I could write a book on this subject from being a young girl who Was raped by a probation boy, to having a daughter who was pregnant at 16 and because of my past and the terror I felt from loosing a child I actually bonded with!! to abortion, that was commissioned to go ahead illegally by my parents. Then my daughter wanted to keep her baby Then you have a son who maybe has got a girl pregnant.. who knows.. my girls talk to me about everything regarding the topic of sex. and at the end of the day ..these days hopefully parents can't force a child to do anything they don't want to do.To wrongs don't make a right and that is a fact but nothing can seperate us from God's LOve and Grace either: <3

Yes parents do need to know if their child is having an abortion. I have previously been a Counsellor for Pregnancy Counselling Services and have counselled women who have had abortions sometimes up to 20years after the event. Abortion changes people, they are never the same again. The intentional killing of your own child is right up their at the top of the list of traumas that can cause Post Taumatic Stress disorder and if a parent does not know what has happened to their child they cannot be looking for the signs and be getting the right kind of help for their child. Drs use the mental health loop hole in the law to approve abortions but the women may be healthy though stressed when finding out they are pregnant and going through with the normal birthing process but abortion creates mental illness. I think an excellent statistic to be kept, would be, how many people who enter our mental health wards or go on depression or anxiety medication have previously had an abortion.

Abortion is murder, and it needs to be stopped. From the time of conception, it is a human being, a child, a girl or boy. My husband and I would gladly adopt any unwanted babies. I definitely agree with Bob McCroskie that underaged girls wanting abortions, need their parents consent. You do actually need parental consent at highschool for taking a panadol!!! Wake up NZ and stop the tide of child sacrifice.

If a girl goes to a doctor for an abortion and they are under age doesn't it make sense that they should recieve assistance from both family and a support worker of some kind before a decision is made? It is true that many young girls have become pregnant due to rape and likely within the family if so, but that doesn't mean that the family know about the abuse. I can see why it would be considered appropriate to abort a product of incest but that is not going to fix the problem, if family are involved it makes available a situation to see abusers prosectuted and families to rebuild and support each other. If things are done secretly how can one be sure that other members of the family are not also being abused or at risk in some way?.

for those with an opinion put yourself in the situation of being the pregnant girl. Not everyone gets pregnant by choice, contraception can fail. Those who quote statistics, where are your figures from? "infections post termination etc" this would be credible if it was from a source oher than a small mind with probably no medical knowledge

Interesting.

As a statistician I find this article frustrating. Given population growth of 2 or 3 per cent per year, then in 20 years I would expect ANY statistic to almost double.

Combine that with, say, an changing age distribution in the population and you could easily get to "almost double" without anything else being a factor.

So... medical, moral and ethical issues aside, it's a shame the article didn't spend an extra half an hour doing some more research on statistics.govt.nz.

What is both sickening and at the same time astounding is that at no time has the issue been addressed of the fact that these young girls are UNDER AGE. It is statistically true that the YOUNGER the girl, the OLDER the male - usually young girls of 14 and under are being sexually abused - yes abused - by males in the 20+ age group. So that is the FIRST issue that should be addressed and these males should be taken to court for CARNAL KNOWLEDGE.

And the dramatic language used by the pro-abortion lobby saying it would be 'disasterous' if parents were told their daughters were considering an abortion is ridiculous!!! Parents have a RIGHT to know what is happening in their under-age daughters life - that is GOOD PARENTING.

By the usual convoluted logic obvious today, parents have to sign permission forms for appendicts to be removed, for their child to have a panadol, and yes, to go to the zoo but currently NOT to have their young daughter secreted away to have her unborn baby torn from her womb. Sick logic!

The reason for the law stating parents are not legally required to be informed was made to STOP parents insisting on their daughters having abortions.

Funny how the worm turns.

The sad thing about this is that the person who has the most to lose from an abortion has no say in the matter. That is the baby. If the baby did have a say I bet it would say "don't kill me" There is no such thing as an unwanted baby. There are thousands of people wishing to adopt and love a baby.

David #13 "Let's put all questions of morality aside. If my 11 year old daughter was going to be undergoing surgery of _any_ kind, I would want to know about it."

Sure let's put morality aside, but what about responsibility? Where were you when your 11-year-old daughter was having sex and getting pregnant? Why did you not give her the talk about consequences of having unprotected sex? If you had a good relationship and supported her choices, she'd probably tell you. I don't think you have an automatic right to know.