Right to Life New Zealand is a Christchurch-based pro-life group. It was expelled from the New Zealand Society for Protection of the Unborn Child (now Voice for Life) in December 1999.
For six years (2005-2011), Right to Life New Zealand conducted a court case against the Abortion Supervisory Committee, New Zealand's abortion regulator, arguing that the Committee had failed in its alleged statutory responsibility to monitor the legality of individual certifying consultant responsibilities under the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977. However, the Court of Appeal found against Right to Life on 1 June 2011. It dismissed their case against the Committee and upheld Wall v Livingston [1982], an earlier Court of Appeal case that found that there was no statutory definition of embryo or fetus under New Zealand law in the context of abortion [1]. While Right to Life does intend to appeal to the New Zealand Supreme Court, such requests are not automatically granted [2]