APPEAL BY CLERGY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 35, 20 November 1937, Page 8

APPEAL BY CLERGY.

THE PROBLEM OF ABORTION. THE GOVERNMENT APPROACHED (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, November 19. Since the publication on April 12 of the report of the Maternity Services Investigation Committee which was set up by the Government to inquire into the incidence of abortion in New Zealand, a flood of resolutions from numerous sources lias been sent to the Government. Clergymen of Auckland, prominent throughout New Zealand churches, have prepared a joint appeal to the Government which strikes rather a different note from the formal resolutions to which much publicity has been given. “We urge upon the Government the duty of taking immediate and drastic action to deal with the evil that threatens the very existence of the nation,” the appeal states. “We also believe the Government should deal with certain provocative causes of the situation complained of, including the sale of salacious literature and the use of liquor at and in the vicinity of public dances. We make this appeal to the Government with a deep sense of our responsibility to the nation and with the very gravest sense of the extreme urgency of the matter and of the irreparable harm inflicted on fhe minds and hearts of the' young by these evils.”

The signatories to the appeal are Archbishop Averill, Bishop Liston, the Rev. J. A. Allan (representing the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church), the Rev. E. D. Patchett (chairman of the Auckland Methodist District Synod), Dr. J. J. North (representing the Auckland Baptist Auxiliary), the Rev. H. Johnson (Moderator*’ of th© Auckland Congregational Churches), Brigadier A. J. Sutter (Auckland Divisional Commander of the Salvation Army), and th© Rev. A. Astor (Rabbi of the Auckland Hebrew Congregation).