Right to Life New Zealand

Upholding the sanctity of life in New Zealand and Standing Against the Killing

Government in danger of breaching Treaty of Waitangi

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The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern is to be commended for her moving words of love and concern for children expressed in her beautiful prayer at the Waitangi Day commemorations. She quoted Dame Whina Cooper,  “Take care of our children. Take care of what they hear. Take care of what they see. Take care of what they feel. For how the children grow so will be the shape of Aotearoa.” Referring to the principles of the Treaty she said, “Of course, we as a Government are trying to fill those not just in legislation, but in the policies and programmes that we roll out.”

Right to Life fully supports the principles of the Treaty and believe that we all have a responsibility to ensure that the Treaty rights of Maori are upheld. Right to Life believes that Article Three provides for the protection of the lives of Maori from conception to natural death. We ask the Prime Minster how can her government claim to uphold the Treaty when her Labour led government has plans to withdraw the protection of the Crown from Maori proclaimed in Article Three of the Treaty.

The Crimes Act section 182 Killing an unborn child states that the unborn child including Maori has a right to be born. This is a human right that is universal and inalienable. It is a serious crime to kill an unborn child including Maori and on conviction an offender may be imprisoned for up to 14 years. This protection has been there since 1856.

It is the intention of the Prime Minister and her government to withdraw this protection from women and the unborn including Maori. It is her intention to decriminalise abortion and to make the killing of the unborn “a reproductive choice for women.” Right to Life asks her, how can you uphold the principles of the Treaty by saying that it is no longer a crime to kill an unborn Maori child?

Right to Life believes that this proposed anti-life and anti-women legislation would be an unprecedented attack on the Treaty, a violation of human rights, and a betrayal of Maori.

Right to Life laments that the once great Labour Party of Michael Joseph Savage and Norman Kirk has departed from its founding principles to protect the weak and the marginalised in society. Today the unborn child is the weakest and most defenceless member of the human family and desperately needs effective legal protection for its right to life.

Right to Life requests that our Prime Minister, a caring woman and a loving mother, adopts the mantle of champion of women and their precious unborn by rejecting a culture of death with her ill-conceived proposal to decriminalise abortion. We urge her Instead to promote a culture of life by promoting adoption as a loving option for women with an unwanted pregnancy and women’s reproductive health with chastity before marriage and faithfulness within marriage.

Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life

Why is the Prime Minister avoiding responding to the Official Information Act?

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child of 20 weeks

Abortion by Dismemberment up to two weeks past this stage of child development is what the government proposes.

Right to Life is concerned that the Prime Minister,Jacinda Ardern has declined to answer important questions on public policy sent to her by our Society on 15 January 2019.

The principle questions asked were:-

  • Is it still your policy to retain a restriction on abortions imposed at 20 weeks gestation in the Crimes Act section 187A in your proposed legislation to decriminalise abortion?
  • Is it your policy to accept dismemberment abortions that permit an abortionist to tear the arms, legs and head off an unborn child?

The new coalition government has specifically made a commitment to “strengthen New Zealand’s democracy by increasing public participation, openness, and transparency around official information”. Right to Life believes that the Prime Minister has a duty to lead by example.

The Crimes Act stipulates that the cut – off point for abortions is 20 weeks, The cut-off point in the legislation being drafted by the Minister of Justice is 22 weeks. Mike Munroe, Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister’s Office advised on 24 January that he was referring our Official Information Request to the Minister of Justice, as he was responsible for “alternative approaches on abortion law.”

At the Newstalk ZB’s Leader’s Breakfast just prior to the election Jacinda Ardern made the following statement:-

“Yes I think abortion should come out of the Crimes Act. That does not mean for a moment that I am proposing what has been claimed, that you should be able to have on-demand abortion to birth. No that is absolutely not what I am saying. We of course must regulate… We have time periods already set out in the law and I am not proposing changes to that. I am proposing it comes out of the Crimes Act.”

