Click this link to visit a New York Times article on new research on how unborn children experience pain in the womb
What Care Is Being Given To Children Born Alive
Right to Life is concerned that 68 unborn babies with a gestational age of 20 weeks or more were terminated in 2006. The oldest reported child was 32 w
eeks gestation.
The information was recently provided by the Abortion Supervisory Committee to Right to Life under the Official Information Act.
A total of 44 of these children had a gestational age of 22 weeks or more. Many of these children if born alive could with proper medical care have survived. The Ministry of Health does not keep records of babies born alive from an abortion. A recent United Kingdom [UK] report has shown that babies who survive abortion attempts in the UK are often left to die. According to a government report there were 66 infants in one year that survived a National Health Service abortion. In Britain the report shows that once a child is condemned to death by abortion is born alive, no medical help is offered the child. On the contrary guidelines from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists offered doctors the recommendation that babies over 22 weeks old who survive abortion be killed by lethal injection. Does the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians And Gynaecologists support this recommendation?
Dr Death and Tragic Suicide
Dr Philip Nitschke should accept some responsibility for the tragic suicide of a Wellington woman. She was not terminally ill. Dr Nitschke encouraged the deeply depressed woman to travel to Mexico to purchase the deadly drug Nembutal. Nembutal is a class C prohibited drug. A person possessing this drug unlawfully could be charged and on conviction, receive a prison sentence of up to 3 months or a fine up to $500. It was possibly unlawful for Dr Nitschke to encourage this woman and others to break the law. It is a violation of Section 63 of the Crimes Act to encourage, entice or assist any person to commit suicide. Why does the government not have the Police investigate Dr Nitschke with a view to having him brought before the Court? He is promoting a culture of death. The Australian government to protect the community, passed legislation to prohibit Dr Nitschke from displaying Exit International on an Australian internet provider because it was promoting suicide. Our government citing free speech shamefully allows him to use a New Zealand provider and conduct euthanasia workshops. Our Society calls upon the government to ban Dr Nitschke’s entry into New Zealand for the purpose of conducting euthanasia workshops.
Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life New Zealand Inc.
Abortion Consultants
Dear Sir Abortion Consultants
It is scandalous that certifying consultants were paid $5 million last year for authorising abortions. The top 10 consultants received between $120,000 and $224,000. Two consultants are required for each abortion and each claim a fee of $135 for a cursory consultation of 10 to 15 minutes. There were nearly 18,000 abortions in 2006. The law requires two consultants to ensure that abortions comply with the law and are authorised only after full regard is given to the rights of the unborn child. The most important right is the child’s right to life. The Abortion Supervisory Committee concedes that 98% of abortions are authorised on the grounds that the continued existence of the child is a severe threat to the mental health of the mother. The Committee believes that mental health grounds are used by consultants to provide abortion on demand for socio economic reasons, this is unlawful. It is a scandalous injustice that doctors are being paid by a complicit government to deprive our nations children of their right to life by falsehood and violating the law. Since 1999 the Helen Clark government has shamefully presided in silence over the destruction of 140,000 innocent and defenceless unborn children.
Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life New Zealand Inc.
Coerced Abortions – A Violation of Human Rights
An important study conducted in the United States in 2004 found that 64 per cent of those women surveyed reported that they were pressured by others to have an abortion. Many abortions are the result of pressure, emotional blackmail, coercion, threats, or violence from boyfriends, parents, employers, doctors, counsellors or from other people of influence in the woman’s lives. Right to Life believes that a similar situation prevails in New Zealand.
Having abortion on demand has made it easy for others to bring pressure and even force women and girls into having an abortion they do not want. The great majority of women if provided with real support, options, and resources to allow their children to be born will continue with their pregnancy. In some cases women have been assaulted and even murdered by the father of their child. In the United States murder is the leading cause of death among pregnant women. A 22 year old male is currently before the High Court in Auckland charged with procuring an abortion after violently assaulting a 17 year old girl with the objective of causing a miscarriage.
Inadequate, inaccurate or deceptive counselling can also act as a form of coercion. A woman’s right to choose is touted as a woman’s right. This is a monumental lie. For many men who wish to escape their responsibilities towards the mother and the child that he has fathered, abortion becomes their choice. This is a violation of the human rights of the vulnerable woman and her child in the womb. Women deserve better, they deserve to have the law protect their right of women not to be pressured, coerced, or even violently forced into unwanted and dangerous abortions.
