Our history

Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa was set up in 1936. It was at first known as the Sex Hygiene and Birth Regulation Society. At that time, contraception was basic and unreliable.

It was common at this time for women to die from illegal abortions. A Government inquiry (the McMillan Inquiry) in 1937 found that at least one pregnancy in five ended in abortion, and that the majority of women dying from illegal abortions were married with four or more children. We began to promote the benefits of contraception.

In 1939 we changed our name to the New Zealand Family Planning Association. 

In April 1940, we were said to have broken postal regulations by posting obscene literature - it was a flier which used the word "contraception".

The following year, 1941, we set up a fund to help needy women pay for contraception.

Where Did I Come From was our first sexuality education brochure. It was produced in 1942.

The Dominion Population Committee Report (published in 1946) said that if contraceptives were more widely issued they could destroy the moral stamina of the nation. The report dashed any hope that the contraception clinics recommended in the McMillan Inquiry (1937) would be established.

Lower Hutt was the location for our first national conference in 1951. Just two years later we opened our first contraception clinic in Remuera, Auckland.

The Mazengarb Report, formally the Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents, was released in 1954. It was followed by legislation which made it illegal to provide or discuss contraception with anyone under 16.

Christchurch was the site of our second clinic which opened in 1956.

A year later (1957) our Auckland clinics began routine cervical smears - a radical practice at the time.

Several women with early stage cervical cancer were detected.

The contraceptive pill became available in New Zealand in 1961. For the first time, married women had a reliable method of contraception.

However in 1965, the New Zealand Branch of the British Medical Association ethical committee advised doctors against prescribing the pill to unmarried women.

The Association said that to facilitate extra-marital relationships was not in keeping with the highest ideals of the medical profession.

By 1965, it was estimated that 40 per cent of married, fertile women in New Zealand were on the pill.

From 1972 onwards, we received some Government funding and were able to open more clinics.

The first abortion clinic opened in Auckland in 1974. It was soon raided by police and forced to close down. Large numbers of women travelled to Sydney for abortions throughout this decade until the law was changed. We called for abortion to be legal for women with an early unwanted pregnancy.

The Royal Commission on Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion was held and its report, released in March 1977, okayed contraception within marriage and reluctantly allowed contraception to be prescribed outside of marriage.

The Commission report also recommended the establishment of the Abortion Supervisory Committee - a register of doctors allowed to make decisions on abortion requests.

In December 1977, Parliament passed the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act - legislation which still largely sets our abortion rules today.

HIV/AIDS was first identified in New Zealand in 1984. At the time, 51 New Zealanders were known to have contracted the illness and 22 had died.

In the 1980s, Sexually Transmissible Infections (STIs) increased, and we promoted condoms as a means of reducing the risk of STIs and HIV/AIDS, and as a method of contraception.

We adopted our sexuality education philosophy in 1985. The philosophy expressed people’s right to live free of discrimination and express their sexuality without hurt or violence of others.

Health Minister Helen Clark introduced the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Amendment Bill in 1989. The Bill aimed to repeal the section that limited contraception education for under 16 year olds and to abolish the certifying consultant system. The bill was eventually split in two allowing young people to be told about contraception. There was no change to the abortion legislation.

Towards the end of the 1980s, we began to address Te Tiriti o Waitangi issues and the fact that Māori had limited access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Te Puawai Tapu (the sacred blossom) was formed in 1990. It is an independent organisation that works to improve Maori sexual and reproductive health.

Our central funding ceased after health sector reforms in 1993. Funding was instead through contracts with four regional health authorities and the Public Health Commission.

The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo was a milestone in the history of population and development, as well as in the history of women's rights. At the conference the world agreed that population is not just about counting people, but about making sure that every person counts.

In 1996, Health Minister Jenny Shipley announced a major strategy on sexual and reproductive health. It put forward a range of ideas from sexuality education in schools to allowing women easier access to the pill. This signalled a new level of support from Government for sexual and reproductive health.

The Ministry of Health launched the Sexual and Reproductive Health Strategy in 2001 and a resource book was released in 2003.

These documents outlined the Government's vision for positive and improved sexual and reproductive health for all New Zealanders, and how this could be achieved.

By 2008 we were calling for the strategy to be properly resourced and implemented, so that unplanned pregnancy, abortion, HIV/AIDS, cervical cancer and sub-fertility could be reduced.

That same year we released a resource for the deaf community for the first time - a DVD in New Zealand Sign Language.

Hei Huarahi, our first electronically delivered resource, was developed in 2010. This resource is a sexuality education resource for teachers of Year 10 (Form Four) students.

Two years of our advocacy paid off when PHARMAC announced that the Jadelle contraceptive implant would be subsidised from 1 August 2010.

The decision means most women will pay very little or even nothing at all to get the implant.

Also in 2010, we launched a te reo Māori sexuality education resource, Te Huarahi Hokakatanga. The teaching resource was New Zealand’s first te reo Māori sexuality resource released nationwide.

We began offering an early medical abortion service at our Tauranga Clinic in April 2013. Late in the year we set up a Client Contact Centre in Hamilton to make it easier for clients to make appointments.

In June 2014, we expanded phone services to include a consult line that nurses can use to prescribe contraceptive pill repeats and the ECP. 

After years of us advocating for the change, widened prescribing rights for registered nurses were granted in September 2016. This gives our nurses greater autonomy to help our clients. 

In February 2017, the Jadelle — a contraceptive implant — was made available on a practitioner’s supply order (PSO). Our clients no longer need to fill a prescription to get their implant — we can keep it stocked in clinic. 

In November 2019, hormonal intrauterine devices (IUDs) Mirena and Jaydess were approved as fully funded prescription contraception — making a wider range of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) accessible in Aotearoa.    

Abortion law reform legislation was finally passed in March 2020 — we first submitted in support of this legislative reform in 2018. Abortion law reform modernised the legal framework for abortion in Aotearoa by: 

• Decriminalising abortion 
• Allowing pregnant people to self-refer to abortion providers 
• Widening the range of health practitioners that can provide abortion care 
• Removing statutory clinical requirements for abortions before 20 weeks 

In 2021, we won the contract in partnership with Magma Healthcare to deliver the national abortion telehealth service, DECIDE. DECIDE provides information about abortion, abortion services, and information about abortion care in Aotearoa, as well as an early medical abortion by phone service. 

In March 2022 the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill was passed — we first submitted in support of this legislative reform in 2021. The Act means a Safe Area may be created around an abortion service provider’s premises. Certain behaviours are prohibited within a Safe Area.

In September 2023 the main test for cervical screening changed to a human papillomavirus (HPV) test. This means, that for most people, a simple vaginal swab is now taken for cervical screening. You can even swab your vagina yourself — behind a privacy curtain or in the clinic bathroom. This change to the screening programme means more people are able to access safe and accurate life-saving healthcare.

In December 2023 we launched a new website — to better connect people to essential sexual and reproductive healthcare services — right across Aotearoa. 

In February 2024 we rebranded, changing our name from Family Planning to Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa. The new name and brand is the most significant public facing reset of the organisation since 1939 when we stopped being the Sex Hygiene and Birth Regulation Society and became the Family Planning Association. Since 1936, we’ve been normalising sexual and reproductive health, making it easier to talk about, and helping people feel comfortable about sex and sexuality. Our new brand better reflects our work, and commitment to help New Zealanders build a comfortable relationship with their sexual wellbeing.