Killing of Unborn a Crime not a Health Issue

Media Release 18th February 2018

Right to Life is opposed to the sinister proposal of the Minister of Justice to remove abortion from the Crimes Act. Since 1856 this act has outlawed the killing of the unborn and provided legal protection for mothers and their vulnerable and defenceless unborn children.

The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has given a written direction to the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, to remove abortion from the Crimes Act. It is her belief and that of the Minister of Justice that the killing of an unborn child in an abortion is not a crime and should be taken out of the Crimes Act and made a health issue.

This proposal will effectively mean that those unborn who are classified as unwanted will be deprived of the protection of the Crimes Act and allow for them to be killed. However the unborn children who are classified as wanted will retain the protection of the Crimes Act and of the state. This is an appalling and unprecedented violation of human rights. It is discrimination against the most vulnerable members of our human family.

Why is the media silent in the face of this proposed violation of the human rights of mothers and their unborn the weakest and most defenceless members of the human family?

Never before in the history of New Zealand has there been an attempt to withdraw from the Crimes Act protection for the lives of a category of vulnerable New Zealanders. This ominous proposal is a threat to the lives of all New Zealanders. If today the state can withdraw legal protection for the inalienable right to life of the unborn then tomorrow a future government could legislate to withdraw the protection of the Crimes Act from another vulnerable group classified as unwanted, such as those with dementia and Alzheimer’s.

It is truly ironic that the Minister is anxious to continue the protection of the Crimes Act for women who tragically lose a child in the womb after being assaulted, while at the same time accepting the violent and deadly assault on an unborn child by a doctor who dismembers a defenceless and innocent child in the womb. Not only so but this is to regarded as a health service approved and funded by the Minister’s government.

The Prime Minister has said Labour wants to modernise the laws and see abortion treated as a health issue not a criminal one. The killing of a child is a human rights issue, it is not a health issue. Pregnancy is not a disease and abortion is not health care.

The once great humanitarian Labour Party has lost its way. The first duty of the state is to protect the right to life of all from conception to natural death and not to preside over our destruction. This anti-life proposal is alien to the principles of Michael Joseph Savage, Peter Fraser, Walter Nash and the other great leaders of the Labour party.

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