Maternal death

Media Release 6 February 2022

Right to Life challenges the claims of Clare Perry, Deputy Director General of Health that abortion is safer than birth and that there is no record of women dying from an abortion in New Zealand since 1977.

The claim that abortion is safer than birth is false and demonstrably untrue. The objective of this cruel lie is to deceive women into choosing to kill their unborn child on the pretext that they are endangering their lives by allowing their child to be born. We will never know how many women died in an abortion, because to avoid shame and humiliation, the death of the woman will be attributed to another cause.

Right to Life wrote to the Minister of Health in January, to express our concerns at the injustice of abortion being publicly funded. In response he directed Clare Perry to reply.

Abortion is never safe for either mother or child. The sole objective of abortion is the violent killing of a defenceless child. Since 1977 there have been more than 546 000 children killed before birth. More than 270 000 of these babies killed were female and future women who died in an abortion. Why don’t these unborn future women count? Abortion is also never safe for the mother as it wounds her physically, mentally and spiritually.

A maternal death is that of a woman who dies in child birth or from any cause related to, or aggravated by pregnancy or its management (excluding accidental or incidental causes) during pregnancy and childbirth or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy.

The Health Quality & Safety Commission NZ advised RTL that there were 28 maternal deaths reported in New Zealand between 2006 and 2016. Seven of these deaths were the result of suicide within 42 days of having an abortion. These tragic deaths are irrefutable evidence that women are dying from the grief and remorse of abortion.

Every maternal death is a terrible tragedy, that the death is suicide following the appalling grief of losing your precious child in an abortion is heart rendering.

Right to Life acknowledges that the circumstances around suicide are complex and that there may be other contributing factors such as mental ill health. Right to Life believes that these seven suicides are just the tip of the iceberg as it is believed that many women commit suicide many years later as a direct result of an abortion.

These findings concurred with a large record-based study of 600,000 women conducted in Finland in 1997 which found that women who chose abortion over birth were six times more likely to die by suicide in the year following the pregnancy.

Right to Life estimates that as a consequence of the more than 546,000 abortions performed since 1978, there have been more than 25 maternal deaths by suicide following an abortion.

These statistics dispel the myth propagated by Family Planning and the pro-abortion movement that abortion is safe and that since 1977 no woman has died as a result of having an abortion. Every abortion kills a defenceless and innocent child in the womb, and wounds and sadly sometimes kills a grieving mother. Both abortion and suicide are cries for help from women in despair. Stop saying that abortion does not hurt women.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life N.Z. Inc.

The Editor,

Spinoff.

1st September 2019

Dear Sir,

Formal Complaint

I wish to make a formal complaint against the article “10 common myths about abortion,” published on the 29^thAugust 2019. I believe that the article breached Principle 1 of the Press Council, accuracy, fairness and balance.

I fully support the right of free speech which should be used to inform. The media are at the service of the community and I believe have a serious duty when dealing with highly contentious issues of great importance to endeavour to provide the case of both sides of the issue. Regrettably I have not seen any articles that seek to defend the right to life of the unborn and to protect women from coercion, exploitation and violence. The pro-life movement in New Zealand numbers tens of thousands of members and supporters who are passionate about defending women and their unborn. It is ironic that (according to Dame Margaret Sparrow), ALRANZ has an estimated national membership of about 100 members. I question their claim that they represent the views of the majority of New Zealand women.

Pregnancy is not a disease and abortion is not health care. Abortion is the only medical procedure that has the specific objective of terminating the life of another innocent and defenceless human being. No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice-cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg.

Myth One protests that abortion is under the Crimes Act. There is no explanation why abortion is in the Crimes Act. It is actually under Part VIII, Crimes Against the Person. The prohibition of the taking of the life of an innocent human being is the foundation of the law and of medicine. Since 1856 the Crimes Act sections 182, “Killing Unborn Child” and 183,”Misscarriage Defined” have recognised that the killing of an unborn child is a serious crime. These sections state that no woman may be charged with a crime. Abortion is in the Crimes Act also because the state recognises that it has a serious duty to protect the lives of every person from implantation until natural death. The writer is wrong in asserting that the state has no duty to protect the unborn child the most vulnerable member of the human family.

