Abortion - a matter of life and death

Abortion News 5

Clark backs abortion-law review

23 December 1999.

NZPA.

WELLINGTON -- Prime Minister Helen Clark has added her support to a review of abortion laws suggested by Justice Minister Phil Goff.

Ms Clark said yesterday that as Health Minister in 1989 she tried to amend the law to allow doctors to decide on abortions, rather than women having to go to certified consultants.

She supported Mr Goff's reaction to a call by the abortion supervisory committee for a relaxation of the law.

Mr Goff said he would ask the Cabinet to review abortion laws and consider recommendations made in the committee's annual report, tabled in Parliament yesterday.

He said it was clear that abortion practices bore little relationship to Parliament's intentions in 1977, when it last changed abortion laws.

It was questionable whether the legal requirement for certifying consultants to authorise abortions, or the $2.7 million in fees for those consultants, served any purpose.

Among the changes sought were allowing all doctors to authorise pregnancy terminations, allowing socio-economic factors to be taken into account when determining the grounds for an abortion, and allowing abortions after 20 weeks of gestation in cases of significant foetal abnormality incompatible with normal life.

Christian Heritage Party leader Graham Capill said yesterday that making all general practitioners certifying consultants would "drive a wedge between family doctors and some of their patients".

Pro-life women would not want to see their families cared for by a local GP who was involved in the abortion industry, he said.