Marilyn Pryor

Marilyn Valeria Pryor, DSG (née Lobb; 10 August 1936 – 15 March 2005) was a New Zealand conservative Catholic, and anti-abortion advocate who served on the Executive Council of Voice for Life, and served administrative roles for New Zealand's Thomas Stafford Williams. Since the 1990s she worked on, and in her latter years was the editor of, Wellington's Diocese Catholic Newspaper - WelCom. She held an admiration for Cardinal Joseph Bernadin.

Pryor was of Ngāi Tahu descent and became New Zealand's first Māori Papal Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great in 1996. She died of motor neurone disease in 2005.

Early life (1936–1975) Marilyn Lobb was born in Vivian Street, Wellington in 1936 to her Australian father and European-Māori mother. Through her maternal grandmother's mother Mary Joss, she was a great-great-granddaughter of William and Sarah Cameron, daughter of John Howell and his first wife Kohikohi, a young Kāti Māmoe princess of Raratoka Island. Her maternal grandfather was a grandson of Patrick Gilroy.

Lobb went to work after finishing high school, working at Berger Paints, and the Soil Bureau, while finishing her University Entrance at night school. She attended first year chemistry classes at Victoria University of Wellington where she also served as a lab assistant, as well as an assistant dental technician to the New Zealand Medical Research Council. In 1958 she married Geoffrey Pryor and left full-time waged employment.

Anti-abortion advocate (1975–2005) Marilyn Pryor was a devoted conservative Catholic and strongly supported her church's opposition to abortion in New Zealand. She served on the National Executive Council of the Society for Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) - later renamed Voice for Life (1975–1982),

Party Affiliation Although Mrs Pryor began her political career as a conservative New Zealand Labour Party supporter, due to the anti-abortion views of the late Prime Minister Norman Kirk in the early seventies, she resigned when his successor, Bill Rowling, stated that he would hold a referendum on the abortion issue if Labour won the 1978 New Zealand General Election, which it did not. She subsequently joined the New Zealand National Party instead, and lost nomination for its Kapiti electorate to Roger Sowry in 1987, who later served as a Cabinet Minister under the administrations of Jim Bolger and Jenny Shipley in the nineties. Although her Māori affiliation with her iwi was not strong, she did serve on National's Māori Council, and convinced Jim Bolger to make stronger commitment to Māori issues related to the legal status of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Catholic Administrative and Pastoral Roles In the nineties, Mrs Pryor increasingly turned her attention to Catholic church administrative responsibilities. She was made a Papal Dame of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great in 1996, at her home in Paremata. She was buried three days later in Whenua Tapu Cemetery in Pukerua Bay, Porirua with her husband who had died three years later. She is survived by three of her four children. Today her book The Right to Live forms much of the historical content of a New Zealand anti-abortion information website, run by the New Zealand Life Charitable Trust.