NZ Government encouraging Maori to kill preborn - was this an accepted part of Maori culture?

Media Release 18 May 2023

Right to Life asks the government why it believes that it has authority to overrule the commandments of God protecting life?

Right to Life believes that the government is seeking to seduce Maori into believing that killing the unborn is health care that is supported by Maori culture. The government believes that the killing of the unborn is no longer prohibited by the fifth commandment of God, Thou shalt not kill.

Right to Life makes no apology for speaking up for the voiceless. We will never accept that the killing of God’s precious infants is part of Maori culture or of any other culture, it is part of a culture of death and has no place in a culture of life.

Right to Life is concerned that the government is endeavouring to deceive Maori into believing that the killing of unborn children is an important part of Maori culture and that prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi there was no stigma or shame associated with abortion and that it was the right of Maori women to exercise autonomy over their bodies with the right to choose to kill their unborn child. Right to Life believes that the government is seeking to make lies acceptable and murder respectable.

This information is being given to abortion providers by the Ministry of Health in the document, New Zealand Aotearoa Abortion Clinical Guidelines in Appendix A, Abortion & Maori, to help them to encourage Maori to accept abortion as an important part of their culture.

The Ministry of Health states: ”After 1840, the colonising process put an end to the self-determining right of Maori to control their reproductive health and initiate an abortion. As a consequence, whanau, hapu and iwi knowledges about initiating abortions were subjugated. Maori have been deprived of these knowledges for more than 200 years.”

“The Abortion Legislation Act 2020, in combination with the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, provides whanau, hapu and iwi with the opportunity to revitalise their older knowledges and practices for abortion. The intention is for Maori, in the context of abortion, to enact their rangatiratanga or self-determining rights and mana motuhake or autonomy over their bodies and their reproductive health and wellbeing.”

The Ministry presumably regrets that with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and acceptance of rule by the Crown, abortion eventually became illegal. Protection for the right to life of unborn Maori rangatahi (children) was now afforded by the Crimes Act.

The government is now shamefully apologising to Maori for the imposition of Christianity and Western moral virtues on them, and for imposing the respect for unborn life on them, allegedly in violation of their cultural practices.

Christian missionaries taught Maori people that the killing of innocent unborn children was intrinsically evil and violated the Fifth commandment of our Creator, "Thou shalt not kill."

There has been a prohibition of killing the unborn infant in the womb, from the first century AD, in the very earliest times of Christianity, and this is specifically mentioned in the Didache, a handbook of Christian teachings based upon the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments.

If the government believes that it is going to remove the shame and stigma of abortion, they are wrong. There should be a total prohibition of the taking of the lives of innocent human beings.

In 2021 there were 13,257 abortions reported in New Zealand. The total number of abortions on Maori women totalled 3,152.The government is committed to making abortion more accessible and acceptable to Maori.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life New Zealand Inc.