At the age of 28.5 weeks, my daughter was born prematurely. I vividly recall that night, as my wife underwent an emergency caesarean section due to a caecal volvulus. Following an earlier collapse, I had promptly rushed her to the maternity unit, where my wife’s pain and anxiety was exacerbated by the inability to find a pulse for my unborn daughter.

As my wife was wheeled off to theatre, I developed a profound sense of isolation and loneliness, which was only interrupted five and a half hours later, when someone came and escorted me up two floors to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

I remember entering the room and thinking how noisy it was – the gadgets and devices being used to keep babies alive – wires, tubes and machines everywhere. I was led to an area nearest the window that looked across a nocturnal view of Auckland, but as I looked down,  I caught the first glimpses of my little girl, the tiniest but totally formed beautiful little thing, dwarfed by her surroundings as she lay there in her incubator,  attached to her life support equipment, a CPAP tube, and a nasal feeding tube.

The room was filled with curious and unfamiliar noises, not only from my daughter’s equipment but also from her three other room mates. Each of these babies was even more premature and frail. One of them had been born at 24 weeks, a staggering 16 weeks premature, and was therefore pushing the limits of medical science in her quest for life. Fortunately, all of them survived, albeit some with potential lifelong disabilities as a result of their prematurity.

My daughter was poorly, but still alive; and finally, I found out at midnight that my wife was just coming out of surgery, but it would be two more days before she would see her daughter, and that delay wasn’t without bonding issues. We stayed in NICU for 60 days in total.

In recounting this story, I want to address the recent removal of protection for unborn children by the House of Commons. While the regulated abortion limit remains at 24 weeks, the amendment to the law eliminates any possibility of holding a mother accountable for the death of an unborn child at any point within her pregnancy.

My daughter was born at 28.5 weeks, a perfectly formed, but undersized bundle weighing in at only 1.15 kilograms and 34cms long, I find it hard to think that an unborn child at 24 weeks, 30cm long and weighing 600g, with full facial features and fingers and toes, can still be terminated legally. However, for me it is unconscionable that, if my wife had deliberately aborted or murdered our child, or acted without exercising proper duty of care, from this point or later she would no longer face prosecution for killing an unborn child.

This is not a pro-life stance per se; I am reasonably comfortable with the rights of women to use abortion, although I believe the 24-week limit is excessive. However, this is not a right to life debate or discussion, so let’s put that aside.

I am concerned that women who engage in obvious harmful activities during their pregnancy, resulting in the death of a foetus should face some form of legal accountability. I wonder if a partner or family member may still be entitled to bring a civil case, against the mother, that much isn’t clear but I presume that avenue is open, even if fraught.

 There must surely be a clear moral obligation on the mother , a duty of care, to an unborn child or any dependent, child, or adult. Surely, this obligation should extend to a pre-born child? Why should that duty of care differ between a pre-born child and a born child?

Should a couple who decide to abort a baby for cultural reasons not be prosecuted? In this instance, I presume that the mother would not be prosecuted, but the father could be. In such a case, murder should apply equally to both parents, surely. Not doing so, creates a double standard and leaves a significant gap in terms of fairness and justice and gives women the absolute right to kill a child at any age in the womb, for any reason.

In an attempt to decriminalise the actions of pregnant women suffering from mental illness, it appears that we have inadvertently opened a potential chasm of potential abuse of unborn children and unintended consequences.

I sincerely hope that our parliament will reconsider this matter more fully as it was not given the proper time for due consideration or scrutiny of all the arguments. Perhaps their Lordships will be inclined to take longer to review this iniquitous amendment, but I am not holding my breath. I understand why this has come about, but I do not think it is right.