statistics

Why no legal protection for babies born alive in an abortion New Zealand?

May 26, 2021 by Admin 4 Comments

Media Release 26 May 2021

Right to Life fully supports the excellent and timely petition of our member Sarah-Jane Cleaver who with passionate dedication has obtained the signatures of 6,586 concerned citizens who are now requesting Parliament to legislate to require that babies born alive in an abortion receive appropriate palliative care. The petition is currently being considered by the Parliamentary Petitions Select Committee.

The Ministry of Health has advised Right to Life that there were 13,236 unborn babies killed by abortion in New Zealand in 2020. 120 of these babies were late term and were 20 weeks or more gestation. One of these was awaiting birth being between 35 and 39 weeks.

The Ministry of Health does not require that abortionists report babies being born alive in an abortion. It is appalling that there is no record of the fate of these poor babies. Right to Life makes no apology for speaking up in defence of these children who have survived a determined and vicious attack on their lives. They are human beings endowed by their Creator with an inalienable right to Life and have a right to respect and appropriate palliative care. Who can ignore the cries of these babies as they fight to breathe?

It is known that babies are born alive in abortions. There has been a six-fold increase in late term abortions in Victoria Australia following decriminalisation of abortion in 2008.

In 2016 there were 310 late term abortions resulting in 33 babies being born alive. The Victorian Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity reported that in 2012 there were 53 ‘terminations of Pregnancy’ after 20 weeks ‘resulting in live birth’. There is no legal requirement to provide care for a baby born alive in an abortion in Victoria.

In Queensland between 2005 and 2015, 204 babies were born alive as a result of abortions. In 2015, 27 babies of 20 or weeks gestation survived only to die later of neglect. The Queensland health authority directs that no palliative care is to be given to any baby born alive in an abortion.

There are no statistics on babies born alive in NSW. The law in NSW requires that palliative care be provided to a baby born alive in a late term abortion.

There are no statistics on babies born alive in South Australia. The law in South Australia does not require that palliative care to protect the life of the baby born alive in a late term abortion. In these circumstances, the baby is wrapped in a blanket and the mother is given the opportunity to hold the baby as it dies.”

In Western Australia there were 27 babies born alive in late term abortions in 1999-2016. There is no legal requirement to provide care for a baby born alive.

The Ministry of Health web site states “a live birth after an intended abortion is extremely unlikely. From 22 weeks of pregnancy, feticide (an injection to stop the fetal heart) takes place prior to the abortion. This is not a legal requirement.”

In the event that this did occur, all babies born alive are legal people with the same rights as any other person. There is a requirement to provide health care in the same way as for any other baby. This is a request that may or may not be followed.

We urgently need a law to protect these children who are the weakest and most defenceless members of our human family.

If we do not legislate we may in the future have a direction from the Ministry not to provide palliative care and just to hold the baby until it dies.

Ken Orr

Spokesperson,

Right to Life

Christchurch Abortion Capital of the South Island

March 6, 2021 by Philip 1 Comment

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

Government’s deafening silence on catastrophic birth rate

November 21, 2020 by Philip 1 Comment

Media Release 21 November 2020

Should we expect our Labour government that promotes and funds the violent killing of our precious children before birth to be concerned about our appalling fertility rate?

Our birth rate has been below replacement level since 1975.

Why is the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern and her government, silent in response to New Zealand’s appalling birth rate? Our nation is facing an increasing demographic winter which will have a catastrophic effect on the future of this nation. We have an increasing ageing community with a declining workforce to support them and look after them. Why does the government not have a policy to increase our birth rate and confront this crisis?

Statistics NZ have announced that our fertility rate is now 1.63, the lowest ever recorded in New Zealand since 1894. The replacement birth rate is 2.1 for women between the ages of 15 and 44. Demographers warn that a birth rate of 1.5 is the point of no return.

Our birth rate has been in decline since the 1960s when the contraceptive pill was introduced. In 1931 at the height of the great depression, the birth rate was 3.61. In 1974 the birth rate was 2.12, just above replacement level and that was the last year that we had a replacement birth rate.

Right to Life applauds the courageous women who sacrifice themselves by choosing to have children and raise them in spite of the formidable obstacles confronting them, especially the more than 200,000 solo mothers who are raising children alone.We also applaud the noble women who chose life for their baby in the face of abandonment of the father and coercion to choose abortion.

Right to Life believes that there are many reasons for this crisis.

· The Labour government of Jacinda Ardern has undermined motherhood, the dignity of the family and the humanity of the unborn child, by passing the Abortion Legislation Act, which promotes the legal fiction that the child is not a human being until it is born. It is now no longer a crime to kill an unborn child but in the words of our Prime Minister, “a reproductive choice for women.”

· The breakdown of marriage in New Zealand.

· Half the children born in New Zealand are born out of wedlock or a defacto relationship.

· Divorce and the abandonment of women.

· Contraception, sterilisation and the Same Sex Marriage Act 2013.

· Abortion, one in five potentially normal pregnancies ends in the killing of the child in the womb. Each year more than 13,000 innocent and defenceless unborn children are poisoned, violently dismembered or sucked out of their mother’s womb. Each child is a unique and unrepeatable miracle of God’s loving creation.

· The failure of the government to promote open adoption as a loving option in preference to the violent killing of the child in an abortion.

· The excessive cost of housing, both building and rental. New Zealand is the second most expensive country in the OECD to raise a child.

· The economic pressure on women to be in the workforce in preference to being a dedicated mother at home raising a family.

The government needs to urgently publicly acknowledge the demographic crisis and formulate a policy to promote marriage exclusively between one woman and one man and to promote child rearing. Two thirds of countries in Europe have measures to encourage fertility, baby bonuses, tax incentives and paid parental leave.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life