A Conspiracy of Silence!

Media Release 11 August 2025

Right to Life requests that the government amend the Abortion Legislation Act regulations, to require abortion providers to provide the reason for the abortion on the notification form.

Right to Life believes that the government seeks to withhold from the community, the knowledge that the overwhelming number of abortions inflicted on women in New Zealand, are on healthy babies in normal pregnancies.

In response to an Official Information Act request, Health NZ advised Right to Life that there was a provisional total of 17,123 abortions in New Zealand in 2024. There is a complete absence of any statistical information relating to the reason why these children were killed in their mother’s wombs, why is this?

The Ministry of Health abortion notification form required to be completed by abortion providers, requires detailed information about the mother of the child killed but absolutely no information about the reason for the abortion.

Right to Life believes that by withholding information on the reasons for all abortions, that the government will be able to promote abortion as health care, to deny the humanity of the unborn child by promoting the lie that the unborn child is the “products of conception” and the fiction that the unborn child is not a human being endowed with a right to life until it is born.

Right to Life questions the Ministry of Health on their following reasons for declining to request from abortion providers the reasons for abortions:

• Privacy concerns:

Asking individuals to disclose the specific reasons for their abortion can be seen as a violation of their privacy and personal autonomy.

• Sensitivity of the issue:

The decision to have an abortion is deeply personal and often involves complex emotional and social factors. Governments generally avoid collecting data that could be perceived as intrusive or judgmental.

• Focus on health services:

The primary focus of abortion data collection is on providing necessary health services and ensuring access to safe abortion care.

Right to Life believes that the government is committed to eliminating the births of Downs syndrome children in New Zealand, by killing children with Down syndrome in their mother’s womb up to birth.

According to the Downs Syndrome Association 71 % of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome as a result of the government’s search and destroy screening programme are killed before birth. As a consequence, on average, only 41 babies with Downs syndrome are born in New Zealand each year.

Right to Life believes that sex selection abortions are taking place in New Zealand.

According to the UNFPA there are more than 126 million women missing in the world due to abortions due to sex selection.

There is no law in New Zealand prohibiting sex selection abortions, nor is there any requirement for a woman to disclose that she seeks an abortion for sex selection purposes. When will the government address this important human rights issue by amending the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 to outlaw sex selection abortions?

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life New Zealand Inc.