Today the most dangerous place for a woman is in her mother’s womb. We have gained the vote, our next challenge is to achieve the right of every woman to be born. Every woman has a right to be born and the right to vote. It is always a crime to kill a child in the womb, including women in utero. Why does the Prime Minister not support the right of women to be born? Why is Jacinda Ardern now claiming that it is not a crime to kill a woman before she is born?
Right to Life celebrates the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. On September 19 1893, the Electoral Act 1893 was passed, giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote. As a result of this landmark legislation, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.
The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed a celebration in Christchurch on September 13 to celebrate suffrage and to campaign for greater equality for women under the title “What Women Want”. Right to Life makes no apology for speaking up on behalf of the unborn and their mothers. We request that for greater equality we need increased legal protection for unborn children including women. To oppose the decriminalisation of abortion. To retain abortion in the Crimes Act. To promote adoption as the loving option.
Every woman has a right to vote, this victory was won by heroic women like Kate Sheppard, who campaigned courageously to achieve this right. It is a violation of human rights that today thousands of New Zealand women are denied the right to vote. Not only the right to vote, but they are being denied their right to life and the right to be born. Every year 12,000 New Zealand children are killed in the womb, which includes nearly 6000 innocent and defenceless women who are violently killed. Since 1978, more than 250,000 women were killed before birth. How then can we claim that we are promoting the equality of women and that we are leading the world in promoting the rights of women?
How many of the over 250,000 women killed before birth since 1977, would have been among our Members of Parliament and would have been the mothers of future generations of New Zealanders? We should weep for our children lost and for their mothers whose abortion was a cry for help unheeded by our community, which sadly believes that abortion is a health service. Why does the Prime Minister not support the right to life of all women and their right to be born and their right to vote? Ms Ardern has marked International Women’s Day on March 8 with a plea for Kiwis to keep “pressing for progress”.
