Abortion - a matter of life and death

Abortion News 4

Anti-Abortion Forces Mobilise

22 December 1999.

The anti-abortion lobby is girding its loins for a major debate with the government, after the Justice Minister, Phil Goff, said today he would recommend to Cabinet that the abortion laws be reviewed (see "Abortion Battle Back").

The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) said it feared that extending abortion approvals to GPs would further promote a "culture of death."

It said it supported a full review of the Contraception, Sterilisation & Abortion Act, which, it claimed, would reveal that the law was being "exploited and abused" by a small group of medical practitioners.

A health lobby group, New Zealand Doctors For Life, has also expressed concern that abortion could continue to rise under proposed changes to the law.

The president, Dr Kevin Fitzsimmons, said too many abortions were granted already, and women needed more objective material to be able to make an informed choice on abortion.

However, the Medical Association said women were likely to benefit from allowing general practitioners to authorise abortions.

Chairman of the Medical Association's General Practitioners Council, Phil Rushmer, said GPs would be well-placed to make those decisions.

The Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand also welcomed the Minister's response to the latest Abortion Supervisory Committee Report.

"We support the addition of economic hardship as an abortion access criteria, and we also welcome ministerial calls for the streamlining of abortion access through the abolition of the certifying consultant system," the group said in a statement.

However, Abortion Concern, a group of women who have experienced difficulties after induced abortion, has rejected the suggested legislative changes, claiming they will increase the numbers of unwanted abortions.

Spokeswoman Philippa Peck, said the Coalition Government was in "la-la land" if it thought the greatest problem facing a pregnant woman was how to get an abortion.

"The abortion process is already a slippery slope in favour of abortion. Once the process begins, the greatest problem facing many women is how to get out of it," she said.