10 March 2022

Clare Perry,

Deputy Director General of Health

Dear Ms Perry,

Thank you for your reply of 17th January 2022. I wish to take this opportunity to respond to several of the issues raised in your reply.

I am aware of the process that has resulted in the killing of the unborn being taken out of the Crimes Act and being treated as “a reproductive health issue”. Abortion was in the Crimes Act since the founding of our nation because it was universally recognised that the killing of an unborn child was a serious violation of human rights and a crime. The total prohibition of the taking of innocent human life is the foundation of the law and of medicine. Prior to 1977 abortion was recognised as a serious crime, abortions were prohibited unless it was believed that it was necessary to save the life of the mother.

The Royal Commission on Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion appointed by the fourth Labour government in 1975 reported to Parliament in 1977. The report stated that the Commission had received submissions from all around the world upholding the scientific truth that human life began at conception and that there was no point during pregnancy when an unborn child was not a human being. The Commission also stated that the unborn child was the weakest and most defenceless member of the human family and deserved respect and effective legal protection.

It was disappointing that the then Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, refused our request for the Law Commission to  include in its law review the findings and recommendations of this important Royal Commission. Our request was rejected by the Minister on the grounds that the recommendations of the Royal Commission were now out of date. He rejected the findings of the learned Royal Commission and upheld the legal fiction that the unborn child was not a human being and did not have a right to life until it was born.

The Law Commission made the observation in its report to the Minister of Justice that since the law was changed in 1977, no deaths have been reported of women resulting from abortion and that abortion was safer than birth.

Abortion is never safe for either mother or child. The sole objective of abortion is the violent killing of a defenceless child. Since 1977 there have been more than 546 000  children killed before birth. More than 270 000 of these babies killed were female and future women who died in an abortion. Why don’t these unborn future women count? Abortion is also never safe for the mother as it wounds her physically, mentally and spiritually.

A maternal death is that of a woman who dies in childbirth or from any cause related to, or aggravated by pregnancy or its management (excluding accidental or incidental causes) during pregnancy and childbirth or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy.

The Health Quality & Safety Commission NZ advised RTL that there were 28 maternal deaths reported in New Zealand between 2006 and 2016. Seven of these deaths were the result of suicide within 42 days of having an abortion. These tragic deaths are indicative that women are dying from the grief and remorse of abortion.

Every maternal death is a terrible tragedy, that the death is suicide following the appalling grief of losing your precious child in an abortion is heart rendering.

Right to Life acknowledges that the circumstances around suicide are complex and that there may be other contributing factors such as mental ill health. Right to Life believes that these seven suicides are just the tip of the iceberg as it is believed that many women commit suicide many years later as a direct result of an abortion.

These findings concurred with a large record-based study of 600,000 women conducted in Finland in 1997 which found that women who chose abortion over birth were six times more likely to die by suicide in the year following the pregnancy than women who gave birth to their child.

The Law Commission stated that the complication rate arising from abortion was low. It is noted that the only complications reported by abortion providers were the complications that arose prior to the discharge of the woman after the abortion. In the event that a woman ended up in A&E after the abortion with a complication  is not reported as a complication associated with her prior abortion.. Many serious complications such as future sterility and miscarriages are not reported.

The Commission stated that New Zealand is a signatory to a number of United Nations Conventions that affirm the importance of access to abortion services as a legal health service. The Commission sites the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, CEDAW and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

It is acknowledged that the UN Committees that have been appointed to ensure that these important Conventions are adhered to by member nations constantly campaign for the decriminalisation of the killing of children before birth, the removal of all restrictions and the treatment of abortion as health care.

Article 12, in CEDAW seeks to eliminate discrimination related to family planning. Those who support the killing of the unborn claim that family planning which features in the Convention, includes abortion, it does not. There is nothing in this Convention or in any other UN Convention that states that abortion is part of family planning.

In December 2019 the General Assembly of the United Nations passed the Inclusive Global Health Resolution that rejected abortion being included as reproductive health.

You refer to Vote Health spending on maternity and Well Child Tamariki Care. I am aware of the current process of funding DHBs to provide health services. I readily applaud the government for the funding of health services to promote and protect life. It however remains a cause of pain for many in our community to have their taxes fund the violent killing of unborn children who are the weakest and most defenceless members of our human family.

It is a cause of national shame that every day an estimated thirty-six innocent and defenceless unborn children are taken to hospitals and clinics to be painfully poisoned, sucked from their mother’s wombs or violently dismembered.

Child abuse begins in the womb, abortion is the ultimate in child abuse. How can we as a nation be really serious about eliminating child abuse when our legislation states that it is a crime to smack a child but before birth you may violently kill the child up to the moment of birth under the guise that this is health care.

Abortion is violence against women. Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women. Abortion betrays the basic feminist principles of nonviolence, non- discrimination and justice for all. Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women—and that women at the behest of men have settled for less. Our women deserve better.

It is an appalling injustice to women that the Abortion Legislation Act 2020, refuses to recognise the inherent dignity and worth of the unborn human person, that human life begins at conception and that every human being is a unique and unrepeatable miracle of God’s loving creation.

I believe that human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of its existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

When women seek an abortion it is a cry for help. I believe that we could do more to promote open adoption. In conclusion it is my earnest hope that you will do everything possible to protect women from the violence of abortion and to protect the lives of their precious children. A nation that kills its own children is a nation without a future.

Yours sincerely,

Ken Orr,

Secretary,

Right to Life