THREAT TO NATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 276, 20 November 1937, Page 10

THREAT TO NATION

INCIDENCE OF ABORTION AUCKLAND CLERICS APPEAL TO j GOVERNMENT [ Ter Press /ssociation. ] AUCKLAND, Nov. 19. Since the publication on April 12 of Lhe report of the Maternity Services Investigation Committee which was set up by the Government to inquire into the incidence of abortion in New Zealand, a flood of resolutions from numerous sources has been sent to the Government. Clerics of Auckland, prominent throughout the New Zealand Church, have prepared a joint appeal to the Government which strikes rather a different note from the formal resolutions to which much publicity has been given. “V/e urge upon the Government the duty of taking immediate and drastic action to deal with an evil that threatens the very existence of the nation,” the appeal states. “We also believe that the Government should deal with certain provocative causes of the situation complained of, including the sale of salacious literature and the use of liquor at and in the vicinity of public dances. We make this appeal to the Government with a deep sense of our responsibility to the nation and with the very gravest sense of the extreme urgency of the matter and of the irreparable harm inflicted on the minds and hearts of the young by these evils.” The signatures to the appeal are Archbishop Averill, Bishop Liston, Rev. J. A. Allan (representing lhe Moderator of the Presbyterian Church), Rev. E. D. Fatchett (chairman of lhe Auckland Methodist District Synod), Dr. J. J. North (representing the Auckland Baptist Auxiliary), Rev. H Johnson (Moderator of the Auckland Congregational Churches), Brigadier A. J. Sutter (Auckland Division Commander of the Salvation Army), Rev. A. Astor (rabbi of the Auckland Hebrew congregation.)