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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Treaty of Waitangi issues and the fact that Maori had limited access to sexual and reproductive health services.

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.

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.

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 sexuality education resource, Te Huarahi Hokakatanga. The teaching resource was New Zealand’s first Maori-language 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.