by ROWENA OREJANA
The number of babies aborted since the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act was implemented in 1974 reached half a million in the first quarter of the year — equivalent to the population of 14 New Zealand cities.

Voice for Life president Bernard Moran said this sad milestone has real socio-economic consequences for the country.
“Abortion is a private choice, but it has very public consequences. The most immediate consequence is that we have an ageing population and we’ve lost 500,000 of our young people,” he said.
Mr Moran said those who were aborted in 1974 would be about 42 years old today. “Most of those lives lost in the older group would be married and have families,” he said. “If they were allowed to live, they would be young people today.”
He said the opposition talks about raising the age of superannuation now to 67 or 68, because the taxpayer base has been hollowed out.
“That’s on purely economic terms, but it’s a real consequence of this,” he said.
He said there are more humane options, but the government and the medical profession had opted for the easy solution.
He said their post-abortion counsellors often hear from women that they had been rushed into the decision and not been presented with other options.
“Or if they were presented with alternatives, the alternatives were not presented in a positive way,” Mr Moran added.
Most of the women who talked to Voice for Life counsellors said they felt that they had no choice but to lose their babies though abortion. Mr Moran said there is a lot of coercion, too, coming from unsupportive boyfriends and families.
Mr Moran said Voice for Life will mark the sad milestone with an advertising campaign that would show the map of New Zealand and cities with populations that will add up to about 500,000.