Nationality New Zealander Name Margaret Sparrow | Role Author | |
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Born 25 June 1935 (age 88) ( 1935-06-25 ) Known for Campaigning for reproductive rights Books Rough on Women: Abortion in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand | ||
Dr Dame Margaret June Sparrow DNZM MBE (born 25 January 1935) is a New Zealand medical doctor, reproductive rights advocate, and author.
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Early life
Sparrow was born in Taranaki in 1935, and educated at Waitara District High School and New Plymouth Girls' High School.
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.
While working at the clinic, student demand for contraception led to her introducing the morning-after pill and helping students to get abortions. She worked as a Medical Officer at Student Health until 1981. Between 1977 and 1999 she worked as Visiting Venereologist at Wellington Hospital.
Sparrow has been the president of the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand from 1975-80, and again from 1984–2011.
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. No other pharmaceutical company was interested in importing the drug.
Views
Sparrow believes that the current abortion law is out of date and should be reformed:
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:
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.
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.