New Conservative
Since the decision by the US Supreme Court was made late last month the issue of abortion has generated a lot of media attention in New Zealand. The media has almost exclusively painted this decision as a retrograde step for women with many commentators declaring that the court has taken away the constitutional ‘right’ to abortion. This however is not the truth as there is absolutely nothing in the US Constitution that claims that women have a fundamental right to an abortion.
The Court simply returned the ability of individual states to make their own decision regarding abortion, as it sat before the Roe v Wade decision in 1973. The outrage stems from the fact that many of these states have passed laws which ban or restrict abortion. However, if the majority of people in those states support these measures, then surely that is simply democracy in action.
We should not forget that the Roe v Wade decision inflicted a 49-year reign of violence on American women that has resulted in the killing of more than 64 million children before birth.
We have seen a howl of protest from those concerned that the decision may influence so-called abortion ‘rights’ here. Nowhere more so than from New Zealand Family Planning, who in their July e-newsletter state that, “if one thing can be learned from the overturning of Roe v Wade, it is that access to safe abortion and contraceptive care must be embedded as a core service within a national health system” and “…“be beyond political reach.”
The last bit should make everyone sit up and take notice. What Family Planning is effectively saying is that the right to abortion should be beyond or above the law.
New Conservative asks if this is the same health system, which, according to the latest available abortion statistics, has endorsed and facilitated 18 New Zealand women to each have seven or more abortions. In fact, the data reveals that nine women have reported seven previous abortions, six women have had eight previous abortions and three who have had ten or more.
Since 1978 over 540,000 New Zealand unborn children have been aborted.
This is not health care, and we deceive ourselves and betray these women if we consider that killing the children of these women is doing them a service. New Conservative begs to differ with NZ Family Planning and the current government. We believe that the majority of New Zealanders are not happy with our recently enacted and extremely brutal and permissive abortion laws.
Today under the Abortion Legislation Act (2020), unborn children may be aborted up to 20 weeks for any reason, or for no reason at all. After that time up to birth, an unborn child may be aborted if one registered medical practitioner considers it “appropriate.” That practitioner only needs to consult with one other, but doesn’t need to have a consensus to go ahead with the abortion.
One of New Conservative’s key platforms is that the unborn child is a human being whose life needs to be protected.
New Conservative does not believe, as the leader of the National party does, that this is settled law. We do not believe that it is an envious record for our country to have what is arguably the most liberal abortion law in the developed world, and unlike Luxon, if elected we intend to work towards changing the law to protect unborn lives and the well-being of their mothers.