The lies we tell to get by

I have a boyfriend (please leave me alone)

Yes I am totally mentally distraught about this pregnancy and would get lots worse if I had to continue (please give me an abortion)

No extra flatmates (please give me enough resources to support my whanau)

It's not you, it's me (please let me go)

I'm driving tonight (please don't spike my drink)

Maybe, I'm not sure, but perhaps we could do it this way? (please listen to my excellent idea)

No I don't mind you asking me if I'm having more kids, it's okay (please don't get angry with me)

Sure I can work late (please see my worth)

Oh yes, baby is a great sleeper (please think I'm a good parent)

Thanks, you look great too (please stop talking about my appearance)

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We live in a society where women often need to lie to get by.  Honesty is often the preserve of those who have a high level of safety and comfort.  May we live in a world where we don't need to lie to get by.  We don't live there yet.

Abortion, again

A few things it may help to understand, from my personal observations of being very anti-abortion until I was about 16, then increasingly pro-choice to the point where now I have badges and everything.

Embryo/fetus = baby?

Those who oppose access to abortion for other pregnant people, not just for themselves, often genuinely do see the embryo/fetus as equivalent to a newborn baby.  Science says it's not, and therefore it becomes a moral issue that should be up to the individual pregnant person.  There is heaps and heaps and heaps of science on this, seriously.  I'm not going to link it all, here's just one from New Scientist showing that the neural connections to feel pain are simply not there at 24 weeks gestation.*   

From my personal experience of a miscarriage at six weeks I know that what I lost was not a baby equivalent.  From my personal experience of ultrasounds through three other pregnancies I know that what I was pregnant with at 20 weeks was also not a baby equivalent.  From my personal experience of having three live babies I did not feel like what I carried was a baby equivalent until they were being born.  That's just my experience of course, which informs my decisions and actions and should not necessarily inform yours or anyone else's - which by the way further underlines my determination that the pregnant person gets to decide, not anyone else.

The importance of "innocence" 

There is a view of human adults that is common I've found amongst those opposed to abortion which assumes adults are not "innocent".  I was raised kind of Catholic, I went to a Catholic school for about 6 years, and I'm familiar with the concept of sin, particularly as they apply to women.  There are a number of ideas that go along with this - periods as punishment for women as a result of Eve's apple trick, the idea that menstruation is "dirty" in fact significantly dirtier than urinating or defacating and that those who are menstruating are also dirty, and some really screwed up ideas about sex as sin.  The view is that we are constantly corrupted from birth onwards, at some point, probably in our late teens, reaching a tipping point, as exhibited by the white (pure) coffins for children versus darker colour coffins for adults that are common in Christian-influenced cultures.

The unhelpful construction of Sex as Sin

The sex as sin stuff is particularly awful in my opinion, breeding a lot of the terrible attitudes we have about consent, body image, toxic masculinity and unhealthy attitudes to girls and women.  Sex is considered for reproduction only, which always makes me wonder if those opposed to abortion on that basis have sex during pregnancy or after menopause or if infertile (but I would never ask).  Sex for any other purpose, such as pair-bonding, pleasure, physical release, would be sinful.  Do you know who has pretty much certainly had sex?  Pregnant people that's who.  Can we be sure it was for procreational purposes?  Probably not** if they are seeking an abortion.  Sinners!

Innocent versus sinner - choose a winner!

By virtue of being unborn, an embryo or fetus is absolutely clean of sin, ie a total and perfect innocent.  So in a contest of bodily autonomy rights between a baby equivalent that is totally without sin and a pregnant person who probably sinned just getting pregnant, let alone all those others times, guess who wins?  A baby is always a Good Thing, an adult human, particularly a woman, not so much.

A lot of people however don't consider sex sinful, do think it's a good idea that every child is a wanted one, and are a bit iffy about the idea of forced pregnancy.  I tend to think that the pregnant person is a full human here and now, and is the best placed person to choose whether or not to continue that pregnancy, to become a parent or expand their family.  Whatever reason they choose to go ahead or not is a) enough and b) not my business.  

God has a Reason?

There's also a theme that comes across sometimes in anti-abortion missives, that we shouldn't second guess God.  If God wants you to be pregnant then there's a Reason and that should be respected and you should go through with it regardless.  God Moves in Mysterious Ways is not just a weird cover of a U2 song.  What if the embryo or foetus aborted was going to grow up to cure cancer?  (Never to undertake genocide or be a serial rapist, mind).  

This is how sometimes people who even oppose abortion on the grounds of rape or incest position themselves - a baby is always a Good Thing, therefore a baby coming out of the terrible thing that happened is God's way of making it right.***  Other people might think it would be traumatic to know that you are a parent to your rapist's child, of course, let alone have to deal with the sometimes awful experience of pregnancy, any physical resemblance the child might develop, an ongoing relationship with the rapist as the other parent, and so on.  

