40 Days For Life is an internationally co-ordinated and locally run Lenten programme of prayer and fasting, community outreach and peaceful vigil. It is an effort to bring about an end to abortion and offer hope to abortion vulnerable. The vigil is coordinated by Family Life International (F.L.I), a Catholic pro-life and pro-family organisation that provides Read more
Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Bill, which passed its third reading in Parliament last week, establishes a new legal framework for the river. Family First has taken the occasion as an opportunity to highlight the fact that the unborn child has no legal rights. They say the new law gives the Whanganui river Read more
Jon O’Brien, President of a US lobbyist organisation Catholic for Choice (CFC), was a keynote speaker at the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Conference Aotearoa New Zealand which took place at Te Papa Tongarewa, Te Whanganui-a-Tara on the weekend. The title of his presentation was “Manufacturing Stigma: How Religious Healthcare Could Damage Your Health”. Read more
The head of A US lobby group on abortion, Catholics for Choice, is scheduled to speak at a conference in New Zealand in November. A spokesperson for the New Zealand’s Catholic Bishops Conference, Simone Olsen, said of Catholics for Choice: “Clearly this group’s message is inconsistent with the Church’s teaching on family which seeks to protect the vulnerable and the voiceless including the unborn Read more
The abortion debate is heating up in Thames with a pro-choice group vowing to demonstrate each week alongside pro-life protesters. The demonstration is in response to a regular demonstration by pro life group Voice for Life demonstrators. Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRANZ) member Scott Summerfield said the aim of the demonstration was to support women Read more
The Family Planning Association (FPA) is not representing the interests of women by once more calling upon the government to decriminalise abortion say Ken Orr, spokesman for Right to life. Jackie Edmond, CEO of the Family Planning Association thinks abortion should be considered as a health issue. She is calling on the government remove the Read more
Leoba Devana is serving time in the jail on Buka Island, part of Papua New Guinea’s Autonomous Region of Bougainville after having an abortion. She was charged and convicted – erroneously, in the eyes of a coalition of senior medical, legal and human rights advocates in Port Moresby who have taken up her case – Read more
Family Planning chief executive Jackie Edmond said the abortion law as it stands is outdated and needs fixing. She said abortions were part of a broken system as they currently fell under justice rather than the Ministry of Health. Edmonds said this when making a submission last Thursday to the Justice and Electoral select committee’s Read more
National MP Chester Borrows has presented a petition to Parliament, which will now go through select committee, asking for an amendment to the Care of Children Act. The Labour Party and Family Planning say they will fight the proposed amendment. The petition was prompted by the experience of the Kieft family in Stratford in 2009. Read more
40 Days for Life prayer vigils began outside Wellington Hospital and across the road from the Auckland Medical Aid Centre (AMAC) on Ash Wednesday. The vigils are part of a worldwide Lenten campaign aimed at protecting mothers and babies from abortion. They will continue till Palm Sunday. 40 Days of Life is not a political campaign, Read more
