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NEW ZEALAND  NEWS

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• Reducing Teenage Pregnancy
• French Film "Baise-Moi" Featuring Graphic Rape Murder and Sexual Torture Approved by the New Zealand Film Censor 
• Study finds One in Sixty Christchurch High School Students has Chlamydia
• Outrage At Lowering Legal Prostitution Age  
• Abort Need for the Pill
• Right to Life New Zealand Surveys 343 District Health Board Elections 2001 Candidates -  Responses to Pro Life Questionnaire  
• The Right Not to be Born  

Study Shows One In Sixty Senior High School Students Has Chlamydia

Source: Christchurch School of Medicine and
Health Sciences:  Media Release 

November 6, 2001.

A major research study of 1136 senior secondary students in Christchurch has found that one out of every 60 sexually active students is infected with Chlamydia. The survey involves a random selection of year 12 and 13 students from Christchurch schools, and has been carried out by a team of researchers from the Christchurch School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Otago University, the Christchurch Sexual Health Clinic and the Christchurch Family Planning Clinic.

"None of the infected students had any symptoms to suggest that they had anything wrong with them, and the test result was a shock for these students," says investigator Dr Paul Corwin from the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

"What is more serious is that some of these students run the risk of infertility unless their infection is treated."

17 of the 26 public and private schools in Christchurch took part in this study with a good mix of schools from all parts of the city. 72% of the randomly selected students answered the questionnaire. Half of the students who answered indicated past sexual intercourse with most having their urine tested for Chlamydia as part of this study.

Of the students who indicated that they were sexually active, 1.7% tested positive for Chlamydia. Half of the students with Chlamydia were male and half female.

63% of sexually active students said that they had used condoms the last time they had sexual intercourse. Most students indicated that although they thought young sexually active people were very likely to get a sexually transmitted disease, they also thought that this was unlikely to happen to them personally.

31 August 2001

The Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc. is outraged that there has been a call from the NZ Aids Foundation for the lowering of the proposed legal age for prostitution, set at 18 under the proposed Prostitution Reform Bill, to 16. Executive Director of the Foundation, Mr Kevin Hague, in an oral submission on the Bill presented to the Justice and Electoral Committee (see Dominion 30/8), argued passionately that it should be lowered to 16 to make it “consistent with the age of consent for sexual behaviour” [sic]. (He meant of course to say the age of “sexual consent”). With prostitution redefined under the Bill as part of the “service industry,” why shouldn’t those who have reached the age of consent be able to ply their ‘trade’ from the footpaths of our cities or procure others into the ‘industry’?

The Society, which in its own submission to the select committee has strongly opposed the Bill to decriminalise prostitution, involving the repeal of all laws against soliciting, pimping, making a living off the earnings of prostitution and procuring for prostitution; considers the Foundation’s position socially irresponsible and injurious to the public good. It is angry that an organisation, largely funded by tax-payers and one of the key supporters of the Bill, should be leading the charge for a lowering of the proposed legal age, when all the research on the ‘industry’ indicates that it is damaging to the sexual health, physical, psychological, emotional well-being of young people, particularly young girls. The NZ Aids Foundation’s submission was supported by the Family Planning Association.

The Society points out that Article 34 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which NZ ratified in 1993, states that NZ must “undertake to protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse” and “take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent … the exploitative use of children in prostitution or other unlawful sexual practices.” Part I, article 1 of the Convention defines a child as “every human being below the age of 18 years”. Furthermore, NZ is signatory to the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979) which requires our government to “take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic of women and exploitation of prostitution of women” (Article 6).

Mr Gordon Dempsey the Society’s president says that “rather than assisting to suppress all forms of sexual exploitation of women and children, as required by international law, the Bill will issue in a season of open slather leading to a growth boom in an ‘industry’.” According to the Society’s spokesperson, David Lane, “the NZ Aids Foundation has over-reached itself in its demands for our government to consider making prostitution legal for 16 year olds and thereby revealed the ethical bankruptcy of the Foundation’s ‘mission’ to effect ‘reform’. The indisputable fact based on extensive research world-wide, is that prostitution is injurious and detrimental to the physical, mental, psychological and spiritual well-being of the vast majority of women involved in the ‘industry’.” (see refs. SPCS submission).

In a seven page published critique of the Bill by Mr Lane, on behalf of the Society, sent this week to every member of Parliament, the unfolding disaster of child prostitution in Australia is reported on. Figures as identified by ECPAT (the international body combating prostitution and trafficking) indicate that 3,733 children are currently engaged in commercial sexual activities in Australia. The highest number of reported cases come from Victoria, followed by NSW, where prostitution has been legalised and decriminalised, respectively. The majority of these cases involve young persons aged 16 to 17 years, but a disturbing finding was the number of 10 to 12 year olds and some under the age of 10.1

The Society argues that many of our politicians, soon to vote on the Bill, will need to carefully examine their consciences and ask the questions: Do I want my vote to pave the way for 16 year olds to be able to legally prostitute themselves in public places, be sex ‘slaves’ to pimps and make a living by managing brothels? Do I want my vote to remove all regulations and control measures (as proposed in the Bill by the repeal of the Massage Parlours Act 1978) relating to who can manage and operate brothels? Do I want my school age children examining future job prospects and careers believing that prostitution is a legitimate and legal part of the “service industry”? Do I want my daughter, friend’s daughter, niece or close relative, to be made an easier target for madams and pimps seeking new younger “sex workers”?

