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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume. 34, Number 14. July 21, 1971

[Letter from P. Morgan (Mrs)]

There are many contentious points in Mrs Davidson's article on Abortion, but I will confine myself to two or three.

It seems to me that those wanting to "liberalise" the law in New Zealand are those wanting to impose their views on the majority of the population; the Society for the Protection of the Unboard Child - SPUC - which has 15,000 members (March 1971) seeks only to maintain the status quo, and it is significant that people like Dr Liley, who have studied the development of the human embryo, fully support SPUC.

I would not agree that a woman has the absolute right of life or death over her unborn child, without regard to the father. A pregnant woman is in a state of hormonal imbalance and is not always able to make a rational decision, especially in the first moments of blind panic. In spite of your tasteless cartoons, I believe that the incidence of suicides among pregnant women In New Zealand is very low. Many woman has become more than reconciled to a coming child well before the end of the nine months, which is not to say that I think we should wash or our hands of the problem. I would agree with Mrs Davidson that much more love and understanding and practical help is needed by unmarried mothers and those struggling with several young children, but I would most emphatically not agree that abortion solves any of these problems; it merely postpones them at the cost of innocent lives.

P. Morgan (Mrs)