Surgery is gross

The ickiness of surgical abortion grosses people out. As too would pregnancy and childbirth (c section or otherwise) if they stopped to think about it much.  See also: Stomach stapling, brain surgery, removal of teeth that have roots that have grown around the jawbone (that one made you wince didn't it).  A lot of surgery is gross to non-medical people, and can be quite violent too.  It's one of the reasons they put us under anaesthesia, sedate us, put up a screen between the patient and the area being operated on, during surgery.  I had to have a version prior to the birth of my first child, to try to turn him in the womb, and it was a full on muscular attempt and that didn't even have any blood involved.  The pulling and pushing that happens to your body with a caesarean is intense, despite an epidural.  Surgical abortions are not unique in their grossness BUT the gross details of terminations have been deliberately and widely publicised by those opposed to abortion to up the ickiness factor.  

Add surgery is gross to innocent baby versus sinful wanton woman and you see where this is going.

The cruel twist here is that medical abortions are relatively non-icky.  They are not too dissimilar from a heavy period in most cases.  Yet NZ's abortion law and the stigma attached to abortion means that every year hundreds of terminations that could have been medical have to be surgical because of deliberate delays built in to the system to deny the pregnant person the right to choose.

At the heart of it all

It's distrust of women, innit?****   It's a failure to understand that women are full moral adults, just like men thank you very much.  And thinking women aren't equal well there's a name for that (Spoiler alert: it's sexism).  Here's a particularly egregious example of how this plays out in real life, from 2014 on Dominion Rd in Auckland. 

Often when I've asked people who are squirmy about abortion and consider the current law an acceptable compromise*****  they come down to an argument that they want the pregnant person to be really sure because it is such a big decision.  Yet similar legally enforced overbearing rigor is not routinely required for other big decisions like becoming a parent, having another child, picking a career, getting hitched, or buying an apartment in a 1990s Auckland building with monolithic cladding.  

If not the pregnant person, who else is in a better place to make a decision on whether to continue a pregnancy or not?  No one.  Seriously, no one.  NO ONE.  

The answer is so simple.  If you are opposed to abortion don't have one.  You don't get to make decisions with other people's bodies, and the law shouldn't enshrine that you can.

*  Terrifyingly I had to go down to the fourth unpaid Google hit for this - the first two unpaid were anti-abortion sites lying about the science.  The third was this possibly helpful (haven't had time to read the whole thing) factcheck article.**  Of course there are many people who need an abortion because a wanted pregnancy has become non-viable, which is awful and tragic and doesn't need someone standing outside a clinic with a judgemental sign for those going through that to feel bad.***  The other position sometimes held simultaneously is that women will just lie and say they were raped to get abortions just because they don't want to have a baby right now, which is FUN FACT why the NZ law does not include rape as a ground but only as a consideration, because back in 1977 they thought women would lie about rape to get abortions.  Oh the irony.**** And not just women, because anyone else who is able to get pregnant must have their judgement impaired by that pesky uterus too I guess. 
***** Which it is not, it was considered a victory against abortion even in 1977



No comments, I don't do comments anymore.  I'm easy to find on Twitter @juliefairey if you are so inclined.

Not what abortion "on demand" looks like, folks

In the recent discussion about abortion (and big ups to the Greens for getting it on the political agenda), several commentators who identify as pro-choice have stated sentiments to the effect that we have abortion on demand now.  Except that we really clearly don't.

Getting an ingrown toe nail cut out is a medical procedure you can get on demand.  You don't need anyone else's permission, you just need to have an ingrown toe nail and find someone who can cut it out to do so for you.  The same with getting moles removed, whether possibly cancerous or not, having most forms of plastic surgery like rhinoplasty (nose job) or breast implants.

But to get an abortion, be it medical (ie by pills at an early stage of pregnancy) or surgical, two different people have to give their permission, after seeing your own doctor.  Those people have to also be certified to give you that permission.  For people with resources who are seeking terminations in Wellington or Auckland this probably isn't a big deal, and I can understand how some might think, from the outside, that it is basically abortion on demand (although to the best of my knowledge no definition of on demand includes requiring permission from other people).  However that is a) not what the law says and b) not what the practice is.

To use a rather silly example, say that getting a can of Coca Cola (Symbol of the Free West) worked the same way as access to abortion.  If Coke is on demand then you can rock up to an appropriate outlet and get one, no one else gets to say yes or no as long as you pay your $2.

If you could only get Coke in the same way as people can access abortion under NZ law then it would look something like this:

1.  Find one of the limited number of dairies that offer Coca Cola cans.  It may be in an out of the way place, there may be protesters outside (with signs reading "Coke promotes a culture of DEATH").

2.  Once you've found a Coke-supplying dairy, seek and gain the permission of a person who works there and has certification.  The certifying dairy worker will need to approve that you can have the Coca Cola for one or more of a small number of reasons that are outlined in law; most likely "thirst relief" which is found to be the reason for 98% of Coke purchases.  You may not be thirsty right now, but you know you are going to be thirsty in the future, but you will need to carefully convince the certifying dairy worker that you should have the Coca Cola for "thirst relief" now.  Other allowable reasons include high risk of diabetic coma without it.

3.  You'll then need to go through Step 2 again with another certifying dairy worker.  Hopefully there is more than one at that dairy, but if there isn't then you will have to go somewhere else.

4.  It's likely you will then be referred to another dairy, which will actually have the can of Coke.  You'll need to get an appointment there.  Again it may be in an out of the way place, there may be protesters outside (with signs reading "Every Coke Kills a Living Thirst").

5.  When you get to the dairy for your can of Coke you'll possibly be required to go through counselling to consider the consequences of drinking a can of Coca Cola and talk through other options, such as water, milk or going through with being thirsty.

