Media Release 28 September 2024
Right to Life commends the joyful women, men and children who peacefully marched from Victoria Square in Christchurch today, Saturday 28th September, to express their support for a culture of life with love for mothers and their precious unborn children, who are all unique and unrepeatable miracles of God’s loving creation. They marched to support legislation, which will give legal recognition to the unborn child as a human being from conception and endowed by our Creator with an inalienable right to life, and to express opposition to a culture of death that threatens the lives of our unborn children and the welfare of women the second victim of the violence of abortion.
They marched to remember the more than 600,000 innocent and defenceless New Zealand unborn children who have been killed since 1978, by being poisoned, sucked out of their mother’s womb or being violently and painfully dismembered. This culture of death also threatens the vulnerable in our community with euthanasia and assisted suicide. The ACT Party wishes to exploit the current review of the End of Life Choice Act to amend the current law, to increase the number of the vulnerable in our community who will be eligible to be killed by their doctor or assisted in their suicide by a doctor.
The marchers gave witness to our community to the sanctity of life of every human being from conception to natural death. They also gave a strong message to Parliament and to our government that we want to repeal the Abortion Legislation Act 2020, which rejects the humanity of the unborn child and its right to life until it is born. We will not rest until this unjust law is repealed.
The marchers also sought the repeal of the End of Life Choice Act 2019, which permits doctors to kill their patients with a lethal injection or assist in their suicide. Voters were also encouraged to vote in the next general election in 2026, only for those candidates who are committed to protecting life.
May our Parliament be attentive to the message which we respectfully present, that we are absolutely opposed to the culture of death which has been inflicted on our country, by our former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, by removing abortion from the Crimes Act. This makes it no longer a crime to kill an unborn child, and in her words making it “a reproductive choice for women.”
The marchers began at Victoria Square, where they were addressed by 13 year old Chaning Grant, whose parents nearly made a decision to abort him, and Paulo Garcia MP, who spoke passionately about the need to continue to speak out against the government’s war on women and unborn children, then marchers proceeded to Cashel Mall, and then returned back to Victoria Square.
Here they were addressed by pro-Life and pro- family advocates, Michelle Kaufman, Ellie Whitaker, Shiloh Reich, Martin Kariuki and Simon O’Connor, and listened to the plea from Rebecca, a woman who has had an abortion, not to allow this injustice to continue.
A statement of support and encouragement from Right to Life’s patron, Bishop Michael Gielen, was read to the assembly by the MC Simon O’Connor.
All those who marched want New Zealand to be a nation where the beauty and dignity of every human life is valued and protected from conception to natural death.
Ken Orr,
Spokesperson,
Right to Life