Auckland Medical Aid Centre (AMAC), a privately owned abortion facility, is now benefiting from tax payer’s dollars as it provides first trimester abortions on behalf of local DHB’s.
The website of the Ministry of Health states that AMAC is a provider of free abortion and contraceptive services on behalf of the Auckland, Waitemata and Counties-Manukau District Health Boards. AMAC’s own website provides confirmation.
A charitable trust, AMAC has been reliant on the business of immigrants and overseas visitors who are not eligible for publicly funded healthcare. With the advent of Covid, closed borders, and fewer potential customers, their income has taken a hit in recent years.
Charities Services records the income of registered charities. The most recent return for AMAC shows their income was $1,112,892 for the year ended 31 March 2021; a deficit of more than $250,000 from the previous year.
Even prior to Covid, AMAC’s business was diminishing, with a low of 809 abortions reported at that facility in 2019, well down on previous years. The decline can be attributed in part to the peaceful, prayerful presence of pro-lifers each week, and in special initiatives such as 40 Days for Life.
DHB’s call for new abortion providers
In October 2020, the District Health Boards of Auckland, Waitemata and Counties-Manukau sought expressions of interest from interested parties to provide first trimester medical and surgical abortions.
According to the paper outlining the “opportunity”, the contracts for those who were successful in the tender were to begin on 1 July 2021, lasting for a period of three years.
A request for information from Abortion Services regarding the tender, and which applicants were successful has been met with silence.
For women who do not qualify for free healthcare in New Zealand, abortion carries a cost. Both medical and surgical abortions at AMAC cost $1600, including the initial consultation fee. Private fees for abortion vary throughout New Zealand, and are determined by the provider.
While it seemed likely that AMAC would put in a tender to the DHB’s to provide abortions on their behalf, the news is disappointing. It is likely that the number of pre-born children killed in that building will increase; more women will be harmed psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and some physically; families and relationships will be negatively impacted. All of this devastation at the tax-payer’s expense.
Maori and Pacific women are now specifically targeted for LARCs
In addition to providing first trimester abortions for the three Auckland metro DHB’s, AMAC is also earning dollars from its provision of Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARCs) to Maori and Pacific women, as well as to those who are low income.
Over recent years AMAC has made efforts to increase its contraceptive clients, in particular those seeking Long Acting Reversible Contraception.
Long Acting Contraceptives include:
- IUDs, including the Copper T and hormonal versions such as Mirena;
- Implants such as Jadelle;
- Depo Provera shots.
AMAC’s contraceptive service comes at a steep price if paying as a private patient. However, this too, is now funded by local DHBs for those who fit the criteria. AMAC is benefiting from the tax payer for both abortions and LARC insertion.
DHB funding for LARCs is targeted towards Maori and Pacific women, and for women who are in the low-income bracket, or who are “at risk for poor outcomes from an unplanned pregnancy.”
The funding has been available since 2019, although AMAC only appears to have begun to supply this particular pathway in recent months.
Although Long Acting Contraception is marketed as a way to prevent pregnancy for between five and seven years, the reality is that at times these methods function as abortifacients. An abortifacient doesn’t just prevent pregnancy, it ensures that even if fertilization does take place, the newly created human being cannot implant in the mother’s womb.
Oral contraceptives can also act in an abortifacient manner, as can the morning after pill.
It is always concerning when a particular group of people are targeted for contraception and abortion. Especially when those people tend to be marginalised to begin with. However, the eradication of those deemed “unfit” was one of the goals of the modern birth control movement from the very beginning.
Margaret Sanger, the founder of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, was well known for her eugenic thinking. She articulated this thinking in a letter to Dr C.J. Gamble in 1939:
“We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
New Zealand Family Planning is a member association of IPPF. The organisation lobbies and informs governmental policy in New Zealand. The dream of Margaret Sanger lives on in the decisions made by governmental agencies who look to Family Planning for direction.
A short history of AMAC
The Auckland Medical Aid Centre is the practical arm of the Auckland Medical Aid Trust. AMAC was the first abortion facility in New Zealand, opening in 1974 on Great South Road. In 1975, the Hospitals Amendment Act, which permitted abortions to take place only in licensed hospitals, was passed. AMAC closed. It re-opened in 1980 in Ranfurly Road, Epsom. Some time later it moved to its current location on Dominion Road where tens of thousands of pre-born children have been aborted. The Auckland Medical Aid Centre is the practical arm of the Auckland Medical Aid Trust.