Court to rule on birth 'porn'
 

10.10.2002
By GREGG WYCHERLEY
The Government's child welfare agency has gone to court to try to stop a woman having a pornographic movie made of the birth of her child.

The woman, 7 1/2 months pregnant, is a former stripper known only by her stage name, Nikki.

Yesterday Child Youth and Family chief social worker Shannon Pakura applied to the High Court at Hamilton for a wardship order to prevent moviemaker Vixen Direct from filming the birth.

The Deputy Solicitor-General, Helen Aikman, appearing for the agency, said the unborn baby was entitled to grow up free of the stigma that would inevitably follow if the movie was allowed to proceed.

She said that filming during childbirth would harm the unborn baby, and was an infringement of the child's privacy. "What the mother is proposing to do is not illegal, but ... would have a negative flow-on effect nevertheless.

"The baby faces the prospect, locally at least, of growing up being known as the 'porn baby'."

Childbirth was rightly regarded as a private matter and it was not acceptable for it to be "sexualised" for use in pornography.

"It's a new fetish, and the start no doubt of what porn film makers hope will be more to come."

She said the child would be harmed even if labour was simulated in the film, because the mother had publicised her intention to give birth during the movie.

"Here we have a mother who has gone public that she is making a porn film."

Ms Aikman said the unborn baby was "likely to be harmed merely by association with the film".

"The child will grow up knowing. She won't know who has seen the video. Anyone she meets may have seen the video."


Justice Paul Heath said the matter was particularly difficult because it required the court to decide how far jurisdiction extended to guardianship over an unborn child.

"At some point the state shouldn't intervene, and at some point the state should."

He asked Vixen Direct manager Steve Crowe, who was in court. to assure him the mother would not be filmed overnight.

The case is expected to finish today.

oh my god! does that mean that discovery and learning channel have been showing porn all these years?! :p