6.  You will then have to undergo a dietary examination, to assess precisely how thirsty you are, any other dietary influences that may lead to complications when you drink the Coke, a full history of your drinking history, and examine your suitability for drinking Coca Cola at this time.  You'll be given advice on whether the Coke is a good idea or not.  Likely there will also be a discussion about planning your future liquid intake so that you can avoid thirst again in the future.

7.  Finally you get your can of Coca Cola.  It's possible this will happen on the same day as the counselling and examination, but maybe not.  Enjoy.

Imagine living in a small town with only one dairy, which didn't have Coke.  The nearest bigger town also didn't have Coca Cola, and you'd have to fly or drive quite a way to get some, possibly taking time off work to do so and at some personal expense in regard to travel costs.  That'd suck.

And that would not be availability on demand.

Abortion is NOT available on demand in Aotearoa New Zealand.  In my opinion to continue to claim that it is does not help get the law or the practice changed to make abortion more available.  It's not defacto on demand, it's not almost on demand.  It is only allowed with the permission of two other people, neither of whom is the pregnant person (although their consent gets the ball rolling), and only for a limited list of reasons outlined by a law set over 30 years ago.

In my opinion the best place to get practical information on accessing abortion services in Aotearoa New Zealand is abortion.gen.nz.

Edited to Add:  After I wrote this, but before it was scheduled to post, the Sunday Star Times published this article, including one person recounting her experience of accessing abortion under the current law.

Abortion on the Agenda: Thanks Greens!

Just before I start in on the momentous news of the Greens’ policy on abortion, a tiny bit of history. As many of you know, our current laws, which were passed in 1977, place abortion firmly in the Crimes Act, and were based on a 400-plus page Royal Commission report. I spent a whole chapter in my book “Fighting to Choose” pulling it to bits, in between choking on my coffee, but here I’ll just pick out one bit that I found particularly gob-smacking, and that I think has relevance to the 2014 Green-inspired debate over abortion.

The report (and subsequently the law) ended up deciding which reasons for having an abortion would be legal (not criminal) and which would not. (You can look them up in the Act itself  if you’re interested, go to section 187(A)1.) The Royal Commissioners had to do a lot of fancy footwork to pull this off (and tripped over themselves numerous times) but one thing they did not do was ever find out the actual reasons people have abortions. Here, I quote directly from the report: “In New Zealand no authoritative study has ever been made of the reasons why women seek abortions.” (p. 201)

Just wow! You’re making a criminal law about something you don’t know the first thing about. If that doesn’t simply say: Sorry, no moral agency for you. No having your very own personal reasons that relate to your very own life. We, MP’s with a “conscience vote”, will decide what reasons are acceptable, even though we actually have absolutely no real knowledge of why any of you do it. (Latest scare-mongering from the antis is that at least some of us are doing it because we don’t want to have babies with female sex organs. They want to outlaw something – sex selective abortion – that we have no evidence is even happening. More on that below.)

So far as I know, the “no authoritative study” of the reasons is still the case. They still don’t know, but still want to say what the reasons “should” be, by law. (Reminder: the Royal Commission decided against recommending that rape be a ground for abortion because women would lie about being raped. A majority of 1977 MPs agreed.)

Which brings me (I know, when was I going to get here?) to the Green Party policy, and why it’s a big deal. It’s basically saying (my words, not theirs) that the Greens believe the state should not treat abortion as a criminal matter that, for the vast majority of us, can only be excused if we can get two certifying consultants to state that we are not mentally sound enough to go through with our pregnancy. And that is what the antis are busy calling “extremist”. Under the policy, abortion care will remain regulated, as every other medical procedure is – it’s not like we have a medical Wild West out there for health care that isn’t in the Crimes Act – i.e. pretty much everything else.

But aside from that really obvious ways it’s a big deal, there are lots of less obvious ones. A couple:

The fundamentally anti-women notion at the heart of anti-abortion campaigns laid bare

Content warning:  This is a post about the tactics of an anti-abortion campaign currently underway, the arguments they make, and as such will include some unpleasantness.  I'm just going to turn off comments on my posts about abortion at the moment because I don't have time to monitor a comment thread and some people won't respect the rules.  If you want to tell me something in particular as a result of this post then you can email us or tweet me @juliefairey.

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I blogged last week about the paradox of Choose Life, a new campaign (launched for Lent donchaknow) aimed at pressuring and intimidating people seeking an abortion (but it's your choice, honest), and ultimately wanting to have forced pregnancies, rather than allow anyone to terminate.

Well today we have the people who are supporting this contradiction positively bragging about enabling someone to harass their pregnant partner, who was seeking an abortion at a clinic in Auckland, to the point where the police were called twice.

Let's be clear; this example shows us precisely what the opposition to abortion are all about: denying those with uteruses power over their own bodies, and encouraging those who aren't pregnant to hold sway over those who are.  Most of the time that is going to be a woman disempowered, harassed, upset, abused, and a man taking power, harassing, hectoring, abusing.  And that is fundamentally anti-women.

