S.P.U.C. takes aim at General Election

Press, 12 August 1978, Page 7

S.P.U.C. takes aim at General Election

PA Auckland Pro-life attitudes, not. party affiliations, were the key factor in voting in the. forthcoming General Election. the annual general meeting of the Auckland branch of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child was told. Mr J. D. Daigety, the ( immediate national past ' president of S.P.U.C., encouraged the 55 people at the meeting to vote “pro-life, not parties.” Abortion was the essential issue of the election. Mr Daigety said. Each man had to decide his vote from his own conscience but consideration should be given to what had recently been said and decided on the abortion question at both the National and Labour conferences. It was perfectly plain that the pro-life movement

would get no support from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Rowling) said, Mr Daigety. But on the other hand the movement was totally indebted to the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon), who would go down in history as one of the country’s greatest politicians. What had been acheived in New Zealand had been a tremendous uplift to the world pro-life movement, but it was time for prolife supporters to get back to work, Mr Daigety said. The national executive of S.P.U.C. had recently appointed a full-time organiser for the coming elections. The group had made some innocent mistakes in the last elections but that would not happen this year! Mr Daigety said. “Our people will ail be kept informed of what every candidate in every electorate has said or noted on the question of abortion,” he said. Mr Daigety outlined a number of things S.P.U.C. supporters would not do in the coming elections. “We won’t threaten the

safety of pro-abortion candidates; we won’t enter their churches, we won’t damage their property; we won’t throw things at them and disrupt their meetings: we won’t put up bogus candidates; and we won't support candidates from the Communist. Socialist Unity, Social Action and Values Parties." Mr Dalgety encouraged the meeting'to give total support to those candidates — regardless of party — who had spoken out strongly on the prolife issue. Earlier Dr H. P. Dunn, the founding vice-presi-dent of S.P.U.C. and a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, called on the meeting to express its concern to the Govemmnt at the zero population growth of this country, citing abortion as a factor in this decline. “We must recognise abortion as a most serious factor in the national deciine that we see at present,” he said, "and we can blame abortion for a large part of our present economic situation.” The meeting passed the resolution unanimously