Abort need for pill

04 SEPTEMBER 2001

Source: The Timaru Herald

Abortion has become a matter of convenience, National Party MP Eric Roy told Parliament last week. A foetus is considered worthless, he added. Every day in New Zealand there are more than 40 abortions, said ACT MP Owen Jennings. Let's be honest – it's abortion virtually on demand, chimed in Labour's Geoff Braybrooke. We need much more education about contraception, advised the Green's Sue Kedgley. All took their opportunity during a routine debate about the appointment of new members to the Abortion Supervisory Committee. The Timaru Herald looks at abortion.

The trouble is it is simply noise, as no party in power has had to resolve to tackle what politically is dangerous ground. Neither has an MP formulated a private member's bill.

Every year when the annual abortion figures are released, invariably showing a marked increase on the year before, there is noise about revisiting the 1977 Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act, but within a day or two silence again reigns. Justice Minister Phil Goff promised a review in 1999 which was slanted towards making access to abortion easier, but has recently backed off the idea.

Yet the politicians who spoke last week are right. Last year 16,100 abortions were approved, almost all under the banner that there was serious danger to the mental health of the mother. Abortion in New Zealand is virtually available on demand.

And the potential is there for the situation to get worse. On the same day these politicians were making their points in the House the Health Ministry was announcing the approval of the abortion pill for use in this country. This will replace the need for a surgical operation and will find favour with many women. The pill has its side effects, but so does surgery, and the convenience factor suggests that the culture of abortion as a means of contraception can only be enhanced.

The pill itself is not the problem – for a rape victim for instance it will be a superb alternative to further invasion from surgery – it is the system which allows so many abortions on tenuous grounds. And given the willingness of certified consultants to sign consent forms, that situation can only get worse. It is therefore cold comfort that the ministry has limited prescriptions of the pill to those already authorised to approve abortions.

No major political party is willing to tackle the issue head on, but with the release of this pill comes an opportunity to better promote the bigger issue – not getting pregnant in the first place.

NB Right to Life New Zealand does not agree with all ideas expressed in this article

The Following letter was sent out to Canterbury Churches 

Dear Pastor,

District Health Board (DHB) – Elections 2001

Every child is an unrepeatable miracle of God’s loving creation. The defence of the unborn child’s right to life is the greatest human rights issue facing New Zealand today.

Last year 16.102 unborn children were killed in New Zealand.

Our society sent a questionnaire to 343 candidates who are standing for election for their District Health Board (DHB). The DHB’s are Auckland, Waikato, Hutt Valley, Capital and Coast, Canterbury and Otago. These DHB’s are where the majority of abortions are performed.

Enclosed is a poster with the names of candidates for you local DHB who have responded to the Questionnaire and their responses.

We would be grateful for your permission to have this poster displayed on your church notice board. It would also be appreciated if you would include the following in your Church Bulletin.

Right to Life New Zealand.

District Health Board Elections.

Vote to protect God’s precious infants.

Refer to church notice board for candidate’s responses to life issues.

Also society’s web page at www.right-to-life.org

Thank you for your assistance in promoting a culture of life.

Yours in life,

Phillip Creed.

President

the right not To be born

Source: Christian Heritage Party Press Release

27 August 2001 

“France’s appeal court’s recent decision establishing a right not to be born, has sent shock waves round the world,” Graham Capill, Christian Heritage Party Leader, says. “The Nazi ‘master-race’ concept, it would seem, is alive and well.” he says.

Last November a lower court ruled that 17 year old French boy, Nicolas Perruche, had a right not to be born.  Nicolas was born severely handicapped owing to his mother having contracted German measles while pregnant.  It was claimed, because doctors failed to diagnose the illness, that his mother had had no opportunity to abort the child on account of the risk posed to her unborn child by German measles.  Now France’s highest appeal court has upheld this decision, and Nicolas is suing the doctors for failing to terminate his life.

Apart from the sanctity of life argument, this perverted approach to disability, has widespread ramifications in medicine and the law.  Doctors will be undoubtedly under much greater pressure to promote the abortion ‘option’ if they are in the least concerned that the foetus may have an even minor abnormality.  Failure to give such advice may mean facing a legal challenge later, regardless of the fact that diagnosis in utero is often imprecise and sometimes totally inaccurate.  The law then must determine the degree of culpability, depending presumably on the severity of the disability.

Mr Capill added, “It is extraordinary in this supposedly politically correct age, that the disabled are being made to feel so vulnerable, unwanted and lesser members of society, who should really never have been born.  It is obvious, the more humanistic thought prevails, the more endangered life becomes.”

“God defend New Zealand from going any further down this path.  Current politicians, judging on past performance, will have no mind to,” he concluded.