The 40 Days For Life crew have the gall to argue, in the above linked  post, that:

• Men should step up and speak out about abortion, especially "post-abortive men".  First up you need to understand that "post-abortive men" are not chaps who were going to mail a letter but then decided not to.  Then you need to ignore the fact that the Go To Anti Abortion Media Commentariat in our country are (both) male (Ken Orr and Bob McCroskrie for those following along at home). Finally please do deny the really rather undeniable biological fact that if men get to decide about abortions then that would mean that in most cases the actual pregnant person doesn't get to decide about continuing their own pregnancy.  And I rather suspect that those who are anti-abortion aren't keen on giving men who do get pregnant a say either.
• Abortion allows the objectification of women, and no doubt without it we would all be living in a feminist paradise in which women ate chocolates constantly while men served their every whim, in recognition of their divine role as wombs, or something.  I rather doubt the feminist commitment of a group whose main campaign is in favour of forced pregnancy.
• They helped a "distraught father."  To harass a distraught, and pregnant, mother, if you follow their line of argument.  Oh good, that'll help everybody involved, except that it won't.  How about instead of saying "think about the father, think about the baby!!11!!" it was "think about that pregnant person, that human being who is likely in a tricky spot and deserves some compassion and some respect."

In the specific instance linked we don't know a whole lot about the circumstances, and what we do is based on a rather subjective source.  But statistics tell us that at least half of all terminations each year are the result of contraceptive failure.  Chances are that the harasser in this situation had sex not intending to have a child as a result, and was possibly actively involved in undertaking contraceptive efforts to ensure that.  

Even if that weren't the case he doesn't have a right to force someone else to continue a pregnancy, give birth, become a parent or expand their family further.  The conversation seems to go "If you want to go through with this pregnancy then you can do it yourself" followed by "I would if I could, but I can't, so I won't, but you should".  No one should be able to force someone to continue a pregnancy they don't want to continue; no one.  The only person who can ultimately decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy is the person who is pregnant.  They can seek advice from anyone they like, but it should be their decision.

In a culture that shames women for having sex, having bodies, having abortions, using contraception, being sexy, not being sexy, and much much more, anti-abortion campaigners actively increase the possibility that pregnancy can cause distress and mental ill health.  By praying outside clinics, displaying anti-abortion signs, encouraging people opposed to abortion (either in general or in a specific case) to pressure others, Choose Life and their ilk are intimidating and harming people who are already vulnerable.  It's hateful and cruel and I wish they would stop.

"Choose Life" is not about choice; it's about force

There's a new campaign by one of my least favourite lobby groups (Family First in case you were wondering), which is encouraging people to wear special pink and blue ribbons to say "Choose Life," by which they mean don't have abortions.

The use of the word "choose" implies that Family First is asking people to make a choice.  But in fact what they actually want to do is take away the very choice they are supposedly promoting.

Confused?

Me too.

It's like this.

Family First are anti-abortion.  The code they most commonly use for this is something along the lines of supporting the rights of the unborn child, but no make no bones about it, they are opposed to abortion.

Family First are asking people to wear dinky ribbons in boringly gender-referenced colours (never mind that some people aren't girls or boys, or that pink ribbons are already very widely associated with breast cancer support).  Everybody say "awwwwww", cute widdle ribbons in baby colours!

Family First's ribbons are worn as a symbol that you want people to not have abortions.

Family First want to remove the current (flawed, fettered, and not autonomous) right to choose an abortion.

Family First want to take away any ability to "choose life" and instead are keen to force people to continue pregnancies when they don't want to.

In effect what they want to do is force you to choose life.  Not much of a choice is it?



Edited to add:  I've turned off and hidden comments.  I don't have time to moderate these posts and while there are some good comments the bad ones are annoying and I just can't be bothered.  If you particularly want me to know something then you can easily find me on email, twitter or Facebook.

Grrrrrrr!

Anger, oh how often you have visited me lately, let me count some of the ways:

• The frequently women-hating reaction to Labour daring to suggest that they make take some deliberate, transparent and necessary structural steps towards lifting their number of women MPs.  
• Trevor Mallard baiting another MP in the House by calling him "cougar bait."
• People who don't lay out their arguments properly and then don't come to the meeting to discuss the issue so you never really know where they stand before you make the decision.
• Changing a law because some state agencies broke it and the solution to that problem is somehow to make it legal, with the consequence that a whole heap of people who should have privacy no longer will.
• Promulgation by supposed lefties of the antiquated idea that women are precious flowers who should not be sullied by the putrid compost of politics and the stale water of being politicians or something like that, this metaphor is tortured enough already without actually trying to get it to make sense.
• Reflecting on how unfair and wrong and conservative New Zealand's abortion laws and provision actually are, yet again.
• Cancer.  Always.  
• The increasingly dirty SkyCity pokies for convention centre deal.  
• Doctors who want to be GPs but don't want to prescribe contraception.  It's your JOB, yo.

Ok, enough ragey bullet points from me - what's angrifying you?

'Truth' in the Abortion Debate

So Karl du Fresne has joined Right to Life in piling on Sunday Star Times journalist Marika Hill over her article this past Sunday titled “Family Planning Association’s Charity Status Comes Under Fire”. Although he hasn’t gone as far as Ken Orr of Right to Life, who says the article is a “slanderous and libellous attack on Right to Life”, du Fresne accuses Hill of having been “captured by the pro-abortion lobby” and writing something “straight from the feminist propaganda handbook”.

