Do Winston Peters Adherents Know He Supports the Decriminalisation of Abortion?

Media Release Saturday 30th June 2018

Right to Life believes Winston Peters has given his support to the proposal of the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to decriminalise abortion.

NZ First is failing to defend our unborn children. We believe that Peters had the opportunity to stop Jacinda Ardern’s pernicious agenda dead in it’s tracks, after he was consulted by Andrew Little and prior to the Minister of Justice Andrew Little’s writing to the Law Commission on direction by Ardern.

On instruction from our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the Minister of Justice Andrew Little on 27th February 2018 wrote to the President of the Law Commission, requesting the Commission investigate a review of the abortion laws in order to decriminalise abortion and remove it from the Crimes Act. The Commission were directed to make this a priority and to drop other work it was doing in order to expedite her agenda. What the Commission has in effect been directed to do is to investigate how best our laws can be changed so that killing of unborn children will no longer be a crime but simply a ‘reproductive health choice for women.’

It is clear that Labour needed the approval of the leader of NZ First for the review by the Law Commission to take place. It is also clear that Peters gave this approval. It is contended that if approval had been withheld for the decriminalisation of abortion by Peters, we would not be having this law review. If Peters had stood up to be counted on behalf of the unborn, he could have prevented the current course of action, certain to be pursued by Adern, which is to bring a bill to decriminalise abortion to the House.

Right to Life on 22 March wrote to the leader of NZ First and asked the following questions:-

· Do you support a policy that recognises that the killing of an unborn child is a crime?

· What grounds do you have for seeking to remove the unborn child from the protection of the Crimes Act 1961, Part VIII Crimes against the Person?

· Do you support a policy that would remove abortion from the Crimes Act and make it a health issue?

The leader of NZ First Winston Peters replied on 11 April stating, New Zealand First believes abortions should be safe, legal and rare and that any change (to our laws), must be subject to a binding government or citizens initiated referendum after a period of public debate.

Right to Life believes that Winston Peter’s support for Ardern’s proposal was in effect a green light and that his reply to us, in so far that he refused to answer our questions, is unacceptable and a failure of the government to be transparent and accountable to the public.

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