THREE CRITICISMS OF ABORTION LAWS

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31441, 7 August 1967, Page 1

THREE CRITICISMS OF ABORTION LAWS

(NCw Zealand Preu Auociation) DUNEDIN, August 6. Criticism of New Zealand’s abortion laws could be split into three main groups—that the law itself was wrong, that the law could not be enforced and that the law was not clear, the Attorney-General (Mr Hanan) said in Dunedin on Saturday.

Mr Hanan admitted that the laws needed clarification when addressing a seminar on developments in the law conducted by the University of Otago Faculty of Law.

Abortion was a very complex and difficult question, he said.

"It is not a ciearcut matter of right and wrong; rather it is a question of balancing one set of rights against another, or, in the situation where all the alternatives are unpleasant. deciding which of them is the best, least distasteful, and, at the worst, least

tragic,” Mr Hanan said. It had been claimed that the law of abortion was widely flouted, and that the small group of people convicted annually represented a very small percentage of those who practised abortion,, he said. "Estimates of the number of illegal abortions in this country vary widely from 200 to 6000 cases each year,” be said. “Advocates of reform of the law have argued that If legal abortion were more readily available, the need and demand for Illegal abortion would be reduced, but this is still a matter of speculation.” The present law in New i Zealand was in need of cla ri-

flcation, but it would need considerable deep thought by many people before this could be done with any hope of improving the situation. "In a subject such as this where there are many differ-

ent strongly-held beliefs and where discussions very easily become highly charged with emotion or bogged down in intricate technicalities, the problem at issue is easily clouded,” he said.