Mr Lange dismisses abortion review

Press, 6 August 1987, Page 1

Mr Lange dismisses abortion review

By BRENDON BURNS, political reporter

A Labour promise to review abortion law was dismissed by the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, yesterday in an attack on the Catholic newspaper, the “Tablet.”

In an. editorial this week, the paper’s editor, Mr John Kennedy, said Labour was planning to make abortion available on demand and to allow euthanasia.

Mr Lange said the assertion about euthanasia was an “absolute lie.”

Questioned about a Labour commitment to review abortion law he said this was an area for a conscience vote. “There is certainly no proposal that I know of being generated within Government to revisit that at all.”

But as “The Press” reported on July 24, Labour’s women’s policy for the election promised to review the abortion law taking account of the Abortion Supervisory Committee’s concerns. These centre on women in provincial areas such as the West Coast being forced to travel to main centres for abortions because of a lack of certifying consultants.

When this was put to Mr Lange yesterday, he said* the position on abortion had been “carefully

enunciated.” “The question of abortion is a matter of a conscience vote and the Government has no plans to revisit the abortion law.”

Mr Lange said yesterday any abortion law proposal would have to be a private member’s bill.

In attacking the “Tablet” editorial, he said Mr Kennedy did not like him or the Labour Party. He said the paper’s relationship to the truth was, at best, strained.

“The story about euthanasia is an absolute lie and the person from the high moral ground telling lies like that is just, in my view, the pits.” Mr Kennedy had described the Labour Government as the most cold-blooded the country had known. Ordinary people were being hit harder and harder and he said he would not vote for Labour.

Mr Lange dismissed this having any impact on Catholic voters.

“The ‘Tablet’ is seen for what it is in the Catholic Church,” he said. It was not the voice of the Church but represented those who favoured Catholicism before the reforms of the Vatican II doctrine, said the Prime Minister.