Government imposes further suppression of free speech!

Media Release 10 September 2023

Right to Life opposes the designation of safe area imposed on an additional 5 abortion providers in New Zealand. We now have 11 abortion providers which have a designated “safe area” of 150 metres around the perimeters of their facilities.

The second 5 Safe Areas have been approved by Cabinet and published in the New Zealand Gazette on 7th September 2023.

These 5 new Safe Areas, which will be enforced from 5 October 2023, are the zones within 150 metres of:

• Thames Hospital

• Te Aka Tauawhi Tangata - Women’s Clinic, Rotorua Hospital

• The Terrace Clinic – Hawke’s Bay Hospital

• The Women’s Clinic, Palmerston North

• The Women’s Clinic, Invercargill.

The government’s unwarranted imposition of suppression of free speech zones, under the guise of safe areas, marks the escalation of the government’s war against women and their unborn.

Right to Life calls upon the community to rise up in defence of women, the unborn, freedom of speech and assembly and vigorously oppose this suppression of human rights.

We need to call upon our local bodies to challenge the government for suppressing our human rights.

Right to Life believes that it is the Labour/Greens government agenda to prohibit all opposition to the killing of defenceless unborn children.

Any woman entering a safe area alone, with nobody to love and help her, often abandoned and coerced by others, could be traumatised in the knowledge that it is now unlawful to offer her help to choose life for her baby.

It is an appalling injustice that the father of an unborn child could be arrested for trying to save the life of his precious child. It is now unlawful for even the father of the child to speak to the mother in a “safe area” to encourage her to choose life for their child.

Right to Life believes that the government’s real objectives in passing this legislation are to achieve the following outcomes:-

• normalise the killing of unborn children as “health care”.

• demonise and harass peaceful law-abiding citizens who are opposed to the war against women and the killing of the unborn.

• distract attention away from the real intimidation and violence that is inflicted on women and their unborn in the abortion facility.

• protect the abortion industry by preventing the presence of persons within a safe area offering help to a woman to choose life for her child.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life New Zealand Inc.