Grieving raw 13 years after abortion

Maria Parsons has struggled with her decision. Picture / John McCombe

A Canterbury woman has spoken out about her experience of abortion, following the release this week of research showing a higher level of mental ill-health among women who had terminations.

Maria Parsons, who had an abortion 13 years ago, is now fighting for a change to the way the law is applied.

She said she still cries every day for the unborn child she agreed to "kill".

At a vulnerable stage in her life, she says, she naively opted for an abortion after an unplanned pregnancy in the dying stages of a relationship.

"It has destroyed the last part of my life. Inside, there is just a longing to hold the baby and to see that 13-year-old standing here. I wonder what she looks like.

"I can see those years in my mind like a photo album," a sobbing Ms Parsons told the Weekend Herald.

This week, Canterbury Health and Development released a study suggesting a link between abortion and mental health problems.

The study found 42 per cent of those who had an abortion by the age of 25 subsequently experienced major depression.

This was nearly double the rate of those who had never been pregnant and 35 per cent higher than those who continued with their pregnancies.

Ms Parsons, 47, now an ardent anti-abortion lobbyist, hopes to tell her story to the High Court as lobby group Right to Life pursues a legal challenge over what it claims is flouting of the laws governing abortions.

In a court hearing last October, Justice John Wild allowed some parts of the claim against the Abortion Supervisory Committee to proceed, but said other parts were hopeless.

Justice Wild said Right to Life's failure to change the system showed most New Zealanders were content with the way abortion laws worked.

Ms Parsons does not agree. The mother-of-two vividly remembers the day she entered Lyndhurst Hospital in Christchurch "in a daze".

She recalls the instrument "that works like a vacuum-cleaner" removing the 3-month-old fetus and a nurse counting the tiny body parts before they were deposited into the waste.

"I remember the nurse saying, 'Are you sure?' [I said] no, I'm not really sure. I'm here in a gown and I'm frightened. Every woman that goes to Lyndhurst is vulnerable."

Ms Parsons feels she was not in a proper state to agree to the abortion despite taking advice from her GP and being given counselling.

"It is just the underlying grief and self-hate. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror for 10 years.

"I'm not trying to wallow in self-pity. I'm trying to tell the truth."

As with many abortions, the legal reason given for Ms Parsons' termination of the child she has called Isabella Maria was her mental health.

"If I was mentally ill, what was my treatment? Why did [my GP] treat it with abortion?"


* A total of 18,210 abortions were performed in New Zealand in 2004, compared with 18,510 the previous year. The median age of women having abortions is about 25.
* Under the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977, abortion is an offence under the Crimes Act unless two "certifying consultants" approve it on certain grounds, such as a woman's mental health being endangered by continuing with the pregnancy.
* Lobby group Right to Life New Zealand has filed a court action claiming the law is being abused and too many abortions are being performed. A judge has allowed some parts of the group's claim to proceed.