Viewed With Alarm

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 74, 28 March 1936, Page 2

Viewed With Alarm

MATERNAL DEATH RATE “Viewing with alarm the grave increase of maternal deaths due to abortion, this society requests the Prime Minister to consider the advisability of setting up a commission or committee to investigate the matter.” This motion wms passed at a meeting of the executive of the New Zealand Obsterical and Gynaecological Society, said Dr. Doris Gordon, secretary of the society, in an interview at Stratford. Between 1925 and 1934 the maternal deaths in New Zealand from septic abortion rose steadily from 14 in 1925 to 42 in 1934, while tho birth rate dropped consistently each passing year, Dr. Gordon said. Death certificates revealed that the majority of deaths from septic abortion occurred in married women, many of them already having large families and being m poor economic circumstances. In 1934 septic abortion tragedies left 338 children motherless. She said tho society had discussed this problem frem year to year ana found no solution; recently it had received many requests for advice upon tho evil from women's organisations in the Dominion. Tho society, realising that the problem was not purely medical, but involved legal, criminal, religious and economic factors, had asked for a commission to investigate and had promised the Prime Minister that if such a commission was established the society would do all in its power to assist.