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The Ministry of Health has just released the latest abortion statistics. We take a look at the latest disturbing trends plus the dumb (and woke) comments in the report. The report comes just over three years on from when our politicians decriminalised abortion and introduced one of the most liberal and extreme laws in the world, effectively legalising abortion up to forty weeks with token safeguards. We need to continue to fight for the rights of the unborn child and the welfare of the pregnant mum.
*Watch Dr Norman MacLean discuss the risks of home-based DYI medical abortions…
TRANSCRIPT:
The Ministry of Health has released the latest abortion statistics. let’s take a look at the latest trends – just over 3 years on from when our politicians decriminalised abortion and introduced one of the most liberal and extreme laws in the world, effectively legalising abortion to 40 weeks with token safeguards, as we will soon see. And remember – the law was rammed through by our politicians in March 2020 while we as a nation were all preparing to go into lockdown for COVID in order to protect the most vulnerable amongst us. But our then-PM who had recently had her first child prioritised this liberalisation of abortion. It really seems a sick joke, doesn’t it? The interesting thing is that you probably haven’t heard about this latest report. The media suddenly don’t want to talk about abortion – when they normally want to promote it and push it and punish anyone who doesn’t agree with it. Nope – silence. But we’ll tell you about it.
The Abortion “Services’ Aotearoa NZ report was released late last week. Last year we noted that in the report, they used the word “women” 6 times – which was progress because only women can get pregnant. This year it’s down to 1 time, but ‘person’ is used 42 times.
The only time they say women is when they talk about “wahine Maori and Pacific women accessing abortion services”. Ah – so Pasifika still have women. Maori and European don’t. Interesting.
The report starts pretty badly with the director general of Health Dr Diana Sarfati celebrating more abortionists and more abortion services, and that people (not women, people) don’t have to drive as far now to get an abortion, and then have the gall to say “These changes have contributed to better outcomes for people.” Not pregnant women. Not mothers-to-be to be. Nope – it’s people.
And… nope. Not better outcomes for all. Not for the unborn child – who unlike the Director-General who sits comfortably in her office enjoying life – these children will never have that opportunity.
She then expresses concern that Maori and Pacific people aren’t having enough abortions because “barriers continue to exist”. Yes – aborting unborn Maori babies is a form of equality, apparently.
Note who’s missing in this whole conversation? The child. Not a peep. The rights of the child are conveniently ignored.
Overall, there have been 14,164 abortion procedures in 2022. This number presents a 6.8% increase in abortions when compared to 2021 when it was 13,257). That’s an average of 39 children per day killed in the womb in New Zealand. A large classroom in a primary school. Every day.
6.8% increase. Maybe that’s why the media haven’t been keen to tell you about this.
The rate of abortions has been in decline from a high of almost 18,400 as recently as 2007, but since the new radical law was passed – that decline and levelling off is now starting to increase.
If we look at the age groups, there was a big decline in 20-24 (the grey line) and 15-19 (the orange line) and 25-29 (yellow line) – but now they’re going back up again. And a continuing increase of 30-39 (blue and green line).
When we look at ethnic breakdown, we see something sad. As you can see, in the blue, Maori have a disproportionately high level of abortions. 17.2% of the population but 26% of all abortions (that number has increased since last year – but the Director General still doesn’t think it’s good enough.
You can see the growth of the Maori rate down the bottom – from blue to orangy to grey. Pasifika also increasing, and European, and a welcome drop in Asian there.
If you look at how many abortions women have had, the blue represents 1st time abortions. So as you can see, more than 40% of Maori abortions are their 2nd 3rd of even 5th. For other ethnic groups, its about a 1/3rd that are on to repeat abortions – so this is not the exceptional circumstance to have an abortion as we are often told. This is a form of birth control.
If you look at how many live births – children – the women have previously had before the current abortion, sadly it shows that while blue means it’s the first pregnancy, the other colours – orange grey yellow light blue – means that the mum has had previous children. About 55 – 70% of pregnant mums have. They will have fully experienced the life-changing growth of that child in their womb. A life. Beyond any doubt.
