Back in June, a High Court Judge (old and male, of course) decided that there was "reason to doubt" the lawfulness of many abortions performed in New Zealand. While no orders were issued, the ruling puts the current system of de facto abortion on demand under threat.
Fortunately the Abortion Supervisory Committee is appealing, arguing that the judge provided no evidential foundation for their position. While Christians might believe it to be self-evident from abortion rates, that doesn't actually follow; what is actually being implied here is that thousands of clinical decisions being made by medical professionals are being made incorrectly - something the judge provided any evidence for beyond his prejudices about abortion rates. While they're at it, they may also want to argue about the desirability of untrained judges substituting their "expertise" for that of medical professionals in making clinical decisions. While there needs to be some check and balance here, the manifest difference in expertise suggests the courts should show some deference to medical professionals; what the standard is, I'm not sure (I assume there's already caselaw on it somewhere), but I'd expect it to be well into the "unreasonableness" area of the scale presented by Dean Knight here.
Unfortunately, the right to lifers are also appealing, pushing for the courts to recognise that embryos have human rights (something not recognised anywhere in NZ law, and which would require a truly novel interpretation of the law). So, this is going to go on for a while, and possibly all the way to the Supreme Court.
