Brian Tamaki, whose wife Hannah is running for Parliament, has blamed abortion on "demonic forces", calling the medical procedure "Satan's attempt to kill God in effigy" and "premeditated murder".
In a statement posted to his official Twitter account, the head of Destiny Church compared it to the Holocaust, in which around 6 million Jewish people were systematically slaughtered by the Nazis.
"Abortion is none other than the savage pagan practises of baby sacrifice described in [the Bible]," the self-appointed 'Apostle' wrote.
"This is human sacrifice to demons... a demonic genocide. It is an act of child sacrifice to the postmodern radical left's demons of convenience".
New Zealand's abortion laws are expected to undergo significant reform soon, with it likely to be taken out of the Crimes Act and dealt with purely as a health concern. Research has found countries with stricter abortion laws tend to have similar rates of abortion to places where it's legal, but higher rates of complication and deaths, because women are forced to go underground.
Lowered abortion rates have been linked to increased access to contraception - Destiny Church promotes abstinence instead.
Tamaki said foetuses have just as much as right to the womb as the mother.
"Words and phrases like 'foetal tissue', 'abortion', 'pro-choice', 'women's rights', 'women's health care' and 'my body my choice' are words and phrases of convenience designed to hide the bloody murder of human life made in God's image."
Tamaki also claimed "the remains of unborn children" are being used in women's cosmetics. This appears to be a reference to a 2009 case in which the parents of a baby that had to be aborted for medical reasons donated the tissue to science. A piece of its skin was passed onto pharmaceutical company Neocutis, with the permission of the parents, to develop a cell line for use in a product used to heal skin after burns and medical procedures.
"Our products do not directly use the originally donated tissue in any way," Neocutis says on it site. "We only use proteins derived from cultured skin cells (grown from a dedicated cell bank). These were not embryonic stem cells. No other donation will ever be necessary."
Neocutis said a similar procedure using donated foetal tissue was used to develop the polio vaccine, credited with saving millions of lives.
Hannah told Newshub her husband "does not sent the policy agenda or the position for Coalition NZ on any issue".
"However he is not wrong in his concerns that today’s politicians seem far more excited about the culture of death and how to legislate that in this country, than they are about reducing poverty, building homes or halving immigration numbers.
"Coalition NZ believes every life matters, every life is valuable and that politicians meddling in that space is short-sighted and dangerous. This will be reflective in our policies [sic]."
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In an earlier post on Twitter, Tamaki asked 'what is with this Labour Government on "cancer care" and "killing babies and the elderly".
Hannah called it "thought-provoking language".
Newshub.
