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“Repeal Support Is Snowballing”

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Description: These images were taken for the April 23rd 1978, edition of the Tribune weekly newspaper, the first of which was published with the caption “Counting signatures (from left): Mrs Bev Williams. Mr Hugh Williams and Miss Elaine Freer.”

An excerpt from the article read: “More than 10,000 Palmerston North people have signed the REPEAL petition in the city - and there is still a week to go before the petition closes. Nationally, the signature total more than 180,000 and REPEAL looks like becoming New Zealand's second largest petition, says Palmerston North’s regional co-ordinator for REPEAL Hugh Williams. The national target is for half the country's electorate to sign the petition.”

…

“REPEAL, which calls for the scrapping of the present Parliamentary abortion legislation in favour of the former legislation, will be ‘closed off’ on April 30. It will be forwarded as early as possible to Parliament's new session, which starts on May 10, Mr Williams says.”

These images form part of the Manawatū Evening Standard Negative Collection. Unfortunately, only negatives between April and December 1978 are held.

In November 1977, the ‘Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act’ made it more difficult for New Zealanders to access safe and legal abortions despite doing so already being defined as a criminal offence. The REPEAL petition to overturn this act eventually garnered 318,820 signatures but was largely ignored by the government, although some amendments were eventually made. Substantive changes to the act were not made until 2020, when abortion was removed from the Crimes Act 1961.