This is an important public policy statement concerning abortion. The public have an absolute right to ask the Prime Minister, who believes that killing an unborn child should not be a crime, is relentlessly driving a change in the abortion law to remove abortion from the Crimes Act and to make abortion a “reproductive choice for women”. Will she support retaining the 20 week cut off as she has publicly stated?

The minister of Justice at the direction of the Prime Minister is to bring a bill to Parliament to adopt the Law Commission’s Model C. Under this Model, there would be no statutory test until 22 weeks of a pregnancy.  After 22 weeks, the health practitioner who intends to perform an abortion would need to be satisfied that the abortion is appropriate in the circumstances, having regard to the woman’s physical and mental health and wellbeing. Everyone knows what this means, – effectively abortion on demand up to birth.

Curia Market Research an independent pollster released in January 2018, polling of 1,013 persons. Just 9% support the current legal limit for an abortion of 20 weeks. Only 4% believe it should be later than 20 weeks, including up to birth. 50% think the time limit should be shorter than the current 20 weeks, and a further 36% were unsure.

The median choice of those who did choose a time limit was 15 weeks.
Significantly, 56% of women think the time limit should be less than the current 20 weeks. Incredibly, 53% of those who generally support abortion think the time
limit should be less than the current 20 weeks – 29% of abortion supporters say 10 weeks or less.There is increasing opposition in the United States to the violence and suffering imposed on defenceless unborn children by dismemberment abortions. There are now ten states that have outlawed this horrific violence on the defenceless.

The public have a right to know if the Prime Minister who is herself a loving mother of a young child supports protecting the unborn from this dismemberment violence.

Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life

Where Have All Our Children Gone?

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I'm a child not a choiceMedia Release Wednesday 30th Jan 2019

Nearly 61,000 5 year olds will commence their schooling this week, happy and laughing, full of the joy of life. Sadly around 13,200 children who would have been the same age are missing. What would have been their joy and laughter replaced by a deathly silence. This represents nearly 520 empty class rooms of children. What a loss to our nation! They join the ranks of the 500,000 children who have been murdered in their mother’s womb since 1977. These are the children who were considered of little worth and whose lives were terminated by abortion. These are the nameless and whose only record of existence is a cold statistic in the Abortion Supervisory Committee’s annual report to Parliament of 2014.

Their absence is mourned for they were created with many talents to enrich our society. They were formed in their mother’s wombs by their Creator with loving care. Our society is impoverished by their absence. We should also have deep compassion for their mothers who will be mourning the loss of their children. Many will suffer in painful and lonely silence having been told by Family Planning that what was aborted was just the contents of the uterus; that abortion is safe and that their grief is just their imagination. Mothers, who are so often coerced into an unwanted abortion, because of their abandonment by the father or because of pressure from family and friends. [Read more…]

ProLife Bulletin No 383

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Prolife Bulletin 383

Why is the life of a Kea worth more than that of an unborn child?

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totally unprotected.jpg

Right to Life asks why is the life of a Kea worth more than the life a Human Child.

It is a sad commentary on our society that the killing of a Kea incurs the full weight of the law and the wrath of the court and the community while a Wellington doctor who was responsible for killing thousands of innocent and defenceless unborn children was honoured by the Queen with a Knighthood for “services to women.”
A 46 year old construction worker, was sentenced to 150 hours community work by Judge Tony Zohrab in the Nelson District Court on 23 January for killing a kea, an endangered species in the Motueka Valley in July 2017. Juliette Irwin, the prosecuting lawyer for DOC sought a fine of between $10,000 and $15,000. She stated that, “this was a callous killing, we have an animal victim who is defenceless and unable to complain.”  The Judge accepted that the accused was unable to pay a fine.

Under the Wildlife Act 1953, the Kea is an absolutely protected species. Its killing is a serious crime, on conviction the offender may be fined up to $100,000, or imprisoned for up to two years. This crime was considered important news and was given extensive coverage by all the media in New Zealand.
But again we ask why is a Kea given absolute legal protection for its right to life, while the unborn child’s right to life is given no legal protection?

While we acknowledge that it is important that we have respect and have legislation protecting the right to life of endangered species, Right to Life questions why our nation is prepared to legislate for absolute protection for the right to life of endangered species, yet is not prepared to respect or provide any legal protection for the right to life of children in the womb.