What offended du Fresne and Orr so much was the lead paragraph, which said this: “Anti-abortionists are taking aim at the charity status of the Family Planning Association in their latest assault against women and pro-choice organisations.” In particular it was the “latest assault against women” the prompted du Fresne’s, um, assault against Hill.

I have to admit, I was surprised when I read that lead. As someone steeped in mainstream media speak myself (disclosure: du Fresne was actually my boss at the Dominion many moons ago), I just know you can’t write things on issues like abortion or women’s rights or reproductive justice (well, on anything really) that tread as closely to the truth of the matter as that phrase does. And I’m sure du Fresne’s outrage on behalf of the “objective” news media will have its supporters.

But why such outrage in this particular case? I suspect it’s because du Fresne himself is a committed opponent of abortion rights, something he didn’t point out in his post, and he doesn't care much for feminists. If this were on any other issue, I wonder if his commitment to “unbiased” journalism would be quite this fierce. (Though, to be fair, he’s recently written about the “objectivity” issue in more general terms.)

For my part, I found the lead utterly refreshing, because in this case, that statement actually did reflect the truth of the matter. Yes, despite the women du Fresne apparently knows who are hostile to Family Planning (fellow anti-choice travellers, perhaps?) and the endless claims by Orr that he is motivated in his efforts by his concern for women.

(It was also a bit amusing to see how much of the material in du Fresne’s post itself came straight from the anti-abortion propaganda handbook – like “feminist propaganda handbook”, “pro-abortion lobby”. Where is that feminist handbook? I want a copy!)

To assess whether or not Hill’s lead had more truthiness than not, I’d advise (or not, maybe) readers to take a spin through Right to Life’s Web site, (at www.righttolife[dot]org[dot]nz) which is filled with highly inflammatory material that attacks not just women, but anyone who isn’t in a straight, church-sanctioned marriage that has or will produce (and not via ivf) children. (I wrote about that here.) Among other things, in attacking Family Planning’s “Keeping it Safe” guide, RTL essentially calls “same-sex attracted women” amoral, and their sexual practices “unnatural and degrading”. Not an attack on women?  

Or how about this curious classic from the RTL site: “No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg. No one has the right to choose to kill another human being.” (That first part about the ice cream and the Porsche is actually a quote from a U.S. anti-abortion activist. I don't know if it says what RTL wants it to say, but then again I don't really know exactly what it's trying to say. Pregnant women as trapped animals? Porsches? Murder?)

Or, considering how widespread the use of contraception is among all New Zealanders, this: “Contraception is the ‘mother of abortion.’” (Then re-read above on abortion.)

And of course, those of us who are pro-choice are frequently attacked, if not libeled and slandered – though we are quite used to it. We’re likened to Nazis, to supporters of genocide, to championing a “culture of death” – Orr even suggested Alranz may have “contrived” a recent threat it received “with the objective of discrediting the pro-life movement”, and said Family Planning “regularly smuggles girls out of school to have an abortion”.

The truth of the matter is that the truth of what Right to Life is calling for is actually never expressed in the mainstream media. It is tip-toed around, avoided, sanitised. Right to Life (I don’t know about du Fresne) wants: No contraception. No abortion. No homosexuality. (And that’s just for starters.) All of which, presumably, should be legislated for and enforced by the agents of the state. Think about what that means for just a second? Actually, it’s quite unthinkable. It’s so unthinkable that it never makes it into articles about Right to Life’s campaigns.

Truth, anyone?

Roe Anniversary Roundup

Forty years ago today, on 22 January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a 7-2 decision, on a case known as Roe v Wade, declaring that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman’s right to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy to term. The original case that the court agreed to hear was a challenge to a 19^th Century Texas law that prohibited abortion except where necessary to save a woman’s life.

Given the efforts since Roe to curtail abortion access in the U.S., and the publicity it gets, some are surprised to learn that New Zealand’s abortion law is actually much more regressive than U.S. federal law on abortion. Here, abortion remains criminalised (that is, governed by the Crimes Act); in the U.S., it generally is not.

What throws people off is that although our law is worse, the practice here is often much more liberal – at least, more liberal than it is in conservative U.S. states. Which just goes to show that it’s often just as much how a law is implemented as it is what that law actually says that makes the difference. (It also shows that no matter what the law on the books, abortion access is always vulnerable to rollback.)

There have already been lots of articles written to mark the anniversary of Roe, and there will surely be more. But today’s the day, so what follows is a (limited) round-up that tries to traverse a few of the main issues. Please feel free to add links to other good pieces in comments. Oh, and the usual rule applies: The place to debate the morality of abortion is here, not here.

Perhaps the biggest splash in anniversary reporting was made just over a week ago in a Time magazine cover story headlined like this: “Forty Years Ago Abortion-Rights Activists Won an Epic Victory With Roe V. Wade: They’ve Been Losing Ever Since”  One of the controversies it sparked was its coverage of “a rebellion” in the pro-choice movement between younger feminists and what the author, Kate Pickert, called “legacy feminist organisations” – a rebellion, she wrote, that “threatens to tear it in two”.

