I’m not surprised to hear on Radio New Zealand that Miller J has found fault in the Abortion Law Supervisory Committee’s performance.

I do not share SPUC’s view that abortion is murder. I think we are lucky that in New Zealand for thirty years we’ve had a muted conflict between those who have that passionate conviction and the rest of us.

Unfortunately that muting has been at the cost of integrity in our law. The 1977 statute was a compromise deal. Those who feel that they are being made complicit in murder through their government, backed off in reliance on the deal. The rest of us almost immediately reneged. And Parliament refused to investigate the minority complaint. It was a sleeping dog MPs were happy to leave sleeping as long as the people being let down by the law remained polite and ineffectual.

Now the cat may be out of the bag. The ASLC’s attitude must deeply worry anyone committed to the rule of law. The Committee regularly tells the Justice and Electoral Select Committee of Parliament that it does not like the law. It pleads with Parliament to change it, and openly admits that it ignores the law to allow abortion as they thought the law should be, not as Parliament had passed it.

Not a good precedent for any future governement that wants to persuade a passionate minority to accept a legislated compromise.