At the same time an estimated 35 children in the womb are deprived of their life each day in New Zealand with the permission of Parliament, government and the community.

It is an appalling injustice that the Labour led government of Jacinda Ardern is committed to decriminalising abortion as they believe that it is not a crime to kill an unborn child. The government is of course committed to retaining the killing of a Kea as a crime.

Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life

Relentlessly Call Abortion What It Really Is

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Death and Life are in the power of the tongue

The following article is a re-post of an article by Jon Bloom of the Desiring God website.

Abortion is rarely talked about.

I’m not talking about the word “abortion.” We hear this word a lot in the public square. But we rarely hear about it. Abortion almost always refers to something else. We hear that abortion is fundamentally about a woman’s right to reproductive freedom. Or abortion is a litmus test for judicial nominees. Or abortion is symptomatic of what’s wrong with the social discourse in America.

But none of those things is what abortion really is. Abortion is the intentional killing of unborn children.

Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Abortion is a clear example of this truth.

The killing of children can be tolerated and even championed as a social good so long as we don’t call it what it is. Call abortion an individual’s right to privacy and you can write it into the legal code. Call abortion a compassionate choice offered to a frightened girl to save her future or to save a child from an undesirable quality of life and you can swing popular opinion. Call abortion a liberation of women from the social and economic oppression of male dominance and passionate people will march on capitols chanting demands to preserve the human right of abortion on-demand.

“We have allowed legal child-killing on-demand for more than forty years because we’ve called it something else.”T

But you won’t hear the street marchers chant, “We will fight for the right to kill our children!” Because calling abortion what it is might awaken uneasy consciences out of a euphemistic stupor to realize that millions of the most defenseless human beings on the planet are being denied the self-evident, Creator-endowed human right to life.

Death is in the power of logic-contradicting, term-redefining, and deceptively-clinical tongues. We have allowed legal child-killing on-demand for 41 years because we’ve called it something else. Life Is in the Power of the Tongue.

That’s why Christians, “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13–14) must keep speaking the truth about what abortion is with relentless clarity. “We destroy arguments” (2 Corinthians 10:5) by not yielding the ground of clear truth. Because life is in the power of truth-speaking tongues.

Therefore, we will keep saying:

Abortion kills children and we all know this.

Our legal code demonstrates that we know this because it grants an unborn child the rights of personhood in areas such as tort, criminal, and property law, making legalized abortion a schizophrenic, arbitrary, and tragically defective legal ruling.

“93% of all abortions in the United States are performed on healthy mothers, with healthy babies.”T

Abortion is mercilessly violent. Children with heartbeats, brainwaves, and a nervous system that allows them to feel pain are literally torn to pieces.

“93% of all abortions [in the United States] are performed on healthy mothers, with healthy babies. . . . Less than 1% are performed because of rape or incest.” (Abort73)

The number of children killed by abortion every year dwarfs the Holocaust and other homicidal horrors of history.

  • Approximately 3,300 children are killed by abortion every day in the United States. Americans kill 1.2 million unborn children every year.
  • The World Health Organization estimates between 40 and 50 million children are killed around the world by abortion, approximately 125,000 every day.

Unborn girls are killed at a higher rate than unborn boys. Estimates are as high as 163 million unborn girls have been intentionally killed since the 1970’s because they were girls, resulting in what some are now calling a “gendercide” (see Abuse of Discretion, 334).

And we will speak many, many more clear truths (here are 15 more) until abortion on-demand is ended.

Here’s the point: truthful tongues save lives. Legalized abortion is an evil that occurs and is tolerated because of deceptive words. And truthful words are required to clear the fatal fog with clarity.

Keep Speaking

I don’t know if our speaking truth will succeed in helping to change the abortion laws. World Magazine reports encouraging developments. But as John Piper says, “We are not called to win; we are called to witness.”

However, history does show that the faithful, relentless, prophetic witness of the saints over many years results in the remarkable spread of the gospel and the end of thousands of horrible social evils from the individual to the national levels.

