Abortion has long been a political hot potato

particularly safe procedure.
Opposition to AMAC
Repeated attempts were made by those opposed to abortion to close AMAC. Police
raided the centre, Parliament passed restrictive legislation and an arson attempt
caused $100,000 worth of damage.
The courts were used in attempts to restrict abortion. In the two most notable cases
this backfired, and access to abortion was eased.
After police raided AMAC in 1974, Jim Woolnough, one of the centre’s doctors, was
prosecuted. When the Court of Appeal upheld his acquittal, it was on the basis of his
sincere belief that the abortions he performed were necessary.
In 1982 Dr Melvyn Wall went to court to prevent a 15-year-old from having an
abortion. He lost the case, and a subsequent Appeal Court judgment found that Wall
did not have the right to represent the foetus. AMAC was still open in 2018.
Abortion law
Parliament considered several abortion bills in the 10 years from 1974 to 1983. Two
were passed.
The Hospitals Amendment Act 1975 was a direct response to AMAC. It limited
provision of abortion to licensed hospitals. The act forced AMAC to close, but it re-
opened after buying a private hospital. The act was later ruled invalid for technical
reasons.
By 1975 abortion had become such a political hot potato that
Parliament set up a royal commission to consider it, along
with contraception and sterilisation. The Contraception,
Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977, based on the
commission’s recommendations, made getting an abortion
more difficult. The act proved difficult to implement and
was amended in 1978.
Setting up a system: 1977 onwards
Women had to see their doctor, then two medical
consultants, who had to agree that her physical or mental
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Cross-Tasman alert
Abortion was also a hot issue
across the Tasman, and links
between Australian and New
Zealand activists were close. A
1974 warning to New Zealanders
about a Sydney doctor was typical:
‘[H]e is a very bad operator –
made a terrible mess of a young
girl who had to spend the week in
hospital, he would not help her
when she went back to see him
after the op’.
health made an abortion necessary. It was also necessary to find a surgeon to
perform the operation.
Counselling had to be available for the woman, and some clinics required women to
see a clinic-employed counsellor. The Abortion Supervisory Committee was formed
to appoint certifying consultants and licence abortion clinics.
Sisters Overseas Service
The Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977 forced AMAC to close for
several months. Within days, women set up the Sisters Overseas Service, which
helped women travel to Australia for abortions during 1978 and 1979.
Abortion clinics open
The Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977 also
required health boards to fund lawful abortions. In 1978 and
1980 hospital boards in Auckland and Wellington set up
their own abortion clinics. AMAC reopened in 1980.
Lyndhurst Hospital in Christchurch, a public abortion clinic,
was opened in 1986.
Married or single?
From the mid-1970s information about the kinds of women
who had abortions became available. The number of
unmarried women seeking abortions increased. However, as
de facto relationships were increasingly common, these
women may not have been single.
Age and race
In this period women aged 24 and younger were most likely to have an abortion. The
rate then steadily tailed off. 
Pākehā
women typically had an abortion at a young age.
Māori and, to a greater extent, Pasifika women had poorer access to family planning
and contraception, and so were more likely to use abortion throughout their fertile
years.
Footnotes
Quoted in Hayley Brown, ‘A woman’s right to choose: second
wave feminist advocacy of abortion law reform in New
Zealand and New South Wales from the 1970s.’ MA thesis,
University of Canterbury, 2004, p. 81.
 Back
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Abortion picket 
Picketing outside abortion clinics
continued. It was one reason
Wellington’s Parkview Abortion
Clinic moved into the main
hospital in 2000. Women were
warned that there might be
protesters outside, but were
assured that there was no way the
protesters could know who was
coming to the unit. 
Quoted in ‘A woman’s right to choose,’ p. 63.
 Back
Abortion: 1990s to 21st century
In the 1990s the controversy of the 1970s and 1980s waned. Although the law was
restrictive, in practice abortion was generally available. Abortion-rights activism
wound down. Anti-abortion groups continued to protest, but to little effect.
However, in the 2000s anti-abortion activism increased. New groups were formed,
the Abortion Supervisory Committee was challenged in court, and the internet
became a base for activity. In the 2010s a wave of pro-abortion activism focused on
persuading the government to decriminalise abortion.
Rate of abortion
The rate of abortion climbed through the 1990s and stabilised at around 0.6 per
woman from 2002. In international terms, this was a moderate rate – lower than
England, but higher than Germany.
Availability in the 21st century
Access varied from one area of New Zealand to another, and changed over time. In
2018 women up to 19 weeks pregnant were able to have abortions in Wellington and
Auckland. A limited service for women over 14 weeks pregnant was provided in
Dunedin and Christchurch. In Whanganui, the West Coast and South Canterbury
only counselling and referral were available. In other regions abortions were
available only in the first trimester.
Availability of abortion increased with the 2002
introduction of the ‘abortion pill’, mifepristone (RU486).
The two doses required had to be taken at an abortion clinic.
Abortions obtained through the use of the abortion pill are
known as 'medical abortions'. In 2018 medical abortions
were not available in Whanganui, Northland or South
Canterbury. The Tauranga Family Planning clinic provided
medical abortions.
Anti-abortion groups
Groups formed in the 1970s continued to be active in the
21st century. In 2004 the Society for the Protection of the
Unborn Child (SPUC) changed its name to Voice for Life.

