A Supporter of Dr. Wall

As a member of the Students' Association I would like to condemn the Vice-President's remarks about the recent Hospitals Amendment Act, and similar remarks made by Anthony Ward in an article in 'Salient' of May 29th.

Every unborn child is a separate human life (since both its parents are human), with its own body, and genetic and other characteristics. As medical knowledge of the unborn child advances, its own individuality as a human being at a particular stage of maturity is increasingly realised. It is a pity that so many people are prepared to measure the value of the lives of these children more and more in terms of how convenient it is for the children's mothers, or society, to have them.

If the purpose of society is to provide support to and acceptance of each of its members as having individual human worth, that is, to exist for man's benefit, then it has no right to impose criteria for the right to be provided with these things. Any critieria which decided which children were to be born and which were to be disposed of would be denying human beings their worth, and would thereby make society defeat its own purpose by becoming repressive. Instead of society existing for mankind, mankind would exist for the sake of society.

The fact that a child is unwanted is a reflection on the community, not the child. If the community is so irresponsible as not to want certain children, it certainly does not help to give it the arbitrary power of child destruction. One act of irresponsibility does not justify another. Even if the child is severely handicapped, society would be failing in its duty if it did not accept and support him for what he is.

For these reasons, I very strongly oppose abortion except when it is necessary to preserve the mother's life. In this case it is simply the child's right to life as against the mother's.

An abortion is justified legally only if it is done in good faith to preserve the mother's life. Dr. Wall's Bill restricts the performance of such abortions to public, or to approved private, hospitals. Since I agree with the present legal grounds for abortion, and no others, and since justified abortions would be so very few that the public and private hospitals could easily cope with them, and since the effect of the Bill is to make illegal abortions more difficult without restricting legal ones, I support the Bill. John Blincoe claims that the Remuera Clinic provided a relatively cheap service, but a public hospital should be able to do the same, since it provides a free service. Anthony Ward claims that the Bill's primary motive is to close the Remuera Clinic, but even if this were so, that would not make the Bill wrong. If it is right in prohibiting abortions in clinics other than hospitals, it is also right in closing the Remuera Clinic.

The other major objection to the Bill was that it would force some women to go to Australia, and others to back street abortionists, to get an abortion. If any abortion were justified, it could be performed cheaply in a public hospital. If it were not, then it should not be performed anyway. The fact that women are prepared to use desperate means, or to spend a lot of money, to break the law is no reason why the law should be changed to accommodate the actions of criminals. It may well mean that the law should be enforced more rigorously.

A similarity was also drawn between Dr. Wall's Bill and a Bill of Attainder. Dr. Wall's Bill basically makes it more difficult to break the existing law, which is far different from the purpose of a Bill of Attainder.