So we must keep speaking. We must call abortion what it is: the killing of children and a vicious, established, legalized evil and injustice.

“Approximately 3,300 children are killed by abortion every day in the United States. 1.2 million every year.”T

Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we just remembered because of his relentless truth-telling in the face of established, legalized, racial evil, once said, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”

We dare not be guilty of this. The Lord who said, “Rescue those who are being taken away to death” will not accept the excuse, “Behold, we did not know this” (Proverbs 24:11–12).

May life be in the power of our truthful tongues.Jon Bloom (@Bloom_Jon) serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God. He is author of three books, Not by Sight, Things Not Seen, and Don’t Follow Your Heart. He and his wife have five children and make their home in the Twin Cities.

Why is the government proposing to disguise capital punishment for our unborn as “health care”?

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twins in wombRight to Life is opposed to the proposal of the Labour led government to decriminalise abortion and promote capital punishment for the unborn as “a reproductive choice for women.”

Capital Punishment and abortion have the manifest similarity that both concern the deliberate and state-sanctioned ending of life, which is why both are
controversial issues.

Capital punishment for murder was removed from the statute books in 1961, it has been retained only for treason. There was a total of 85 convicted criminals executed in New Zealand  between 1842 and 1957.  But New Zealand still retains the death penalty for its unwanted unborn children. Since 1977, the government has presided over the execution killing of more than 500,000 innocent and defenceless unborn children who were found guilty of being “unwanted.” Being an unwanted unborn child is a capital offence in New Zealand and such children are subject to the death penalty.

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Right to Life OIA to Jacinda Ardern

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9 January 2019

Right. Hon Jacinda Ardern,

Prime Minister,

Dear Prime Minister,

Official Information Act –Request.

At the Newstalk ZB’s Leader’s Breakfast just prior to the election you made the following statement.

“Yes I think abortion should come out of the Crimes Act, that does not mean for a moment that I am proposing what has been claimed, that you should be able to have on-demand abortion to birth. No that is absolutely not what I am saying. We of course must regulate… We have time periods already set out in the law and I am not proposing changes to that. I am proposing it comes out of the Crimes Act.”

The restriction of 20 weeks gestation is included in the Crimes Act section 187A and stipulates that abortions after 20 weeks may be authorised if;

“the person doing the act believes that the miscarriage is necessary to save the life of the woman or girl or to prevent serious permanent injury to her physical or mental health.”

Curia Market Research an independent pollster released in January 2018, polling of 1,013, just 9% support the current legal limit for an abortion of 20 weeks. Only 4% believe it should be later than 20 weeks, including up to birth. 50% think the time limit should be shorter than the current 20 weeks, and a further 36% were unsure. The median choice of those who did choose a time limit was 15 weeks.

Significantly, 56% of women think the time limit should be less than the current 20 weeks. And incredibly, 53% of those who generally support abortion think the time limit should be less than the current 20 weeks – 29% of abortion supporters say 10 weeks or less.

I wish to request under the Official Information Act the following information;

  • Is it still your policy to retain a restriction on abortions imposed at 20 weeks gestation in the Crimes Act section 187A in your proposed legislation to decriminalise abortion?
  • Is it your policy to accept dismemberment abortions that permit an abortionist to tear the arms, legs and head off an unborn child?
  • Is it your policy to ensure that babies born alive from 22 weeks gestation following an abortion receive anti-natal care to protect their life?
  • Is it your policy to support adoption in preference to abortion and if so what action is your government taking to promote adoption?                                                                                                                                                        

Yours sincerely

Ken Orr

Secretary

The most dangerous place for a New Zealander is in its mother’s womb

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Jacinda Ardern5.jpg

Media Release Friday 4th January 2019

If the government is really concerned about protecting the lives of New Zealanders, why is it funding as a core health service, the killing of our unborn in our public hospitals by doctors paid by the state?

Our nation grieves at the nearly 400 New Zealanders who were killed on New Zealand roads in 2018. Every death is a tragedy for the family and for the community. While we grieve at these appalling statistics, we should remember that the most dangerous place for a New Zealander today is not on the road but in a mother’s womb.

