In the open letter to the Prime Minister on the front page of the NZ Herald on Sunday 16 December, there were calls for the government to adopt a comprehensive strategy to prevent and end violence against women and to to allocate adequete resources to, “Ensure that every woman in Aotearoa New Zealand has access to culturally appropriate domestic and sexual violence support and healing services when and where they need it”.
Right to Life contends that an important first step to this objective is for the government to reject its current proposal to decriminalise abortion and to instead promote adoption, as an appropriate response. For surely, when lethal violence – against a pre-born (female) child – is seen as the default government funded solution to the problem of an unplanned pregnancy, then it is nothing but hypocrisy for the government to be talking about a “comprehensive strategy to prevent and end violence against women.
Right to Life fe is opposed to all violence against at women at all stages of life and fully supports this open letter. Right to Life commends the Prime Minister for opposing violence against born women but must ask why does she not recognise the killing of the unborn as violence against both women and their defenceless unborn?
New Zealand is a violent country. We have some of the worst statistics for sexual violence, domestic violence and violence against women in the OECD.
To our shame, on average thirteen women are murdered each year in New Zealand. Our Police respond to an incident of domestic abuse every five and a half minutes. Eighty per cent of domestic violence goes unreported. Why are we so violent?
Abortion is the ultimate in domestic violence and violence against women. Each and every day 35 women are violated by an abortionist and 35 unborn children are killed. In a surgical abortion, the abortionist violently forces his way into the womb of a woman for the purpose of stopping a beating heart and dismembering her child by tearing off its arms and legs. This preventable violence is sanctioned and funded by the government. The government is currently deceiving women by promoting this killing as a human right, a health service and a “reproductive health choice for women”. How many of these women are victims of male violence and are being coerced by threats of violence and abandonment? These are the men who see women as sexual objects, who are there for their gratification, men who have rejected the Creator’s plan for procreation and demand abortion as a backup for failed contraception.
New Zealand is grieving and mourning the death of Grace Millane cruelly murdered in Auckland. Her violent killing has touched the heart and conscience of the nation. A beautiful young woman with her whole life before her, trusting that she would be safe in our country, has had that trust shattered as she is taken from us on the eve of her twenty-second birthday. This is an appalling tragedy.
But so is the fact that every day in New Zealand an estimated eighteen women are violently killed in their mother’s womb.
Right to Life believes that the fundamental reason for violence against women by men is because women are increasingly sexualised as objects of male gratification. Women have an intrinsic dignity conferred on them by their Creator as the creator of new life. Mothers are the heart of the home for the natural family, comprising exclusively one man and one woman. It is the duty of men to be the protector of women and children. When men lose respect for women and see them as sexual objects, there for their gratification, respect quickly turns to violence and abandonment.
Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life
The Minister of Justice is responsible for the administration of the Crimes Act which provides legal protection for the right to life of every member of the community from implantation in the womb to natural death. It is his privilege and duty to ensure that all are equal before the law.
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