On Friday afternoon I attended a presentation at Auckland University organised by the Campus Feminist Collective where Julie spoke about the need for a pro-choice law in regard to abortion in New Zealand. The talk was well attended by both women and men, and there was the inevitable presence of some pro-lifers. Unfortunately they had to leave early to prevent their cars being ticketed.
First up, I'd like to thank Julie for hauling her heavily pregnant self out to talk to us about women's choice and why it is so important to be able to access safe, legal, and timely abortion services in the event of an unwanted pregnancy. If you'd like to read Julie's presentation in full, it can be found over at
The Hand Mirror.
And now I'll consider some highlights of the talk and discussion following the presentation.
I loved that Julie highlighted that the aim of most people behind the pro-choice movement is working toward a world where abortion isn't needed at all. That world, unfortunately is a long way off, but in the mean time we do need to keep working toward it. To keep trying to prevent rape, increase availability of effective and free contraception, create positive attitudes toward sex, encourage respect and support of parents, and hope for healthy, safe, and viable pregnancies. But until all those forces combine, people will keep having sex and there will be unwanted pregnancies and subsequently, the need for safe and legal abortion services.
As part of the presentation, Julie introduced us to individual stories to accompany the statistics she used which showed the diverse range of circumstances that people have to deal with in the event of an unplanned pregnancy. Many different factors form part of a woman's decision whether to continue or not with a pregnancy (definitely wider than the legally used "a risk to [the pregnant woman's] physical or mental health"), and we need to remember that she's the one in the best position to consider all those individual factors.
Following the presentation, the pro-lifers got their chance to talk about their previous foetal form (before their parking money ran out) and how in the years following, they realised that they'd have been a smidgeon upset if they hadn't been born. Leaving aside that they'd never know if that was the case, it was noted that foetal personhood is socially ascribed and that not all people feel the same way about the terms used to describe the process of pregnancy. It was also mentioned that there was another person involved in this whole pregnancy business, a woman, and her bodily autonomy was worthy of consideration too. The pro-life types continued to reiterate their former foetal state and that the rights of the foetus should trump the rights of the woman, sitting in a room of many other former foetuses that held the opposing view. Their parting point was around how fantastic big families were and how wonderful children are; the mothers of the audience nodded in agreement without feeling any less pro-choice than when they entered the room (while acknowledging that parenthood ain't no walk in the park and is a lifetime commitment).
Once the pro-life crew had gone, we heard more individual stories from those in the audience. Real women and real lives where choices about unwanted pregnancies needed to be made. I enjoyed the questions people asked and the issues raised, including the lack of support for women post-abortion due to the social taboo that surrounds abortion, when and how we came to our pro-choice position, and how close abortion often is to our own lives, usually involving those who don't fit the commonly used stereotypes of who accesses abortion.
We talked about contraceptive effectiveness and some women shared why they didn't want to be pregnant; including wanting to be in a position to be a good parent, which included current children and/or future ones. The current law was discussed and the cases that have been taken to court recently seeking to get the law to be more tightly interpreted... issuing shudders from the women in the audience.
After being in that room with people committed to a pro-choice law (or at least a discussion about it!), I'm feeling positive about our ability to really make a difference to people's lives. Watch this space!
And thanks again to Julie for the presentation and the Campus Feminist Collective for organising the talk. And providing some seriously awesome cupcakes. I did see the pro-lifers posing with a cupcake for a cell phone pic, so I can only assume they were appreciative of the cupcakes too.
