By Special Correspondent in New ZealandWELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND (ANS) – Pro-life organisation Right to Life has won a victory in the New Zealand High Court over evidence that can be produced in a major court case yet to be heard.

Pro-life organisation Right to Life has won a victory in the New Zealand High Court over evidence that can be produced in a major court case yet to be heard.Right to Life has taken the Abortion Supervisory Committee to court on the grounds that it has failed to properly interpret the law.

As part of the case, it plans to produce evidence from six women who have had abortions. Their evidence recounts that counselling they received was to facilitate an abortion and that they were not informed of the potential physical and psychological damage that might follow having an abortion.

The Crown challenged that evidence on the grounds that it was irrelevant and should be inadmissible. It filed a second claim that orders suppressing the name and identity of the women should be withdrawn, and asked to have expert evidence of a specialist consultant psychiatrist deemed irrelevant and inadmissible.

The hearing for the strike out action was held on October 29, and the High Court has now rejected the Crown applications.

Right to Life spokesman Ken Orr said the judgment was a victory for women and their unborn children, and they now have the right to be heard.

He said the court recognised that the evidence of the specialist psychiatrist was relevant.

Her evidence states that termination of pregnancy creates a significant risk of giving rise to increased and more severe depression. “Termination of the pregnancy will not therefore be necessarily the appropriate treatment for depression.”

She also states that “another difficulty in using the termination of a pregnancy to assist in the treatment of depression is that in the case of moderately and severely depressed women their judgment is distorted and their ability to give consent would be in doubt.

“In such cases, it would be other people who make the decision about their having an abortion rather than the woman herself.”

The full court case is now expected to be heard by the High Court in the middle of this year.