Several writers at the reproductive health site RH Reality Check responded to Pickert, including Steph Herold with  Young People Are Not Fragmenting the Pro-Choice Movement, Renee Chellan’s The End of Right to Lies, and a piece by Charlotte Taft, who works in abortion care and was interviewed by Pickert, titled “What Choice? *Our* Choice”.

Guest post: Abortion access being undermined in NZ

Reproduced from the November ALRANZ newsletter with permission from the really rather awesome author, Alison McCullough.

The Abortion Supervisory Committee’s annual report has been released. The report includes
the abortion stats previously released by Stats New Zealand in June (See ALRANZ’s August
Newsletter for a report on those, downloadable at www.alranz.org), plus a few extras and the ASC’s
commentary. A PDF of the report is available for download at www.alranz.org under “The Latest”
column.

As ALRANZ wrote on their blog, the impression the report gives is of a system that is increasingly unworkable, with fewer certifying consultants who, the ASC reports, are facing distressing amounts of harassment (as are patients and others associated with abortion care), and all this as timeliness of abortion care and uptake of early medical abortion are barely budging. No matter what the situation on the ground is for providers and women, though, you can be sure that Parliament will do nothing to fix any of it.

The ASC report addresses the harassment of certifying consultants and patients in general,
and of Invercargill staff in particular. Here’s what the report says:

 “We are … concerned about the impact of being known as a certifying consultant in some locations.  During the last year the Committee has heard distressing reports from certifying consultants where they, their families, patients and wider public have been the subject of harassment.  Particularly distressing are reports of women seeking fertility assistance who have been harassed when they were mistakenly thought to be seeking pregnancy termination.”
 

It’s important that the ASC is talking about this, though it’s pretty hard not to draw the
conclusion from that last sentence that it’s of less concern to the committee if women seeking
abortions are harassed than, say, women mistaken for those seeking abortion. Way to go to reinforce
abortion stigma ASC!

And here’s what the ASC had to say about Invercargill:

“It has also come to our attention that harassment of medical staff is taking place in Invercargill resulting from services now being offered at Southland Hospital. We are disappointed that this is occurring.”

“Disappointed”! Strong words. Not. And no mention of what the ASC intends to do about
this.

Readers will recall that the seven-year-long Right to Life v ASC case finally ended on 9
August of this year when the Supreme Court dismissed RTL’s appeal. In its decision, the Court ruled
that the ASC did not have the power to scrutinize individual doctors’ decisions regarding approval of
abortion but that the ASC could ask consultants how they were approaching their decision-making in
general. This report is the first comment we’ve had from the ASC on that case, and it writes:

“The Committee notes it already makes regular enquiries of all certifying consultants. At the time of annual reapplication consultants report on qualifications, continuing professional education, peer support, intended years of service and the nature of the practitioner’s practice. Other enquiries will continue to be made as issues arise.”

The ASC is not saying much here, but this seems to suggest that it thinks it’s already doing
what the court said it should do.

The ASC notes the continued downward trend in abortion numbers overall, and points
particularly to the sharpest decline being in child to teenage groups. It expresses concern that there is
no decline in abortions sought by women who have had two or more previous terminations:
“Key to reaching these women will be further increasing the availability of various forms of
long-term contraception as well as increasing access to publicly funded tubal ligation or ablation so
that unwanted pregnancies are avoided. It is concerning to note that the number of publicly funded
tubal ligations performed has been declining.”

Cue the media focus: According to a report in the DomPost, reality TV shows are helping
push a decline in teen pregnancy. The ASC says this is because “extensive reality television
programming depicts the struggle most young people have in attempting to raise a child of their
own…”

It goes on to say, that “the decline is also likely a result of younger New Zealanders
practising safer sex and having less sex overall”. Apparently not watching so much reality TV are
the 20-24 year olds. There’s a new graph this year on “no contraception by age group.” In other
words, what were the ages of the 52% of women who had abortions and said they’d been using no
contraception? According to the report, the biggest group, at 32%, were 20 to 24 year olds; the next
biggest, at 20% each were under-20s and 25-29 year olds.

When it comes to timeliness, Northland and Southland are still coming in last, meaning
women in those districts are accessing abortion care much later than those elsewhere. (The median
gestation in those districts for first trimester abortion is nearly 10 weeks! That is not a good stat, and
that’s the median, meaning access is much later for some women.) Here’s hoping the Invercargill
service will help improve that stat for Southland. But what is going on in Northland?

Finally, there are 170 certifying consultants, down from 175 in the previous year’s report,
and the amount spent on certifying consultants was $4,427,120, also slightly down on the previous
year.

Auckland screening of The Coathanger Project - 23rd July

ProChoice People, ALRANZ and the Auckland Women’s Centre bring you a screening of

The Coathanger Project

A documentary film about reproductive rights in the United States

Monday 23 July at 6.30pm

Please register at http://tinyurl.com/coathangerproject-auckland so that we can contact you with venue details.

See http://www.thecoathangerproject.com/ for information about the documentary.

Thanks to Pro-Choice People for setting this up. There’s also a FB event page.

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I'm hoping to make it along after another meeting :-)

Guest Post: Abortion as Society's Mirror

Many thanks to Alison McCulloch for permission to cross-post her recent guest post at the ALRANZ blog, and my apologies for tardiness.

