Auckland Medical Aid Trust

The Auckland Medical Aid Trust is the sole shareholder of the Auckland Medical Aid Centre Abortion Business.^[1]

AMAT was registered in 1974 as a Charitable Trust. The organisation is a registered charity with an equity of approximately 1.7 million dollars. Of this, the charity has approximately 1 million dollars in investments. In 2008 it earned $257,626 in revenue and spent $216,811 on charitable grants and "cost of service provision".^[1] It is unclear if these expenses are those of the Abortion Business, the Auckland Medical Aid Centre.

Mission

The mission of the trust is found on its website:^[2]

"To establish and maintain a comprehensive health and welfare service related to the human reproductive process and its control (whether by means of contraception, sterilization, abortion or otherwise) and to that end to establish, provide and maintain hospitals and clinics and surgical, medical, pharmaceutical, counselling and welfare services. To arrange and conduct lectures meetings and classes and to publish and disseminate literature and to do all other things to educate the public in the facts of human reproduction and the human reproductive process and of all matters concerning reproductive health and well-being physical and social."

The website states on its "History" page:^[3]

"Given the highly unsatisfactory state of affairs in the field of abortion prior to the Trust's establishment, an out-patient abortion service was a high priority for the Trust. Its first clinic in Great South Road was forced to close in 1975 with the passing of the Hospitals Amendment Bill, so the Trust moved its service to a private hospital in Ranfurly Road, Epsom. AMAT pioneered abortion counselling and the training of abortion counsellors, and made abortion available in New Zealand to all those entitled to it. The Trust now provides an abortion service in Dominion Road, where pregnancy counselling and termination is provided by the Auckland Medical Aid Centre Ltd., a charitable company wholly owned by AMAT."

• Charlotte Parkes wrote a history of the Auckland Medical Aid Centre which was commissioned by the Auckland Medical Aid Trust.^[4]
• Michelle Brewerton, policy advisor^[5]

The AMAT Research Institute was founded in 1997 "to publish and disseminate literature, and promote educational material in matters of human reproduction".^[6]

As at 15 April, 2010, the institute was investigating possibilities for sponsoring research and or publication within the scope of their objectives. In April the trust was negotiating a proposal with the University of Auckland to offer a doctoral scholarship within the social context of human reproduction. Possible themes and concepts for study or investment which AMAT would consider sponsoring included:^[7]

• Reconceptualising the construction of ‘human reproduction’
• Influence of legislative change
• Political decision-making
• Social traditions emanating from decision points (conception, abortion, birth etc)
• Education for teenage mothers - teenage sexualty, pregnancy and abortion
• Conceptions of the Embryo
• Maternal Cyborg
• Being and becoming human
• Perspectives on human reproduction
• Getting a child (conception, assisted reproduction, pregnancy, birth)
• Preventing a child (contraception, sterilisation, abortion)
• Social reproduction
• Scholarship for Masters level thesis (within the social context of human reproduction)
• Establish commercial marketing/ communication centre

Auckland Medical Aid Trust Scholarship

AMAT has an annual Scholarship, worth $25,000 for individuals to undertake research towards a doctoral degree at a New Zealand university. The following have received the scholarship:

• Joanne Richdale - wrote her PhD thesis on "A Social History of Abortion in Twentieth-Century Aotearoa New Zealand, 1919-1950".^[8]
• Rebecca Bollard, University of Waikato student - researched deliberative decision making and how it could be used to create policy around assisted reproductive technology. (2013)^[9]
• Wambui Njagi - completed her doctoral thesis, researching the how politics influences abortion in Kenya.^[10]

• Website: www.amat.org.nz
• Address: PO Box 29 095, Greenwoods Corner, Auckland, New Zealand
• Email: info@amat.org.nz

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Charities Commission website: Auckland Medical Aid Trust 2008 Annual Return
2. ↑ AMAT website: Objects (accessed on 27 July, 2010)
3. ↑ AMAT website: History (accessed on 27 July, 2010)
4. ↑ AMAC: An historical perspective on abortion in New Zealand (accessed on 2 July, 2011)
5. ↑ AMAT: Newsletter, Vol. 1, Nov. 1999
6. ↑ AMAT website: Research (accessed on 27 July, 2010)
7. ↑ AMAT website: Research Promotion Ideas (accessed on 27 July, 2010)
8. ↑ New Horizons for Women: 2008 Annual Report (accessed on 1 July, 2011)
9. ↑ University of Waikato: Waikato student researching the policy implications of reproductive technology, Jan. 17, 2013 (accessed on Sep. 23, 2013)
10. ↑ Waikato University: The politics behind unsafe abortions in Kenya, Feb. 25, 2013 (accessed on Sep. 23, 2013)