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Salient. Victoria University Students' Newspaper. Volume Number 39, Issue 6. April 5 [1976]

Abortion is a Conscience Issue

Abortion is a Conscience Issue

We recognise that some people sincerely believe abortion to be morally wrong. We are aware that there are Catholic and other women whose beliefs would never allow them to consider abortion for themselves. We respect their point of view and do not ask for a moment that they act any differently from the way their consciences guide them. We would appreciate a similarly generous outlook towards those who want legal abortion. No-one should have the right to coerce another into acting against their will, especially when it is a matter concerning their own body.

New Zealand is a plural society. We believe that in a parliamentary democracy it is the duty of parliament to protect the rights of different cultural, religious, racial, social groups, particularly with regard to issues of conscience, and to protect the individual's privacy from the intrusion of the state. Yet successive governments have been guilty of coercing women into motherhood by refusing to remove the restrictions on abortion. We have seen both sides of the House assure Members that they will be able to vote according to their consciences whenever the issue of abortion arises. It is the height of injustice and hypocrisy to propose the exercise of this right in parliament while continuing to deny it to the individual citizen. Can the law abrogate a person's conscience? We say it cannot; any attempt to do so produces social unrest.