The Status of the Unborn Child Bill (1983) was a New Zealand pro-life private members bill that was introduced into the New Zealand Parliament in 1983 by pro-life National MP Douglas Kidd, after Wall v Livingston had clarified that embryos and fetuses had no legal status in New Zealand, and thus, pro-life third parties could not interfere with abortion in New Zealand if performed under the terms of the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977 (as amended 1978). Due to the efforts of pro-choice National MP and feminist Marilyn Waring, the bill was defeated.
In the late 1990s, the Status of the Unborn Child Bill was to return again, when Christchurch SPUC (now Right to Life New Zealand) disagreed with its parent organisation over the sidelining of this former legislative strategy, and resurrected it, ultimately splitting the New Zealand pro-life movement in 1999. Since then, RTLNZ has operated its own website and newsletter, Footprints.
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Famous quotes containing the words status, unborn, child and/or bill:
“Knowing how beleaguered working mothers truly are—knowing because I am one of them—I am still amazed at how one need only say “I work” to be forgiven all expectation, to be assigned almost a handicapped status that no decent human being would burden further with demands. “I work” has become the universally accepted excuse, invoked as an all-purpose explanation for bowing out, not participating, letting others down, or otherwise behaving inexcusably.”
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“He moved with the shades of the dead and the dead-born and the unborn and the never-to-be-born, in a Limbo purged of desire.”
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He died making up stories, the ones
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“What I am anxious to do is to get the best bill possible with the least amount of friction.... I wish to avoid [splitting our party]. I shall do all in my power to retain the corporation tax as it is now and also force a reduction of the [tariff] schedules. It is only when all other efforts fail that I’ll resort to headlines and force the people into this fight.”
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