comfort and for love. That is why the loss of a child cuts so deeply.
More than 110,000 Australians experience miscarriage each year, more than 2,000 families experience stillbirth, and hundreds more lose a baby in the first weeks of life, but behind every one of those statistics is a child who was loved, a family whose hopes and dreams were changed forever and grief that can endure for years. A miscarriage is not simply the loss of a possibility or an expectation for grieving parents.
It's the loss of their child, a son or daughter whose place in their family had already begun. It was something I never truly understood until it happened to Sharon and me. Nearly 30 years ago, there was one moment, an image, a memory, that remains as vivid to me today as it was then—the expression on Sharon's face before she quietly said to me: 'Something's not right.
I think I'm losing the baby.' That's the nature of this grief. Time moves on, families grow and life continues, but the child who was lost remains a part of the story of that family. It is through family that we first learn what it means to belong to others and to have others belong to us.
It's where responsibility becomes personal—a mother caring for her child, a father protecting his family, grandparents embracing a new generation and families standing together when tragedy comes. So today I acknowledge those who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth or the death of a baby in the first weeks of life. I acknowledge the grandparents, siblings, extended family members, friends and healthcare workers who carry part of that grief also.
Whatever differences may exist in our broader public debate, when a family loses a baby, we instinctively understand that something precious has been lost. Every child matters, every human life has value and every grieving family deserves compassion and appropriate support. Parents remember the due date.
They remember the moment they received the news. They remember the child they never had the opportunity to watch grow. Today, this chamber remembers with them.
We recognise their grief, we acknowledge the life that was lost and we honour the families who carry those children in their hearts. I commend the motion.