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The Law Commission last month released its briefing to the Minister of Justice providing advice on abortion law reform.
In February, the Minister asked the Law Commission to provide advice on how best to ensure New Zealand’s abortion laws are consistent with treating abortion as a health issue, and what alternative approaches could be taken in New Zealand’s legal framework.
Abortion is a privacy issue
We made a submission to the Law Commission while they were considering the issue. The Privacy Act gives the Privacy Commissioner the broad scope to comment on privacy generally and on any matters affecting the privacy of the individual. Our submission stressed that abortion engages a fundamental right inherent in bodily autonomy and self-determination. Abortion also engages informational privacy rights, and the expectation of privacy and confidentiality in relation to health information.
We were pleased to see the Law Commission recognise our submission in terms of the right to privacy. Their briefing paper noted our submission that privacy embodies the idea of individual and bodily autonomy.
Existing law is inadequate
The Law Commission also noted that the current law’s treatment of abortion as a criminal issue exposes sensitive reproductive health information to the criminal justice system in a way that is not the case for any other health care or medical decision. Personal and sensitive information could become public during a criminal prosecution, or a woman’s health information could be disclosed to Police.
As we stated in our submission:
The potential impact on privacy in relation to particularly sensitive health information means the existing law is inadequate to protect women seeking to exercise a choice relating to their own reproductive rights. It is inconsistent with the treatment of health information and the expectation of patient/doctor confidentiality.
Abortion is a health issue
We support the Government’s goal to ensure that New Zealand law treats abortion as a health issue. Our submission considered other examples of decriminalisation in Canada and Australia, and we recommended that the simplest and most appropriate approach to treating abortion as a health issue is to remove abortion from the criminal law.
Image credit: Women's health icon - via Wikipedia Commons
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