NZ Government Policy Inconsistency #237

Consider two families: one has a two-year old girl with Down Syndrome, and the mother is pregnant, the other has a normal two-year old and the mother is also pregnant. The mothers both have antenatal screening tests. The first mother is expecting a normal child; the second mother is told that her child has Down Syndrome.

It is typical in New Zealand for the mother in the second case to be offered an abortion by their doctor or midwife.  (Although New Zealand law does not permit abortion on demand, the High Court has found that the statistics on abortion approvals indicate that that is what we have in practice.)

However, in the first family, we don’t allow the mother to kill her child with Down Syndrome and keep the normal one that she is carrying in her womb.

Why the difference?

The National Screening Programme which identifies unborn babies with Down syndrome is promoted by the Government as the “Quality Improvement Programme”.  If the Government is really serious about “improving the quality” of the New Zealand population by getting rid of people with Down Syndrome, why is it restricting the programme to the unborn?  Is Health Minister Tony Ryall too squeamish to send the men in white coats round to the IHC?  No; he just realises that New Zealanders are not ready (yet) for the culling of 2-year olds, 22-year olds, or 42-year olds.  But unborn children? No problem!  That doesn’t create even the smallest blip on the media radar.

NZ Government Policy Inconsistency #229

I note that the Minister of Conservation, Kate Wilkinson, has seen fit to give katipo spiders (both black and red) absolute protection under the Wildlife Act.  It will now be illegal to kill these spiders, harm them, disturb them, or destroy their eggs.  Remarkably, from 8 July 2010, these poisonous creatures will now have more protection under the law than human beings.

Every day, on average, 50 human beings are mercilessly killed in NZ abortion clinics: about three a week in Marlborough; 15 a week in Otago.  And many more fertilised human eggs are destroyed through the use of abortifacients (contraceptive and “morning after” pills, and IUDs).  How sad that we are willing to give greater protection to spiders than to our own children.

Media Release from Department of Conservation