The Abortion Law Reform Association today urged MPs to publicly support the Abortion Supervisory Committee in its court battle this week against the anti-abortion group Right to Life.
"The Crown lawyers defending the ASC, and in turn the reproductive rights of New Zealand women, need to be given the full backing of legislators in the face of a case that is aimed at ending access to safe abortions," Alranz president Margaret Sparrow said in a statement.
The case, which began in 2005, will be heard Tuesday and Wednesday at the Court of Appeal in Wellington. Dr Sparrow said the ASC planned to challenge a decision made last year in the High Court in which Justice Miller questioned the legality of many abortions in New Zealand.
Right to Life was cross-appealing, essentially seeking a ban on all abortions by arguing that embryos should be given full human rights. The group is also challenging abortion counselling in New Zealand.
Dr Sparrow said Right to Life had been able to advance the case, at great cost to the government and even greater risk to women, partly because of New Zealand's "inadequate abortion laws."
Almost all abortions were granted under the mental health ground because New Zealand women did not have full reproductive rights, she added.
"It is this kind of legislative hypocrisy that groups like Right to Life continue to exploit through the courts." Dr. Sparrow said New Zealand should follow the Australian state of Victoria and decriminalise abortion, but until it did, Parliament had to defend the status quo.
"If not, there will be a return to the trans-Tasman abortion trade that flourished in the 1970s as well as to unsafe providers, do-it-your-selfers and over-the-Internet abortion pills.