In 2017 there were 13,285 unborn children killed in their mother’s womb in abortions. All of these were preventable deaths. An estimated one in five New Zealanders are violently killed before birth in an abortion. For every death on the road there are more than 33 children killed before birth. This is a violation of human rights and a crime against humanity. Why is our nation not grieving the deaths of these defenceless and innocent children and why are the Churches and the media silent?

The government is commendably concerned at our terrible road toll and is committed to investing $1.4 billion over three years to make urgent safety improvements across our high risk roads to bring the road toll down. This is the same government that refuses to invest any money into promoting adoption as a loving option. There are thousands of loving New Zealand families who are longing to adopt a child; tragically there are few children available for adoption as they end up as medical waste at the local landfill. This is an appalling human tragedy that should reduce us to tears.

It is inconceivable that the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern and her Labour led government are on one hand is endeavouring to protect the lives of New Zealanders on our roads while at the same time believing that it is not a crime to kill an unborn New Zealander. It is now planning to facilitate the killing of New Zealanders before birth by taking abortion out of the Crimes Act and making it “a reproductive choice for women”.

Right to Life requests that the government repudiates its contentious and unjust proposals. They have no mandate to decriminalise abortion and shoulf dedicate their efforts to protect the lives of all New Zealanders both in the womb and on our roads. We also request that the government introduce a campaign to promote open adoption which would protect the life of the baby and provide the birth mother with the opportunity to participate in the life of her precious infant.

 

Ken Orr

Spokesperson

Right to Life

Privacy Commissioner makes error of judgement

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John Edwards Privacy Commissioner
Right to Life believes that the Privacy Commissioner, John Edwards, has made a fundemental error of judgement in his submission to the law Commision by recommending that abortion be taken out of the Crimes Act and made a “reproductive choice for women.”
The Commissioner made the astounding claim that having abortion included under the Crimes Act was a breach of the privacy of the woman. His reasoning was that it exposed reproductive health information to the criminal justice system. This statement is simply absurd as no women has ever been or can be charged with crime when she has an abortion under the provisions of either the Crimes Act 1961, or the Contraception Steralisation and Abortion Act 1977.

In a media release dated 23rd November 2018 he stated, “Our submission stressed that abortion engages a fundamental right inherent in bodily autonomy and self-determination.” By declaring this he is effectively stating that Abortion is a human right. This is totally incorrect. Abortion is not and never will be a ‘fundemental right’.  He also states that “Abortion also engages informational privacy rights and the expectation of privacy and confidentiality in relation to health information”.

Right to Life challenges these false and unsupported statements. It is astounding that the Commissioner who is a reputable human rights lawyer has made a statement that Right to Life believes is not supported by any law in New Zealand or by any United Nations Convention. He is using the Privacy Act to make lies acceptable and murder respectable.

It is appalling that he does not recognise the unborn child’s inalienable right to its life  and its right to privacy in its mother’s womb, its home for the first nine months of its life. This right to life and privacy is provided by the Crimes Act sections 182 and 183.

The Commissioner supports the “bodily autonomy and self-determination” of the woman, but completely ignores the right to the bodily autonomy and self-determination of the unborn. The unborn child is a separate human being with its own body, its own blood supply and its own heart and bodily systems. We should behold this new unique miracle of God’s creation with profound awe and respect. From the moment of implantation, the unborn child who is in control of the pregnancy, is totally focused on its growth and development as it prepares for birth.

It is simply appalling that our learned Commissioner supports the right of abortionists to invade the privacy of the home of the defenceless unborn child for the purpose of violently killing the child by tearing off its head, arms and legs.

Right to Life believes that the Commissioner acted unlawfully and in fact is himself in breach of the Privacy Act 1993 and its twelve privacy principles by expressing support for the decriminalisation of abortion.

Right to Life encourages the Commissioner to accept the unborn child as the weakest and most defenceless member of the human family. As a renowned human rights lawyer we ask him to not use his office as an agent of execution but to provide a noble defence of the right to life of our precious unborn and for the welfare of their mothers.

Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life

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