November 20, 2014
Abortion secrecy irks MP
Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox wants to remove the confidentiality around teenagers who want to conceal an abortion from their parents.
Mrs Fox, who is an active member of the Latter Day Saints, has just reurned from an international parliamentary interfaith conference that was part of the G20 Summit in Australia.
She says it raised interesting quesions about the line between politics and religion, which is often of concern in Maori and Pacific communities where relgion is an important aspect.
She says the current law that girls and women of any age can have an abortion without the knowledge or consent of their parents seems abhorrent for thoise of a religious background, and it also doesn't seem to fit with the country's ideals.
"The questions that arise from – where did she get pregnant from? Is there an issue of incest or family violence? – if that's the case, then their is a court to deal with that because what we have heard is that sometimes there are young people who are being taken by a nurse to have an abortion without the knowledge and consent of parents and then coming to a lot of personal difficulty afterwards in dealing with the fall out emotionally of what that means without having the knowledge of parents or of close family members to support them through that process," Mrs Fox says.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH MARAMA FOX CLICK ON THE LINK
https://secure.zeald.com/uma/play_podcast?podlink=MjQyMzE=
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