The report has a whole section on “Responsiveness to Maori” – As part of its commitment to the principals of equity, and with the intention of achieving equitable abortion health outcomes. A “vision” for abortion services that focuses on services meeting the “needs” of rangatahi, Maori – apparently this is equity. More abortion services for Maori. Easier abortions. What about the needs of the unborn rangatahi – the unborn Maori child?
But here’s an interesting observation. The higher the deprivation – in other words, the poorer the parents – the more likely for an abortion. Which is one of the sad realities of abortion. Often the decision is made based on economics. We can’t afford a child. But THAT is not a solution. We need to support parents so that abortion is not an option. We need policies that give life! But our politicians have been focused on giving death.
The abortion workforce doubled in 2022 (total: 348) compared to 2021 (total: 162). In 2022, the abortion workforce consisted of 103 medical staff, 219 nurses, and 26 midwives. The increase was mainly from the endorsement of EMA training for midwives (which sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it – midwife and abortion in the same sentence), and the inclusion of new access to EMA through the national abortion telehealth service – DECIDE. Now to put that in perspective, there are 17,000 doctors in NZ and 58,000 nurses. So that abortion workforce represents 0.4% of the workforce. 99.6% want nothing to do with it.
But the report is concerned that as the majority (over 95%) of the workforce is non-Maori, but Maori represent almost a quarter of women getting abortions, they need more Maori abortionists – because apparently Maori need to be used to help kill the unborn Maori child. Abortion service facilities must be “culturally safe for everyone”. Everyone except the child. And ultimately the pregnant mother. Sickening.
But isn’t it reassuring that 99.8% of the medical profession is pro-life and actually wants nothing to do with abortion and the killing of the unborn child because it goes against every reason they entered the health field in the first place.
In one other disturbing aspect, In 2022, 21 of 31 abortion service facilities provided in-house abortion counselling. The counselling is not mandatory – it should be – and the women accessing pre-abortion counselling did so within the same location as the abortion service provider.
Yep – no conflict of interest there eh?
It’s a bit like going to the butcher and asking should I go vegan.
Or going to a Green Party AGM and saying you want to stop smoking dope.
It’s not counselling – the advice won’t be the very best independent advice – and the professional counselling associations in NZ should be calling out this farce and this conflict of interest – but they won’t because they can’t even figure out their gender.
Remember the furore about the need to decriminalise abortion because women were being turned away from abortions – that there wasn’t abortion on demand, and we needed to liberalise the law so that all women who wanted an abortion could have one.
Well guess what? Women are still being turned away – and nobody seems that worried. Paula Penfold doesn’t seem to worry about those women now. Which shows it was all a big fat furore. The report says
Abortion service providers may refuse to administer an abortion procedure. This was reported by 10 locations in 2022. The primary consideration reported for refusal to provide termination services was length of gestation. This included instances where the facility only provided first-trimester abortions.
Refusal and referral also occurred in instances where medical considerations required medical treatment outside the scope of services available at the original location. During 2022, 6 services reported instances in which they refused to provide an abortion for a viable, ongoing pregnancy and made no referral to another service.
In this article from 2019, the radical American activist from ALRANZ, Terry Bellamak, said the figures painted only part of the picture. She said:
“How many people became discouraged and did not go on to find another certifying consultant? How many were not able to convince the third certifying consultant, and had to carry a pregnancy against their will and against their interests?”
Hm – suddenly, no crocodile tears.
They also talk about pregnancies of later gestation i.e. late-term abortions – but they say they were refused not because they were late term but potentially because the services just weren’t available! Remember, under the previous law, post 20 weeks – late-term abortions were only in exceptional circumstances. They’re now legal – and the Ministry of Health are concerned that women can’t get late-term abortions if they want them.
Another concern mentioned by six abortion places is that sex selection abortions were a reason or possibly a reason for requesting an abortion. An amendment to place an explicit ban on sex-selection abortions was voted against by a majority of MPs. Sex-selective abortion is a well-known problem in China and India, where son-preference cultures have resulted in extremely skewed sex ratios. The practice of sex selection has been widely condemned. But not by our MPs.
