Wednesday, 4 April 2007

Kids having kids - bad for both

New Zealand's high levels of teen pregnancy need both the Family Planning Association (FPA) and Maori leadership to better address the problem, according to United Future family and social services spokesperson Judy Turner.

Commenting on a parliamentary report released on Tuesday night, Mrs Turner was critical of the relative failure of the FPA to affect New Zealand's teen pregnancy rate, given the "huge amounts of tax payer money pumped into the FPA over the past decades".

"As far as results go, I think the FPA will be struggling to defend the ongoing investment that New Zealand has provided to them. We have the second highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the developed world.

"But we cannot ignore the fact that our Maori teenage pregnancy rate is the major factor for this poor international comparison. Maori leadership seems to deny that Maori kids having kids is a problem," says Mrs Turner.

At the 1st National Maori Sexual and Reproductive Health Conference, Tariana Turia said: "I am intolerant of the excessive focus on controlling our fertility... When Cabinet Ministers sat around tut-tutting the fact that the fertility rate for Maori females aged 13-17 years was 26.2 per 1000, more than five times that of non-Maori, I objected to their analysis of our fertility as a problem.

"I call on Mrs Turia to explain why teenage pregnancy is not a bad thing when it happens to Maori. If Maori leaders are unwilling to define Maori teen pregnancy as a problem, they need to explain why this is the case," says Mrs Turner.

"So Mrs Turia, should we be trying to reduce teen pregnancy in this country or not and if not, why not?"

ENDS

© Scoop Media