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Other groups opposed to abortion were Family Life International (founded in 1992),
Right to Life New Zealand (1999), Liberty for the Unborn and Pro-life New Zealand
(formed in the early 2000s). Anti-abortion groups were often well-funded. Some
groups had strong international connections and were concerned with a range of
matters including euthanasia and in-vitro fertilisation.
Court challenges
From 2008 Right to Life New Zealand challenged the Abortion Supervisory
Committee’s management of abortion in New Zealand in the courts. In 2011 the
Court of Appeal ruled that the Abortion Supervisory Committee could not review
certifying consultants' decisions (as Right to Life had argued it should), and that
there was no foetal right to life.
Advocacy for decriminalisation
In the 2010s the focus of pro-abortion activism shifted to decriminalisation. Under
the Crimes Act 1961, the provision of an abortion remained a crime unless it was
approved by two medical consultants (the procedure introduced by the
Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977). Pro-abortion
groups (notably ALRANZ) argued that abortion was a health rather than a
criminal issue, and should be decided by the pregnant woman. In 2018 ALRANZ
and a group of women who had had abortions took a case to the Human Rights
Commission challenging the existing system.
The New Zealand push was part of an international move towards decriminalisation.
After more than three decades of avoiding the issue, the New Zealand government
introduced an Abortion Legislation Bill in Parliament in 2019. Enacted in 2020, this
removed abortion from the Crimes Act and made it a procedure to which a woman
was entitled in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. After that, she had to satisfy a health
practitioner that an abortion was ‘clinically appropriate’ with regard to her mental
and physical well-being. A second practitioner then had to agree with the first before
the procedure was carried out.
Standard methods in the 21st century
The most common method of abortion in the first trimester was dilation and suction
curettage. Mifepristone and prostaglandin were used in approximately three-
quarters of medical abortions carried out in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. In
2016, 94% of abortions were carried out before the end of the 13th week of
pregnancy.
External links and sources
More suggestions and sources

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Mein Smith, Philippa. Maternity in dispute: New
Zealand 1920–1939. Wellington: Historical
Publications Branch, Department of Internal
Affairs, 1986.
McCulloch, Alison. Fighting to choose: the abortion
rights struggle in New Zealand. Wellington: Victoria
University Press, 2013.
Sparrow, Margaret. Abortion then and now: New
Zealand abortion stories from 1940 to 1980.
Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2010.
Sparrow, Margaret. Rough on women: abortion in
19th-century New Zealand. Wellington: Victoria
University Press, 2014.
How to cite this page: Megan Cook, 'Abortion', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand,
http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/abortion/print (accessed 16 August 2023)
Story by Megan Cook, published 5 May 2011, reviewed & revised 8 Nov 2018
All text licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/nz/deed.en
). Commercial re-use may be allowed on request. All non-text content is
subject to specific conditions. © Crown Copyright.