For some time now, we’ve been aware that the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand is a fringe organization that does not represent the views of the majority of New Zealanders. With an aging membership of approximately 200, ALRANZ does not speak for the younger generation of Kiwis – the generation that grew up looking at ultrasound images of their pre-born siblings.
For one thing, it is clear that ALRANZ considers that rudimentary biology is not relevant to the abortion debate. A pro-abortion poster entitled “How to Think About the Fetus” that ALRANZ stated was “a great resource” made the following statements,
“A fetus becomes a person when the woman carrying it decides it does… Women have the right to abortion even if the fetus is a legal person with rights… It doesn’t matter when life begins or what the fetus is – women need abortions anyway… Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what the fetus is, how valuable we think it is, or whether it has any rights.”
ALRANZ supports the complete decriminalization of abortion – meaning that abortion would be legal for any reason, and at any point throughout the pregnancy. One of the reasons ALRANZ cites is economic hardship:
“We support the addition of economic hardship as abortion access criteria, and we also welcome ministerial calls for the streamlining of abortion access through abolition of the certifying consultant system.”
And they support the barbaric, primitive procedure known as “partial-birth abortion.” Commenting on President Clinton’s vetoing of a bill banning the procedure, ALRANZ stated that this was “a turning point in the struggle for a woman’s right to choose.” Partial birth abortion is the process whereby labour is induced on the mother of a living, viable, late-term fetus. The baby is delivered feet-first. However there’s a problem because the mother’s cervix has not dilated enough to allow the head to come out. So the abortionist takes a sharp pair of scissors and stabs the back of the baby’s head. A suction tube is then inserted; the baby’s brain is sucked out; the skull collapses and then the head can be removed from the mother. You can view a diagram of this horrific practice here.
On July 25 ALRANZ stated that late-term abortionist LeRoyCarhart – who has been subject to a criminal investigation – was an American hero. Here’s what an article from LifeNews said about Carhart on August 1,
“In Nebraska, a non-disciplinary agreement made with Nebraska authorities where Carhart agreed to stop falsifying medical records, falling asleep during abortions, and interrupting abortions to take personal phone calls. Some of the shoddy abortion practices resulted in numerous emergency hospitalizations and at least one patient died from a late-term abortion at Carhart’s hands.”
ALRANZ looks over the glaring fact that this murderer is a threat to women’s health – they are just in love with him for doing late-term abortions.
March 2011 ushered in an even more radical direction for the lobby-group. Long-time president and former abortionist Dame Margaret Sparrow stepped down, and the relatively-unknown Dr. Morgan Healey, a pro-abortion activist from Ireland stepped up into the leadership position.
On 27 October 2011 she issued a press release centered on the release of the Abortion Supervisory Committee’s abortion statistics which were to be published the following day. In the release, Healey makes the following telling comment (emphases mine),
“I honour the sentiment of Anne Furedi, Chief Executive of British Pregnancy Advisory Service, when she disputes the phrase that abortion should be safe, legal and rare. While calling on the absolute necessity of the first two, she queries why abortion should or could ever be rare… And, what is so terrifying about a sexually active woman taking steps to ensure that she can control the timing, spacing and number of children in whatever manner meets her needs?”
Two things here. ALRANZ does not think that abortion should be rare – the natural conclusion is that ALRANZ thinks that abortion should be common-place – a medical procedure with no more stigma or regulation attached to it than a tummy-tuck or the removal of your apendix.
And ALRANZ holds that abortion is a legitimate form of birth control. Healey built on this premise the day after the abortion statistics (which you can view here) were released.
“With the release of these statistics, let’s shift the focus away from reading the numbers as some failure on the part of women for not avoiding an unwanted or unintended pregnancy. Instead we could ask ourselves why abortion is not a viable and reasonable decision for a woman to make.”
These two latest statements only further alienate ALRANZ from the NZ public that they claim to speak for. The people of New Zealand by and large do not want to see abortion become just another birth control option.
The increasing awareness of fetal development; the advancing technology which is allowing increasingly premature babies to survive outside the womb; and the accelerating proliferation of ultrasound images of pre-born babies who we can actually identify with because they are our own, or the child of our friends, – are together contributing to the evolution of our society’s perspective on abortion.
Just as our society once considered black people to be sub-human, and women as less valuable than men, so too will the view that pre-born children are less valuable than those that are born, be one day soon relegated to the history text-books.
And being a member of the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand will make you just about as popular as being a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
