Media Release 7 February 2024
Right to Life opposes the intention of the government appointed Midwifery Council of N.Z. to continue the war against women and their precious unborn by eradicating the terms “woman” and “mother” in the scope of practice, and replacing them with the word “whanau”.
The Council is prohibiting midwives in its scope of practice from using the term “woman” and “mother”. These beautiful and meaningful words are to be replaced with the term whanau, meaning family.
Why is the Midwifery Council, with the support of the NZ College of Midwives, determined to ignore the over whelming opposition of registered midwives in New Zealand to eliminate these words and effectively cancel women? This is without any consultation with the community.
The College contends that this is being inclusive, as there are many pregnant people who are trans -women or non - binary and do not identify as women. Right to Life challenges this insanity, as the Council’s reasoning fails to recognise that only women have a uterus and only women can conceive and bring their unborn children to birth. Only women have children not their “whanau”.
Right to Life defends the duty of midwives to be the protector of the lives of unborn children and their mothers. For centuries, civilisation has upheld the duty of midwives to be guardians of the womb and the lives of unborn children. Midwifery is a noble profession dedicated to protecting life.
The previous Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, shamefully must accept responsibility for this deplorable attack on the ethics of the midwifery profession, for she was the architect of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020, which permits midwives and nurse practitioners to be killers, not carers.
Right to Life was appalled that the previous Minister of Health, Dr Ayesha Verrall, who is responsible for promoting the killing of the unborn, announced in 2023 that training will be given to midwives and nurse practitioners to enable them to kill unborn children in the first 9 weeks of life. The scope of practice for these health professionals has now been changed to allow them to prescribe lethal drugs to kill the child by starvation. This is chemical warfare against our defenceless unborn, disguised as “reproductive health care”.
Right to Life is appalled that the Midwifery Council has now extended and gazetted its scope of practice to allow midwives, subject to education and training, to prescribe lethal drugs to kill unborn children in medical abortions and to violently dismember children in surgical abortions.
The website of the Midwifery Council proudly proclaims, ‘Health and safety of mothers and babies comes first” and “Guardians of professional standards”.
Right to Life asks how does the Council reconcile this noble objective with its acceptance of the murder of the unborn?
Our midwives enjoy a well- earned reputation as caring health professionals who enjoy the love and respect of the community for their wonderful services.
What greater vocation is there than to have the privilege to care for expectant mothers and their precious and vulnerable unborn children?
Our community have a duty to protect our midwives and their professional standards.
Every child is a unique and unrepeatable miracle of God’s creation that is endowed at conception with an inalienable right to life. It is an unspeakable outrage for the government to inflict on our respected midwives who are committed to protecting both mother and child, a direction that they have a responsibility to kill the unborn at the request of the mother, this is a violation of human rights and a crime against humanity. Right to Life applauds the many midwives who refuse to violate their ethics and refuse to kill their tiny patients.
Right to Life requests that the government take urgent action to repeal this anti-life and anti-women legislation.
We also urge that midwives in New Zealand defend their profession, its ethics and women and the unborn by refusing to submit to the government’s demand that they stain their hands with the blood of the innocent; they should be confident of the active support of the community.
Ken Orr,
Spokesperson,
Right to Life New Zealand Inc.