Voice for Life Calls for Extensive and Open Review of Abortion Law

Voice for Life joins the Abortion Supervisory Committee in calling for Parliament to review New Zealand’s abortion law to make it more fit-for-purpose for the 21st century, but it demands that this review be extensive and involve input from all interested members of the community.

“The Contraception, Abortion and Sterilisation Act 1977 is in need of extensive review,” says Voice for Life President and nurse Jacqui de Ruiter. “We have 40 years of experience of legal abortion in New Zealand, a greater knowledge of foetal development, and a more enlightened and inclusive conception of disability. It’s time for us to consider what all of that means for abortion law in this country.”

“Any review should be open to input from across the community, and to hearing from multiple perspectives and from the many people impacted by these laws,” de Ruiter demands. “Asking a handful of people in the Law Commission to give a legal opinion isn’t going to be enough. We need to hear from doctors, nurses, counsellors, social workers, parents, women and men to get a full sense of what’s going on on the ground, what people need, and what the law can do about that.”

“It’s about more than access and the need for inclusive language,” continues de Ruiter. “Abortion is a serious matter that deeply affects many women and men and ends the life of a child. Only a wide-ranging and democratic review will do.”

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