New Conservative believes that the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Bill, shortly to undergo its second reading in Parliament represents a direct attack on the human rights of freedom of speech, assembly, communication, and religion.

The Health Select Committee dealing with this bill completely ignored the overwhelming opposition to the bill made by the public in both written and oral submissions. The Committee also decided to ignore the advice that the Law Commission gave to the Minister of Justice that this bill was not necessary, in that the Summary Offences Act addressed any potential intimidation and harassment of both women seeking an abortion and staff at abortion clinics.

No District Health board or abortion provider sought the “safe areas” provisions that this bill seeks to provide, indicating that they also did not believe a problem existed; in fact New Conservative have information that no District Health Board in New Zealand have received any complaint in the last two years from any woman seeking an abortion that she has been intimidated or harassed.

Why then the push for this bill when there is no evidence that the need for it exists? It is clear that this bill was drawn up by ideologues within the Labour/Greens government to seek to normalise the killing of the unborn and to shut down debate about abortion. The bill clearly sets out to stop persons concerned about abortion from having an active voice. The bill, if enacted, would also effectively stop any woman seeking help to choose life for her child, within a “safe area.”

This bill, like many others either recently passed or in the pipeline proposed by this radically left-leaning government, is designed to further take away the natural and God-given freedoms of New Zealanders.

New Conservative is totally opposed to this bill which seeks to further control what people in our country think, say, and can do. We seek its defeat at its second reading.

© Scoop Media