Talk:Abortion in New Zealand

Offences Against the Person Act 1861
The article says that this Act was incorporated into the law of New Zealand in 1866. I would be grateful if you could give me a source for this (preferably the statute that incorporated it). James500 (talk) 00:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

A roadside sign in the South Island advocating pro-life.
I removed this sign from the top of the page and requested that it be moved to the section on controversy over abortion law as it was clearly biased towards the pro life movement. However this change was reversed by Alan Liefting. I would like to point out to him that the neither the US or UK versions of this page contain such heading pictures. The title picture helps set the tone of the article and this provides a negative one instead of the neutral tone wikipedia aims for. Furthermore I notice that your profile says you are interested articles regarding the "christian religion." Please don't let your personal beliefs affect the article. My edit was meant for the sake of neutrality. The reasonable thing to do is move the picture to the section on controversy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.237.91 (talk) 01:09, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

A conributors other interests may include the "Christian religion". That does not mean that being a Christian affected their article. Most people are Christian - does that mean that they should all be banned for contributing to Wikipedia?124.197.15.138 (talk) 05:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

For the record I am a pro-choice atheist. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:32, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Abortion on demand
Why is there nothing about recent legal cases, and the High Court confirming that the de facto status of abortion on demand (itself not covered by the article), is illegal? These are surely the most important current developments in this area.124.197.15.138 (talk) 05:02, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

The introduction is incorrect. Technically it is true that abortion is "legal in cases where the pregnant woman faces a danger to her life, physical or mental health, or if there is a risk of the fetus being handicapped, in the event of the continuation of her pregnancy". However we all know that there is actually abortion on demand. That means we actually have a bizarre inconsistency between what the law says and what actually happens. NZ is probably unique in this.Royalcourtier (talk) 03:18, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Tagged with cleanup and update.
A recent edit has stuffed up the heading nesting, and there is a heading name which does not make sense. Also, a recent High Court case ruled the the foetus is not a human in t eyes of the law. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

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Illegal or not?
There is a discussion just started today about this topic on the Jacinda Ardern article talk page, if anyone is interested. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 07:27, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Discrepancies Re: 1936 Report
I took it upon myself to read the 1936 Committee to Enquiry report. Here's what the current article says about this:

"Abortion was criminalised in New Zealand by the UK Offences against the Person Act 1861, adopted in New Zealand in 1866. Laws enacted around this time acknowledged the danger to women of undergoing an illegal abortion. The 1893 Criminal Code Act made the punishments for illegal abortion a maximum of seven years imprisonment for the women and life for the doctor. Abortions were completely illegal until the late 1930s.

The 1936 Committee of Enquiry headed by D.G. McMillan reported that one in five pregnancies in New Zealand resulted in an induced abortion. Some pregnant women died, were injured or infected, or abused by practitioners of illegal abortion. Historically, the death rate was high. Statistics of women who went to hospital after an abortion went wrong show that in 1934 at least 42 women died."

There are a few discrepancies here.

First of all, according to the report, so-called "therapeutic abortions were legal in 1936 "not specifically, but by inference". I'm not exactly sure what this means (case precedence? court interpretation?), but it claims they're legal and even mentions their safety. The report also states that "the law is interpreted liberally, and no doctor who has acted honestly in the belief that the mother's health was seriously endangered has ever been challenged". If true, this contradicts the rather absolutist claim in the Te Ara article that abortions were "completely illegal until the 1930s". Worth examining.

Second of all, the claim that one in five pregnancies resulted in an induced abortion is based on a misreading. Note the term "abortion" used to encompass miscarriage. The terminology didn't change until the 70s/80s, and you still see abortion being used in its more general sense in medical contexts. The report is careful to distinguish between "spontaneous abortion" (miscarriage) and "induced abortion" (what we would more commonly understand as abortion). The one in five figure includes miscarriages. The actual figure of induced miscarriages is approximately 4000 out of 24395, or 16.4% of all pregnancies (pp. 4-5).

Third of all, most of the report is about why the abortions were taking places and what responses should be taken. It would be valuable to spend a bit of time (a sentence or two) summarising these.

Fourth is this claim: "Some pregnant women died, were injured or infected, or abused by practitioners of illegal abortion. Historically, the death rate was high". I'm not sure where this come from. The 1936 report confirms that New Zealand had a comparatively high number of deaths from illegal abortions, but this was because of sepsis (infection); it makes no mention of abuse and injury.

I'm happy to make improvements at some point, but want to do a bit more research into the claimed (il)legality of "therapeutic abortions", before doing so.

Craigthelinguist (talk) 03:01, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

National party?
Why is the National party's position on abortion not mentioned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2406:E000:6A1F:DB01:C169:6D4A:AF2F:55AD (talk) 02:46, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

They don't have one. Like most social issues in New Zealand, it is treated as a conscience issue> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience_vote). 122.58.121.245 (talk) 00:32, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

TOP's Party position
I wanted to find out what was the position of TOP party but I was not able to find any concrete position. I read elsewhere that TOP didn't take a clarified position and took this more as a conscience subject but I had a feeling Party's community/background was more pro-choice, and I'm not concerned that's something proved.

Full decriminalisation
Should we explain that abortion is not criminalised at any stage of pregnancy? The law specifically says that abortion can only be considered a criminal offence if it's performed without a medical licence. 75.27.37.89 (talk) 02:37, 11 August 2023 (UTC)