MATERNAL DEATH ROLL

Patea Mail, 30 March 1936, Page 1

MATERNAL DEATH ROLL

MAJOR ITT CACHED 13 V ABORTION ADVISABILITY 01] INVESTIGATION. "Vi: wing 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 was passed at a meeting of the executive of the Now Zealand Obstetrical ami Gynaecological Society, said Dt. Doris Gordon, secretary of the society, in an interview at Stratford. Between 1925 and 1934 the maternal deaths in New Zealand from septic abortions rose steadily from 14 in .1925 to 42 in .1934, while the 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 in poor economic circumstances. In 1934 septic abortion tragedies left 338 children motherless. Sli; said the society had discussed this problem from year to year and found no solution; recently it had received many women’s organisations in the Dominion. The, 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.