This week on the Pro-Life World View, we bring you interesting articles discussing the high prescribing rates for puberty blockers in New Zealand, the growing promotion of organ harvesting as the means of euthanasia and much more.
Puberty blocker use in New Zealand far higher than similar countries
Isaac Davidson – New Zealand Herald
Puberty blocker use in New Zealand far higher than similar countries – study
Emeritus Professor Charlotte Paul, an Otago University-based Epidemiologist and Public Health expert, has published a study finding that prescribing rates for puberty blockers to young patients in New Zealand are up to seven times higher than in other “similar” countries. The situation is contrary to the Cass Review, which concluded that “the evidence for treating dysphoria with puberty blockers was weak.” As a result of this review, routine use of the drugs in young people in the UK was promptly suspended.
“It is shameful that New Zealand is lagging behind other jurisdictions who are realising the often life-long harm that puberty blockers do to young people,” noted FLI National Director Michelle Kaufman. “It is time New Zealand followed the example of the UK by discontinuing puberty blockers. Resources would be better spent on providing support for young people and their families, getting to the root cause of why a person is feeling so disassociated with their biological sex.”
The Human Rights Commission’s approach to “conversion ideology” has worrying implications for religious freedom
Alex Penk – Ethos News
The Human Rights Commission’s approach to “conversion ideology” has worrying implications for religious freedom
According to Alex Penk, CEO of human rights advocacy group Ethos Alliance, a New Zealand Human Rights Commission report, entitled Conversion Practices in Aotearoa New Zealand, “leans heavily in favour of one set of rights—freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity—and pays little more than lip service to rights that uphold religious freedom.”
Mr Penk cites numerous examples of the Commission’s startling lack of understanding of religions and religious belief, with a bias against Christianity in particular. What is most disturbing is that the report was written by officers of a quasi-judicial government organisation charged with investigating and upholding human rights in New Zealand. The Commission appears dangerously close to breaching the same laws it was established to uphold.
Draft guidelines saying nurses midwives must respect abortion criticised
Niamh Ui Bhriain – Gript News
Draft guidelines saying nurses, midwives “must” respect abortion condemned
Nurses and Midwives for Life Ireland have condemned a draft Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics from the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland. The proposed Code coined the term “you must” to indicate an obligation to comply, including the obligation to “respect a woman’s legal right to a termination of pregnancy.”
Mary Fitzgibbon, Vice-chair of Nurses and Midwives for Life Ireland, draws attention to the contradiction between this obligation and the preceding one: “[you must] respect and maintain the dignity of human life”.
In New Zealand, a health practitioner has a right to object to providing abortion services but is then required to inform a woman seeking an abortion of their objection and “how to access the contact details of another person who is the closest provider of the service requested.” Codes of conduct that coerce health professionals over abortion violate both natural and divine law: “You shall not kill.”
Committee rejects bill to protect babies born alive after abortion
Michael Howard – The Catholic Leader
Queensland committee rejects bill to protect babies born alive after abortion
A parliamentary committee in Queensland, Australia, has recommended that the Government reject a private member’s bill to protect babies born alive after abortion. Babies in Queensland who survive late-term abortions can legally be left to die by the doctors and midwives who deliver them. More than 200 babies were abandoned to die after abortion in Queensland between 2018 and 2022. As we have previously noted, similar attempts in New Zealand to provide legal protection for babies who survive induced abortion have lamentably failed to get enough support in Parliament.
Medical journal pushes conjoining euthanasia and organ harvesting
Wesley J Smith – National Review
Medical Journal Pushes Conjoining Euthanasia and Organ Harvesting
Wesley J Smith, a leading ethicist and defender of life, comments on the strong support within the medical establishment for taking advantage of euthanasia to enhance the availability and effectiveness of organ harvesting. In 1993, Smith predicted this “plum to society” as an inevitable outcome of legalising assisted suicide, and he is now warning about the next steps down this utilitarian path, namely organ harvesting as the means of euthanasia which, he points out, “has already been proposed in a major bioethics journal.”
Michelle Kaufman, FLI’s National Director, commented: “Harvesting organs as the means of euthanasia, namely killing the donor, is obviously homicide and we must be steadfast in our resistance to such an evil.”
- Pro-Life World View | June 12, 2026
This week’s Pro-Life World View covers various issues, including the defeat of assisted suicide bills in Scotland, the UK, and France, a lawsuit by Florida parents against an IVF clinic, Planned Parenthood’s “Just in Case” abortion pill scheme, a class action by Scottish women against Pfizer, and the establishment of the US’s first Detransition Clinic. - Saint Gianna Beretta Molla: A Saint For Our Times
Saint Gianna Beretta Molla was a wife, mother and physician. Her virtuous life is a reminder of the truth about the dignity of the human person and of marriage and family life. - St Gianna Beretta Molla Novena
At a time when the dignity of life and the beauty of the family need strong and faithful witnesses, we turn to St Gianna Beretta Molla to intercede on our…