The article claims that it is not easy to obtain an abortion in New Zealand. The Abortion Supervisory Committee in its annual reports consistently advise that 98 per cent of requests for abortion are authorised. Information obtained from the ASC under the Official Information Act reveals that the busiest consultant certifying in the year ending 30 June 2018 received $227,138 in fees for authorising 1452 abortions and declining just four. The second busiest consultant received $159,414 for authorising 1150 abortions and declining just eight. These two consultants were probably abortionists who were paid by the state to perform abortions. We are advised by the Auckland District Health Board that a major reason for women being declined an abortion is that the decision to seek an abortion has been made by the father of the child who coerces the woman with threats of violence and abandonment.

The article complains that doctors may refuse on conscience grounds to assist in the killing of an unborn child. Doctors are trained to treat the unborn child with great respect as a patient. It is abhorrent for most doctors to be involved with the killing of a patient by referring a pregnant woman to a doctor who is prepared to kill the child.

Myth Two. The article claims that a major reason for seeking an abortion is that the contraception failed. The ASC reports in its 2018 to Parliament that 8,016 women who had an abortion in 2017 were not using any contraception i.e. 60.3 per cent of the 13,285 women who had an abortion in 2017. The writer makes the claim that “it is wrong to coerce people to do something with their body that they don’t want to do, namely carry a pregnancy.” Woman have an absolute right to not get pregnant, they should exercise that right by abstaining from sexual intercourse. The primary purpose of sexual intercourse is the procreation of the human race and should be confined to marriage. The result of the sexual revolution is women being used, exploited and abandoned. Women deserve better than being left to bring up children as solo mothers living in dire poverty and often with little support.

Myth Three. The writer claims that anyone with a uterus is capable of experiencing pregnancy. This is an attack on the dignity of women. Only women have been created with a uterus; it is insulting to women to refer to “pregnant people.”

Myth Four. The writer seeks to dehumanise the unborn child by using the medical terms embryo and foetus. The word foetus means little one. Women who are pregnant do not say that they are carrying an embryo or a foetus they are in no doubt that they are pregnant with a baby.

Myth Five. The writer claims that the child in the womb does not feel pain until about the 28th week. Fetal Pain is a reason to end Abortion. Medical experts agree that fetal pain begins at 14 weeks gestation, maybe even as early as 8 weeks. But perhaps the best source for first-hand experience with fetal pain is an abortionist. As early as 1976, those performing abortions realized that the procedure is painful for the dying fetus. Abortionist John Szenes describes an unborn baby fighting for its life during a saline injection, “All of a sudden one noticed that at the time of the saline infusion there was a lot of activity in the uterus. That’s not fluid currents. That’s obviously the fetus being distressed by swallowing the concentrated salt solution and kicking violently and that’s, to all intents and purposes, the death trauma.”

Saline solution used in this type of abortion causes intense pain when injected under the skin. This solution is injected into the fetus’s sac, burning the fetus from the outside and poisoning her from the inside. During this slow death, which takes about two hours, the fetus thrashes around inside the womb. Her heart rate more than doubles as a response to the solution, in spite of the fact that her heart is not physically touched by the solution. She dies solely from the pain.

Today’s Methods Are Just As Violent

Saline abortions fell out of use in the 1990s because of the risk to mothers and the frequency of babies being born alive. At the time of Roe v. Wade, saline abortion was the most commonly used form of abortion after 16 weeks. Though the methods have changed, they are no less violent. Former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino describes 1st trimester dilation and cutterage abortions and 2nd trimester dilation and evacuation abortions, two common practices which tear babies limb from limb, finally crushing the skull to fit it through the cervix. “The abortionist knows he has crushed the skull when a white substance comes out of the cervix. This was the baby’s brains.” Dr. Levatino also describes babies being deprived of shelter and nutrients inside the womb by abortion pills and being poisoned with a digoxen injection piercing the baby’s head or chest.

