Media Release 30 March 2020

Right to Life not only believes that all abortions are intrinsically evil but also that it is irresponsible for our country to be continuing to perform elective abortions during the coronavirus pandemic. Our public health system is in danger of being overwhelmed with critically ill patients infected with coronavirus. It is imperative that we conserve our health resources to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director General of Health has issued a directive that elective surgery should be postponed where possible in order to allow our Public Hospitals  to prepare to care for a great number of critically ill patients with coronavirus.

Why then are every day an estimated 28 unborn children in potentially normal pregnancies, as we speak even now, been violently dismembered and killed in an elective surgical abortion in our public hospitals. All of these elective abortions are unnecessary and preventable.

It is a tragedy that since the commencement of the lock down one elderly women has died in the Greymouth Public Hospital from coronavirus. It is also tragic that during this period an estimated 175 innocent unborn children have been killed mainly in Public Hospitals.

Pregnancy is not health care or a disease like the corona virus. Nor is it a treatment or cure for any malady known to medical science. 98% of abortions are done for socio-economic reasons masquerading as a serious danger to mental health. These abortions are not done to protect women’s health or to save women’s lives. Many are inflicted on desperate women who are being coerced with threats of violence and abandonment by the father of the child.

The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern and her government, believe that abortion is “a reproductive choice for women” and that abortion is health care and an essential health service that must not be curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic. Abortion is not a legitimate health service as it is the only health service that has the specific objective of killing a patient, a defenceless and innocent unborn child. The mother is the second victim of the killing of her child as she is wounded and left with a lifetime of sorrow and grief.

Medical Associations representing more than 30,000 physicians in the United States who practice medicine in accordance with the Hippocratic Oath decry the call to continue elective abortion in the United States during the coronavirus pandemic.

Elective abortions have no place in our health services which should be dedicated to the promotion of health and protection of the lives of its patients. The unborn child is a patient who should be treated with the greatest respect.

Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life