Media Release 6 March 2021

The latest abortion statistics released by the Canterbury District Health Board confirm that Christchurch tragically continues to be the abortion capital of the South Island.

The Canterbury District Health Board has released to Right to Life under the Official Information Act the abortion statistics for 2020. The Board advises that in 2020 there were a total of 1,658 abortions performed at Christchurch Women’s Hospital and at the Gynaecological Procedure unit at the Christchurch Public Hospital.

This is an increase of 90 over the abortion total for 2018, the total for 2019 has not yet been released. Since the passing of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 abortions do not have to be performed in a licensed facility. Medical abortions may be performed in a suburban medical centre and by telehealth with the dangerous drugs being taken by the women in their own home without medical supervision. These abortions are only reported to the Ministry of Health.

This is therefore not the abortion total for Christchurch as it does not include abortions performed outside of Christchurch Women’s Hospital. We may have experienced a 10 per cent increase in abortion numbers under the new extreme abortion law.

A total of 941 defenceless unborn children were violently dismembered and killed in their mother’s womb. A total of 717 unborn children were poisoned in their mother’s womb with lethal drugs.

Each one of these children was a unique and unrepeatable miracle of God’s loving creation endowed by its Creator at conception with an inalienable right to life. They were created to love and to be loved, they were endowed with special gifts to enrich our community. Their killing is crime against humanity and a violation of their human rights, why are the churches silent? We should also mourn for their mothers, wounded and often grief stricken, the second victim of abortion.

The Board advised that since 2010 the oldest child killed in an abortion at Christchurch Women’s Hospital was 34 weeks gestation, just 6 weeks before it was due to be born.

The Abortion Legislation Act 2020 came into operation on the 24th March 2020; this allowed for abortion on request for any reason up to 20 weeks. After 20 weeks it was required that a doctor considered it “appropriate.” There were 1,638 potentially normal pregnancies that were terminated in abortions of less than 20 weeks gestation and 20 late term abortions post 20 weeks.

The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, the architect of the new anti-life and anti-feminist new abortion law, has decreed that the unborn child is not a human being, has no human rights until it is born and that it is no longer a crime to kill an unborn child.

The Canterbury District Health Board dedicated to protecting life and promoting health has an outstanding reputation for caring for the community that it serves. It really cares for its people. Right to Life believes that the Board and its dedicated staff do not support the burden inflicted on them by the government has decreed that killing the unborn is a core health service with unlimited funding. Why does the Prime Minister who tells us to be kind and the Minister of Health, Hon. Andrew Little, inflict this intolerable violence against women and their precious unborn on our communities and on the dedicated staff in our hospitals?

The CDHB advised Right to Life in a letter, “that staff recognise that for any woman considering abortion can be overwhelming and incredibly stressful and a decision not taken lightly. Staff deal gently, respectfully and professionally with women.”

Social workers talk of regret, guilt, depression and anxiety and that there is no pressure to decide.

Right to Life encourages our doctors and nurses to refuse to be involved in the killing of our defenceless unborn children and reject the culture of death which the government is imposing on them under the guise that it is a health service.


Ken Orr

Spokesperson,

Right to Life