The discussion sparked by Richard Boock’s blog posts (“A Woman’s Right to Choose” and “Defending Your Right to An Opinion”) got me thinking about the how so many moral debates wind up with abortion as their end point. It’s not breaking news that societies tend to act out so many of their moral fears and panics by restricting sexual expression and reproductive rights. That they use contraception and abortion as tools to try to control what they fear or disapprove of. New Zealand has its own long history of doing this, be it trying to get white women to have children in order to avoid “race suicide” to keeping contraceptive information away from teenagers for fear of runaway teen sex – or something.

In a society that devalues certain groups, like those with Down syndrome or others who don’t fit a particular mold, as ours does, again we find the sharp end of the debate being focused on abortion. As if this, and so many other problems, could be solved if only women would stop having abortions for the “wrong” reasons.

The view of the 1977 Royal Commission report on Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion, on which our current abortion laws are based, is stuffed full of moral fears and prejudices that quite neatly reflected 1970s society (and, I’d argue, 2011 society, too.) Here, I’ll just offer an excerpt that’s closely related to the issue at hand, from page 200 of the report.

(5) It is not immoral to terminate a pregnancy where the fetus is likely to be born with a severe physical or mental handicap, because the burden of the handicapped person to himself and to his parents may be greater than the sum total of their happiness.

(6) The termination of unborn life for reasons of social convenience is morally wrong.

One could make a good case that (6) and (5) are at odds, that the utilitarian rule used in (5) is completely bizarre and that the use of “fetus” in one case and “unborn life” in the other displays a clear agenda. But aside from all that, look at what this says about societal attitudes.

Then, as now, there’s a desire to condemn abortions that take place for “social convenience” (a nicely loaded phrase the Commission used frequently to conjure up images of women rushing off to the clinic because that pregnancy was going to interfere with their party plans). At the same time, the Commission gave a hearty thumbs up to aborting fetuses that were likely to be a “burden” because society did, and largely still does, both devalue the disabled and approve of such abortions

So the cry goes up: let’s clamp down on the abortions. Let’s ban abortions for X or Y reason to fix X or Y problem. Let’s ban abortions for reasons that we find offensive or trivial or discriminatory or “socially convenient”. That will resolve the difficulty and absolve us. Of course it won’t. Women’s choices cannot but be influenced by the society they live in, the pressures they face, the judgments made by those around them. In a society that devalues women and girls, there’s pressure to abort females, just as in this society, there’s pressure to abort fetuses with certain conditions.

The next step is to make abortion-seeking women (and those who support and facilitate their choice) the culprits for wider society’s perceived failings. It is she who is the root cause of a particular moral problem or a particular group’s being devalued if she has an abortion for the “wrong” reason. It is she who is the cause of promiscuity or moral decline or the breakdown of the family (which hasn’t actually broken down yet). It is she who is the cause of child abuse or our inability to fund superannuation. (A shout-out to Garth George on these last two.)

While we still live under laws that try to pick and choose who should and who should not be able to access abortion care, campaigns to ban abortion for X and Y reason, reflecting X and Y societal failing, will continue. Which is why abortion should be, as of right, up to the individual, its availability not contingent on your having a “worthy” reason, where that reason is dictated and enforced by the state. No, it won’t be a choice made in a vacuum, so campaigns to eliminate, or at least reduce, the kind of pressure to abort that some women say they’ve felt on receiving certain fetal diagnoses, are crucial. Just as important are efforts to stop dumping society’s short-comings at the door of pregnant women and calling them names for choosing to have an abortion.

Abortion restrictions should not be used as a tool to try to deal with wider problems – be they real or imaginary. The social goal might be just, but enforced pregnancy cannot be an answer.

Alison McCulloch is on the National Executive of ALRANZ. The opinions in this post are her own.

Right to Life's candidate questionnaire

Feel free to answer for yourself in comments, regardless of your intentions to stand for Parliament :-)

 If elected to Parliament at this general election, would you:

1. The Crimes Act states that an unborn child does not become a human being until it is born. Would you support legislation that would give legal recognition to the status of an unborn child from conception as a human being endowed with human rights, the foundation right being an inalienable right to life?

2. The Care of Children Act provides that a girl under the age of 16 may have an abortion without the knowledge or consent of the parents or guardian, Would you support an amendment to the Act that would protect parental rights by requiring that an abortion may not be performed on a girl under 16 without the consent of the parents

3. The Care of Children Act provides that a girl under the age of 16 may have an abortion without the knowledge or consent of the parents or guardian, Would you support an amendment to the Act that would protect parental rights by requiring that an abortion may not be performed on a girl under 16 without the knowledge of the parents.

4. Oppose legislation that would give doctors the right to kill or assist in the suicide of their patients [Euthanasia].

5. Support the right to life of every individual from conception by opposing embryonic stem cell research that entails the destruction of human embryos.

6. Uphold the state of marriage as being exclusively for a man and a woman. 

 What does number 6 have to do with the "right to life"??

Improving the law and access for abortion

For my last post for Pro-Choice Postings week I'm going to make you, dear readers, do most of the work.

If we want abortion law reform, and if we want people to have more control over their own fertility and their own bodies, then what do we do next?

There will be many answers to this question, and we don't have to agree or all do the same thing at the same time.  Indeed I doubt we could.  And there is considerable strength in a broad movement imho.

