Abortion aid ’not given’

Press, 26 May 1977, Page 13

Abortion aid ’not given’

PA Wellington Referral of New Zealand women to Australia for abortions is not an official policy of the Family Planning Association, which runs clinics throughout the country. The association’s national president (Mrs D. T. Nicholson) said in Wellington the issue of whether a pregnant woman should be referred to Australia or to the Auckland Medical Aid Centre was left to individual doctors working at family planning clinics. “We do not discipline our doctors on this issue but leave it up to their judgment,” Mrs Nicholson said. She had been asked about the association’s policy on abortion referral after an article by Peter Durisch in the “Sydney Morning Herald” that Air New Zealand was being used as an abortion referral centre. The article also claimed to have obtained a document on abortions in Australia which was available at New Zealand family planning clinics. Mrs Nicholson said it was difficult to say how many women would have been referred to Australia from family planning clinics. However, she had recently heard that about 60 per cent of doctors working at clinics had referred patients seeking pregnancy termination either to the Auckland Medical Aid Centre or to Australia. Once such referrals were made the issue was out of the hands of the family planning clinic, she said.

Mystery surrounds the pamphlet alleging Air New Zealand provided information on obtaining abortions in Australia. It was not published by the New Zealand Family Planning Association and widespread inquiries by the airline failed to discover the author or organisation involved. Air New Zealand’s Sydney office has been asked to try to obtain the pamphlet or a copy. According to the Sydney claims, the pamphlet gave Air New Zealand’s Auckland telephone number, with an extension number, and suggested callers should ask for the sales representatives, Jenny Cunningham or Laird Kelly “and arrange your travel over and back.” Air New Zealand flights carry women seeking abortions in Australia but airline staff say they arrange only flights and accommodation — the same service offered to others — but not abortion information. The legal spokesman for the trust running the Auckland Medical Aid Centre, Mr Reg Clough, said the clinic had made quite an impression on the numbers of women travelling to Australia but “a reasonable number” still went there for abortion. These were the women who were too far advanced for the vacuum aspiration method used at Auckland or whose doctors believed they did not have legal grounds here. Mr Clough said it was impossible to say how many were still going, but he thought it would be more than 1000 New Zealand women a year.