Every month, at least one baby who survives an abortion in New Zealand is left to die outside the womb, official government figures show.
Family First New Zealand, a pro-family, pro-life organization, obtained data regarding babies who survive abortions from Health New Zealand, the country’s publicly funded healthcare system. The group reported last week that the data
reveals that since the beginning of 2020, approximately 80 attempted abortions have resulted in a child being born alive but not given life-sustaining care. Gestation periods range from 20 – 30 weeks.
That count, Family First noted, “may be well underestimated because some districts couldn’t or wouldn’t provide the data” even though it was requested under the nation’s freedom-of-information law.
The districts that did respond revealed some unsettling details about how they treat babies who withstand doctors’ attempts to kill them in utero, wrote Family First:
Disturbingly, Te Tai Tokerau district said that life-sustaining care is considered only for “wanted babies at 22 weeks + 5 days.” At Waikato, there is “parental discretion to opt in or opt out of resuscitation.” Canterbury have previously advised that the “baby is wrapped in a blanket and held until it passes.” [Emphasis in original.]
Viable Alternative
Some districts claimed that babies were not saved because they were not yet viable outside the womb. However, survival and active-treatment rates for premature babies continue to rise. A study published earlier this year found that, from 2014 to 2023, the survival rate for babies born at 22 weeks’ gestation increased from 7 percent to 32 percent; for babies born at 33 weeks’, it jumped from 47 percent to 55 percent.
“We know that the limit of viability has been shifting over time,” study coauthor Nansi Boghossian told MedPage Today.
“The most striking result [in the study] is the sharp increase in active treatment for 22-week infants,” Boghossian added. “This indicates a growing willingness among clinicians to intervene aggressively at the earliest stages of prematurity.”
That is, unless their aim is to kill the child, in which case even a baby who could probably be saved will instead be abandoned to a slow, agonizing death.
Concerning the Health New Zealand revelations, Family First CEO Bob McCoskrie said:
We are not surprised by this data — but it is still truly shocking. Whether the unborn child is 15, 20, 30 or 40 weeks in the womb, it will naturally be fighting for its life. That is our human instinct. We should be protecting the lives of innocent babies who survive attempted abortions. We should be making abundantly clear that this is an obligation on medical professionals.
Nicola’s Nightmare
While the figures proving the widespread practice of leaving abortion-surviving infants to die were just released, the practice was already known to exist via anecdotal evidence. In 2021, a medical student who witnessed such an incident recounted it to Voice for Life, a New Zealand pro-life organization.
The student, referred to in Voice for Life’s reporting by the pseudonym Nicola, said her hospital admitted a woman who was 21 weeks’ pregnant and wanted an abortion even though her baby was perfectly healthy. Rather than kill the baby in the womb — a gruesome-enough practice — doctors induced the mother into labor, expecting the baby would die before emerging.
This child, however, was born alive. According to Voice for Life, “a senior staff member told Nicola that the newborn infant was left struggling to breath [sic] for two hours before finally passing away.”
“We wouldn’t do that to an animal,” said Nicola. “I was horrified.”
Penned Voice for Life:
Nicola says that every measure is undertaken to ensure that the mother is made comfortable and experiences as little pain as possible in an abortion, but if a baby does survive, they are given no assistance or comfort as they die….
“It’s actually vile and disgusting that any human would be treated that way[,]” says Nicola, who is still grappling with the trauma of what she experienced.
Worldwide Wickedness
It doesn’t just occur in New Zealand. According to Live Action News:
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that over the course of 12 years, more than a hundred infants were reported to have survived for at least a short time after abortions. Minnesota’s most recent abortion report, for example, revealed that five children were born alive during abortions in that state in 2021 alone. The report further added that none of them received medical care — in other words, they were left to die.
Another report found that over 100 babies were born alive following abortions in just five states over approximately a decade. [Emphasis in original.]
Furthermore, reported LifeNews.com:
A 2024 peer-reviewed study in Swiss Medical Weekly analyzing Canadian health data found that among 13,777 second-trimester terminations (15–29 weeks), 11.2 percent resulted in live births — a rate that rose sharply with gestational age.
Nevertheless, abortion advocates refuse to believe such things happen. When New Zealand’s parliament passed a pro-abortion law in 2020, it overwhelmingly defeated an amendment that would have required doctors to attempt to save the life of a baby that survives abortion. At the time, then-Minister of Health and Labor Andrew Little demanded to “see the science about a child being born after an abortion.”
“Here is the evidence,” McCoskrie said in a press release announcing Family First’s findings. “This is not about politics — this is about having a heart.”