It would be great to hear too about things that have (or haven't) been effective in the past, from some of our readers who will have experience both in Aotearoa and overseas with various similar issues and campaigns. 

So what are your ideas?

Here's a pic from almost forty years past that will hopefully serve as inspiration!

Black & white photo of the front of a march for abortion in 1973.  Banner reads:  18?? Vote for women. 1973 Our right to abortion.

Comment direction:  This is not an opportunity to debate abortion itself, there have been plenty of posts in the last week, and indeed there's a whole page for it (cleverly titled "Abortion & Morality" to give you a clue).  I imagine there could be some debates about tactics and strategies though, so feel free to go there.

Abortion and politics

When parliament debated the Care of Children Act back in 2004 support was split along party lines. One key issue of difference was whether or not girls under 16 should have to tell their parents if they wanted to have an abortion. The status quo, that girls did not have to tell their parents, had been in place since 1977.
The Justice and Select Committee which received submissions comprised Tim Barnett, Lianne Dalziel, Russell Fairbrother, Dave Hereora, Moana Mackey (all Labour); Judith Collins and Richard Worth (both National); Stephen Franks (ACT); Dail Jones (New Zealand First); Murray Smith (United Future); and Nandor Tanczos (Green). When it came to the contested clause about parental notifications, this committee agreed:

Although the submissions we received contained many opinions about the clause, we did not receive any evidence of the provision being abused, even though it has been operative for 27 years.

Despite this National, New Zealand First, United Future, Act and the Maori Party voted against the bill. Some of the politicians most vehemently against are high up in Government now. Unsurprisingly Bill English had lots to say. Judith Collins wanted to amend the non-problematic provision to ensure parental control:

Seventy percent of the people in this country believe that parents need to be in charge, and that they do need to know about abortions. The issue is not about taking the opportunity to be mean to girls, or to tell them what they should do with their lives.

Quite how "parents being in charge" can possibly include "not telling girls what to do with their lives" is not further explained by Ms Collins.
Then there's Nick Smith, making it clear whose rights are at stake:

Is it not interesting that members opposite are all very keen to have gay rights, they are all very keen to have workers’ rights, they are all very keen to have human rights, and they even want to have prostitutes’ rights, but when it comes to parents’ rights this Government is not interested?

Restricting access to abortion starts with the "easy wins" - none for girls under 16 unless parents say so, none after such-and-such date - but rest assured, campaigns for these restrictions have one aim in mind. Control of women's bodies. And that should concern all of us who believe women need the right to decide when we have children. It's the thin end of a very women-hating wedge.


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This is part of a week of Pro-Choice Postings hosted here at The Hand Mirror starting on Friday 28th October 2011. For an index of all the posts, being updated as they go up, please check the Pro-Choice Postings index. And if you'd like to submit a post for cross-posting, guest posting or linking to please email thehandmirror@gmail.com.

Guest post: Why minors deserve a choice as well

By smkreig, cross-posted from The Comfort

As many of you may remember, there was a heated debate earlier in the year about supposed ‘secret’ abortions which were being performed on teenagers without their parents knowledge or consent. There was a public outcry about how schools and heath-care facilities (or in a broader view, the state) were taking the place of parents in helping the minor make the decision of if they should or should not carry the pregnancy to term. Many suggested that the school (or health professional) should have to inform the parents when a minor is considering an abortion.


I don’t understand how these people came to this conclusion. I agree that people should be encouraged to talk to trusted friends and family about their situation - especially if they are finding it overwhelming. A strong support network is important for any teen; but this is where many people missed the point. In suggesting that parents/guardians should be informed when their minor is pregnant and considering an abortion, they also suggest that these parents/guardians are part of a trusted support network for the teen. This is by no means always true. Parents are humans and therefore they can be abusive, coercive or even be the cause of the pregnancy. There is often a reason why a teenager will come to a guidance counsellor, nurse, or doctor in confidence. If the woman trusted her parents and considered them supportive, she would most probably have gone to them for support.

It also suggests that the parents know what is best for the teen and her uterus; and this is where the argument really fails. Some people suggest that it is important to inform the parents because they will also be affected by the pregnancy. No doubt, the parents can choose to help look after the child, they can choose to help fund its upbringing. So why should they not have a say, if THEY want a grandchild? Simply put; their role as grandparents can be abandoned. The fact that the young woman needs to carry the foetus in her uterus; needs to endure pregnancy; needs to make the decision of what to do after it is born: this cannot be abandoned if she is denied the individual choice of abortion. Someone who is not directly, and undeniably affected by the pregnancy cannot claim to know what is best for the woman who is pregnant, becuase they therefore put their preference and morals infront of the health; wellbeing; and autonomy of the woman as a human being.

This post is not about the ‘state raising our children’, it is about considering pregnant teens as self-possessing human beings, who are able to make a decision about their own bodies. If it was required for parents to be allowed to make a decision about their daughter’s foetus, the daughter should also have the choice to pass the obligation of pregnancy onto those who want to keep it.


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This is part of a week of Pro-Choice Postings hosted here at The Hand Mirror starting on Friday 28th October 2011. For an index of all the posts, being updated as they go up, please check the Pro-Choice Postings index. And if you'd like to submit a post for cross-posting, guest posting or linking to please email thehandmirror@gmail.com.