Myth Six. The writer claims that there is no evidence that abortion results in breast cancer. This is an important issue as 600 women tragically die from breast cancer every year in New Zealand. It is acknowledged by medical science that a woman who has an abortion has more cancer prone cells after an abortion than she had before the abortion. The pro -abortion medical profession refuse to accept the massive research conducted overseas that reveals that abortion increases the risk of a woman developing breast cancer. What if there was research that showed one action could change your risk of breast cancer by 79%? Would it be worth exploring? What if this action only made it 30% more likely you would develop breast cancer? Would you feel entitled to know more?

These questions are at the centre of Punam Kumar Gill’s new documentary film Hush. Gill, an award winning pro-choice feminist filmmaker dared to ask the question, “Is there a link between abortion and breast cancer?” What she discovered changed her life and revealed that few women are equipped with the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision about their pregnancy.

Gill started her search by looking at the opinions of the National Institute of Health and the National Cancer Institute. Both categorically stated on their websites that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. Case closed.

But is the science actually settled on this question?

Having seen the official story, Gill turned to the published research on the subject to see if it matched what women were hearing from the media and the NCI.

Currently there are more than 108 world-wide studies published on abortion and breast cancer. Fifty-three of them found a strong link between abortion and breast cancer. Twenty-three studies found a small link, and only 29 found no link.

In research jargon, a “link” is properly termed a “positive association” or “increased risk” or “risk factor.” It does not define a cause and effect relationship between the risk factor and getting the disease. It’s important to note that having a risk factor does not mean you will definitely come down with a particular condition, just that you are at an increased risk of developing the disease.

Out of the 108 studies, 79 (nearly 3 in 4) found an increased risk between induced abortion and the later development of breast cancer. When she delved deeper, she discovered that studies from all over the world demonstrated a higher rate of breast cancer among women who have had abortions:

10 out of 10 studies conducted in India

30 out of 37 studies conducted in China

5 out of 6 studies in France

4 out of 4 in Japan

Dr. Joel Brind, professor of Human Biology and Endocrinology, performed a meta-analysis of twenty-three available studies in 1996. He found that there was a 30% increased risk of breast cancer for women with abortion histories.

Brind told Gill, “This about science. This is about the effect on women and whether or not abortion increases the risk of breast cancer.” He went on to explain how his meta-analysis was peer-reviewed and conducted in partnership with pro-choice scientists.

In 2014, a meta-analysis published in the international journal Cancer Causes and Control by Yubei Huang et. al of the Tianjin Medical University provided shockingly similar results. Huang examined 36 studies in China and found a 44% average increased risk of breast cancer among women with abortion histories. This risk increased to 76% for those with two abortions and 79% for three. Women have a right to know of the link between abortion and breast cancer. Women have not forgotten how they were lied to by the medical profession about thalidomide which caused severe birth defects in babies in the 1960s.

Myth Eight. The writer claims that women seeking an abortion are made to feel criminals by people who care about women who assemble outside abortion facilities. There is a group who weekly pray and offer help to women attending the abortion facility at the Hastings Hospital. This group has been responsible for offering help and encouragement to women often alone and abandoned in their hour of need with the pleasing result that in recent years a total of 37 babies have been saved from destruction and their mothers from a lifetime of grief and sorrow. If ALRANZ really care about women why are they not out there offering help to women, they do not offer practical help with baby’s clothes, bassinettes and cots to women who choose life for their child? Members of the pro-life movement offer women all the help that they need to care for their baby.

Myth Nine. The writer claims that one in four “people with uteruses” have had an abortion in New Zealand. This statement is insulting to women. This is challenged as every year the ASC reports that about a third of the abortions performed are repeat abortions In 2018, 1,071 women were having their third abortion, 393 their fourth,148 their fifth, 60 their sixth, 22 their seventh and 12 their seventh or more abortion.

Yours sincerely,

Ken Orr

Secretary,

Right to Life.