The Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977
The core legislation pertaining to abortion is the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977, and it enacted parallel specifications through amendment of the Guardianship Act 1968 (retained in the Care of Children Act 2004) and Section 187A of the Crimes Act 1961. These provisions enable women to undergo confidential medical consultation after they have seen two certifying consultant medical practitioners.
Current New Zealand law allows for abortions to be performed for the following reasons, providing the abortion is approved by two certifying consultants and the pregnancy is less than 20 weeks old:
- to save the life of the woman (even if after 20 weeks)
- to preserve the physical health of the woman
- to preserve the mental health of the woman
- foetal impairment
- in cases of incest
Other factors which may be considered, but are not in themselves grounds for abortion, are:
- cases of rape
- certain social factors (e.g., the girl's age in a teenage pregnancy).
New Zealand has no parental notification restrictions on under-sixteen access for abortion. In 2003, anti-abortionists attempted to introduce such restrictions into the Care of Children Act 2004, but their move was heavily defeated in New Zealand's Parliament.
As the annual statistics for the Abortion Supervisory Committee have repeatedly noted, mental health grounds are the predominant grounds for most certified abortions in New Zealand. The high numbers of abortions in New Zealand for mental health grounds have led pro-lifers to express concerns that the mental health exception is being used to allow abortion on demand.
By contrast, ALRANZ notes that successive abortion-related case law has preserved the status quo of partial decriminalisation and liberal terms of abortion access for most New Zealand women who need an abortion.
In 2010 Steve Chadwick, a former MP in the Labour Party, proposed an Abortion Reform Bill to take abortion out of the Crimes Act. The anti-abortion organisation Voice for Life opposes the Bill, which ALRANZ supports. After Chadwick was unable to return to Parliament after the New Zealand general election 2011, ALRANZ and its parliamentary supporters are trying to find a new sponsor for the proposed bill.
Read more about this topic: Abortion In New Zealand
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