There’s a big push for medical abortions with phone consultations and telemedicine – abortions done at home. DIY abortions. The blue line is early medical abortions, and the orange line is surgical abortions. Now if you think that early medical abortions sound better, you need to watch Dr Norman MacLean on our YouTube channel explain exactly what they are and why early medical abortions are still problematic for the unborn child and for the woman.
What could possibly go wrong? Well, lots actually.
The stats show 221 women suffered complications including haemorrhaging, retained products, infections and even failed abortions (up from 161 the previous year – so that’s an almost 40% increase –
AND THIS RISK WAS GREATER WITH MEDICAL ABORTIONS.60% of complications were with medical abortions.
For 57 medical abortions they couldn’t even find the woman to follow up. Is that safe high quality health outcome? No, I don’t think so either. But the report says – oh it’s only a small proportion. Just 60 women. Who cares.
In this latest report, as with last year, they don’t give the breakdown of how far the pregnancy is when the abortion takes place – the gestation. They only give the average. How convenient. What are they trying to hide?
They gave the full breakdown 2 years ago. But not last year or this year. It’s obvious they’re concerned about revealing these stats around late-term abortions which we highlighted previously. It’s always their Achilles heel and they hate us talking about it – because they know that most New Zealanders oppose abortions in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters. Our polling has already established that.
In my view, they’ve deliberately hidden them. I’ve now done an Official Information Act request for this breakdown. In fact, there are a few areas where this year’s report is a lot less detailed than previously.
Previously the Crimes Act allowed for an abortion after 20 weeks gestation only in exceptional circumstances. Statistics NZ data shows that 800 late-term abortions have been performed over the last 10 years where there was no danger to the physical health or life of the mother – that’s the reason they often say – but 91% of all late-term abortions didn’t have this reason.
The new law means that late-term abortions will be available to women if the abortion provider “reasonably believes the abortion is clinically appropriate in all the circumstances,” having regard to the woman’s physical and mental health and wellbeing. This is a very broad subjective test because the terms “physical health” “mental health” and “wellbeing” are deliberately not defined by the Bill. Given the policy intent to make abortion more accessible, it is difficult to see many instances in which an abortion would reasonably be refused – except if the abortionist couldn’t do it. A baby could be aborted after 20-weeks as long as the abortionist who intends to perform the abortion considered that the abortion was ‘appropriate in the circumstances’ with a ‘nod’ from a colleague (another abortion provider!).
After the in-house “counselling”.
Don’t let them deceive you. Late-term abortions under the old law were only for exceptional circumstances. Late-term abortions are now legal – with the approval of two abortion doctors who have no conscience when it comes to ending the life of an unborn child, and who will be doing very well financially out of the decision they make.
If you believe that’s a system that safeguards the women and the unborn children, I have a bridge to sell you.
As we said at the time of the debate, to remove legislation about abortion from the criminal code and insert it to the health code is to equate a procedure to remove an unborn baby with a procedure to remove an appendix, kidney stones, gall bladder or tonsils – simply ’tissue’ removed as part of a ‘health procedure’. This is the narrative they want.
Our abortion law denies the humanity of the baby and again, creates inconsistency with other legislation and public health messaging for pregnant women which clearly recognises the rights of the unborn child. Anybody who has viewed the ultrasound of an unborn child will know that this policy is a gross abuse of human rights. The humanity of a child is NOT based on whether it’s wanted or not wanted. It never should be based on that. It worked in the 70s but it’s flat earth science now. We’ve seen the ultrasounds. We’ve seen the foetal development. To support abortion, you have to park your conscience and science in a deep dark vault.
Abortion denies the humanity of the unborn child. When politicians and even the Ministry of Health can’t determine when a life begins or exists or that only women can give birth, why would you trust them with many other decisions they may make?
We will continue to fight for the rights of the unborn child and the welfare of the pregnant mum. Fight for what’s right.