Right to Life recognises the right of women to receive the full protection of the law from being coerced into an unwanted abortion. Our Society will now lobby Parliament to promote the necessary law change. A petition has been prepared to present to Parliament. Citizens concerned about the coercion imposed on women are invited to sign a petition displayed under the abortion link on our Society’s web site at www.right-to-life.org
Capital Punishment
Right to Life applauds the Prime Minister’s announcement at an event in Parliament on Wednesday 10 October 2007. She stated that she is working with other nations to put a resolution to the United Nations seeking the abolition of the death penalty. The Prime Minister states that capital punishment was removed from the statute books in 1961. It is encouraging that she seeks to defend the right to life.
There is however a serious inconsistency, because
The Prime Minister said at the event at Parliament that “Capital punishment is the ultimate form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” She also said that “The death penalty violates the right to life….it is known to have been inflicted on the innocent.” These statements could be associated with the plight of unborn children. The abortion approval process is conducted by doctors behind closed doors; no witnesses may appear in defence of the child. There is no right of appeal and the death sentence is carried out quickly. Every abortion results in at least two victims, one dead child and a wounded mother.
Between 1842 and 1957 a total of 83 persons were executed in
The killing of our unborn children is a cause of national shame and an intolerable burden on the conscience of this nation.
If the Prime Minister is genuinely concerned with upholding the sanctity of life and promoting a culture of life, she should move with urgency to stop the abortion holocaust by providing effective legal protection for the right to life of all New Zealanders from the moment of conception.
Right to Life also requests that the New Zealand Bill of Rights 1990 be amended to remove the discrimination against the unborn. Section 8 should read; ‘No human being shall be deprived of life except on such grounds as are established by law and are consistent with the principles of fundamental justice.”
Right to Life wins ruling in court
A Christchurch group taking a landmark legal bid to overturn the way abortions are done in New Zealand has won the latest round of its battle in the High Court in Wellington.
After failing in its political fight to change abortion laws, Right to Life New Zealand launched a judicial review in the High Court, claiming that the Abortion Supervisory Committee was failing to safeguard the human rights of unborn children. The committee oversees the more than 15,000 abortions performed each year.
Peter Singer: Infanticide, Yes; Kangaroo Cull, No
Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer is famous for two primary reasons: First, he jump started the animal rights/liberation movement with his 1975 book Animal Liberation. Second, he is the world’s foremost proponent of the legitimacy of infanticide. Thus, writing on page 186 in Practical Ethics, he supported the right of parents to kill a newborn with hemophilia in order to make life easier for a hypothetical, yet-to-be-born sibling:
When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be higher if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second. Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him.It should be noted that the disability of the infant isn’t why he can be killed, but rather, his view that infants are not persons.
http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/labels/Peter%20Singer.%20%20Utilitarianism..html
Unbearable Pain Argument Not Borne Out as Valid Reason for Euthanasia
Lets be very clear when the next major push comes from those who wish to promote Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide in New Zealand. Lets learn from the experience of others when we hear of emotive reasons behind the "need" for the killing of those who are dying. This debate as we know is characterised by passionate debate on both sides of the fence. But as one commentator in the state of Oregon has recently commented, the implications for all of us must be studied very carefully. Looking at all the evidence and good law requires far more than emotion, passion and feeling.
Oregon’s law relating to Physician Assisted Suicide (H.168), was sold to the people of that state as a way of compassionately ending the pain of those suffering from uncontrollable degrees of it and who had less than six months to live.
The facts however are that there has not been a single documented case of PAS being used for a terminally ill patient with uncontrollable pain. Each case in which a person has been killed has been based on psychological and social concerns.
A study of 129 cases from 1998 to 2002 in Oregon, reveals the following reasons that a person chose to exercise the PAS option.
44 – burden on family, friends and caregivers;
99 – decreasing participation in activities;
73 – losing control of bodily functions;
106 – losing autonomy
28 – fear of pain.
There were no citations of experiencing uncontrollable pain.
In addition, PAS has been used in Oregon to remove those who are seen as a "burden" on their families and that state, has taken the first steps leading to euthanasia.
What can we in New Zealand learn from Oregon’s experience? If one thing is for sure it is that our legislators now have no excuse for using the pain argument when the facts so clearly speak for themselves.
Chris O’Brien
(President Right to Life New Zealand Inc.)