WELLINGTON (Lifesite-News) — Pro-life health practitioners and crisis pregnancy centres in New Zealand are the target of a new website which is said to intend to intimidate
those who choose not to refer for abortion or prescribe contraception.
The website, My Decision, was created by the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand
(ALRANZ).
The site lists health practitioners and crisis pregnancy centres they think women should
avoid. The partial list includes the names of individuals or organisations, the region and town, and if they are a doctor, nurse or other provider.
Women are asked to submit their stories of “hostile or unhelpful health professionals”.
The stories are non-identifying and can be edited for length or clarity. As of August 19, only two stories had been posted.
Under New Zealand law, health practitioners can object to providing reproductive health services according to their conscience. However, they still “must inform the person who requests the service that he or she can obtain the service from another health practitioner
or from a family planning clinic”.
The vice president of Right to Life NZ (RTL), Chris O’Brien, said conscientious objection is
a fundamental right and must be preserved. “We risk tyranny if this right is taken away,” he said.
“There are very good doctors who appear on that website,” said Dame Colleen Bayer, whose
Dunedin Family Life Crisis Pregnancy Centre is named. “These doctors speak truthfully and have real care and concern for their patients. Women do themselves a disservice to discount them based on this information.”
The resource section on the My Decision website links to ALRANZ, Family Planning (an affiliate of International Planned Parenthood Federation and an abortion provider), and the website Abortion Services in New Zealand.
The Abortion Services website is sponsored by ISTAR Ltd, a charitable trust that is the sole New Zealand importer of mifepristone.
ISTAR also provides manual vacuum aspiration equipment for early surgical abortions.
ALRANZ was instrumental in the writing of the abortion policy of New Zealand’s Green
Party, a policy that was unveiled earlier this year.
That aims to take abortion out of the Crimes Act, making it more accessible. The policy also
targets health professionals who may conscientiously object, to ensure they refer patients on to a “neutral practitioner”.
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