Margaret Sparrow

Margaret Sparrow
DNZM MBE
Born (1935-06-25) 25 June 1935
Nationality New Zealander
Known for Campaigning for reproductive rights

Dame Margaret Sparrow DNZM MBE (born 25 January 1935) is a doctor, reproductive rights advocate, and author.

Early life

Sparrow was born in Taranaki in 1935, and educated at Waitara District High School and New Plymouth Girls' High School.[1]

Career

Sparrow started her career in health working at the student health centre at Victoria University of Wellington in the late 1960s. At the time, the clinic would only allow contraception to be given to married couples, and she had to go against the wishes of the director of the clinic to put up an information display about contraception.[2] While working at the clinic, student demand for contraception led to her introducing the morning-after pill and helping students to get abortions.[3] She worked as a Medical Officer at Student Health until 1981.[1]

Between 1977 and 1999 she worked as Visiting Venereologist at Wellington Hospital.[1]

Sparrow has been the president of the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand from 1975 to 1980 and again from 1984–2011.[4]

She is a Director of Istar Ltd, a not-for-profit company that imports the abortion pill mifepristone from France. The pill was approved for use in 2001, and allowed women to have medical – rather than surgical – abortions for the first time.[5] No other pharmaceutical company was interested in importing the drug.[6]

Views

Sparrow believes that the current abortion law is out of date and should be reformed:

“ Our [abortion] law is so old, it’s creaking at the seams ... It was devised at a time when only surgical options were there, people didn’t even dream of having a medical abortion pill you could take.[6] ”

She is also critical of the way the current abortion system forces women to claim they need abortions on the grounds of a danger to mental health:

“ You have to have grounds for an abortion, and in New Zealand 98 per cent of the grounds are mental health, which I think is an absolute farce. It’s just ticking boxes, and just putting people into categories, and just pretending that… having an abortion will be for the sake of your mental health. Well, I think that’s all just barriers that are put up.[6] ”

Honours

She was awarded an MBE in 1987, the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal in 1993, and the DCNZM for services to medicine and the community in 2002, which in 2009 became a DNZM.

The Family Planning clinic in Wellington is named after Sparrow.[7]

Sparrow was a keen collector of contraceptive devices which were later donated to Te Papa. In 2015-2016 Te Papa used them as the core of an exhibition on contraception.[8]

Publications

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Margaret June SPARROW". Capital & Coast District Health Board. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
  2. ↑ "Alice Bush and Margaret Sparrow". Te Ara. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  3. ↑ "Sex, drugs and country dancing". The Wellingtonian. 8 November 2012. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  4. ↑ "Dame Margaret steps aside from abortion reform group". The New Zealand Herald. NZPA. 30 March 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  5. ↑ "Past President, Dame Margaret Sparrow". ALRANZ. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 Mulligan, Jayne (16 August 2015). "The Golden Speculum". Salient magazine. Wellington. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
  7. ↑ "Margaret Sparrow Clinic - Wellington". Family Planning New Zealand. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  8. ↑ http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/WhatsOn/exhibitions/Pages/MargaretSparrowMay2015.aspx
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