Right to Life New Zealand

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Right to Life New Zealand is a Christchurch-based pro-life group, which split from the New Zealand Society for Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC -now Voice for Life) in December 1999.

Right to Life was expelled from the main organisation because of tactical and strategic differences with SPUC over the pursuit of the Status of the Unborn Child Bill 1983. This abandoned private members anti-abortion bill had sought to outlaw abortion altogether, except in cases of direct physical injury to women's health. The Status of the Unborn Child Bill did not pass its first parliamentary reading, and was abandoned, as no New Zealand Member of Parliament has sought to revive it.

Over time, SPUC realised that it lacked sufficient parliamentary and public support to pass legislation that would outlaw abortion, and is currently reoriented toward incremental restrictions on abortion access instead, such as preventing competent minors under the age of sixteen from gaining access to abortion services without parental involvement, or forcing women to consult anti-abortion fetal and embryonic closeup photographs under the guise of "informed consent".

As for Right to Life New Zealand, it lacked this pragmatic orientation. It sought to revive the Status of the Unborn Child Bill through circulating a petition related to that moribund piece of legislation, even when National SPUC had warned it not to do so. When Christchurch SPUC (as it was) published a parliamentary anti-abortion voters guide for the 1999 New Zealand General Election, that proved to be the final straw for the parent organisation.

Since expulsion, Right to Life New Zealand has published Footprints, a quarterly periodical. After National SPUC threatened to sue it if it didn't stop using the name "Christchurch SPUC" to describe itself, Right to Life New Zealand and SPUC/Voice For Life settled down, and established working relationships. As one can note from Voice for Life's links page, they still maintain an association with Right to Life New Zealand.

[edit] Writ of Mandamus

As can be noted from its website [1], it is currently engaged in attempting to secure a writ of mandamus against the operation of the current New Zealand Abortion Supervisory Committee, but whether this will overturn the enduring interpretation of case law within Wall v Livingston [1983], which prevented Abortion Supervisory Committee interference with certifying consultant decisions, is a moot point.