The distress of abortion

Tonight I attended a ‘Women’s Choice – Suffrage eve debate’ whereby a political panel of which representatives from ACT, Greens, Labour, Mana, and National were available to answer questions submitted by representatives from women’s organisations.

I was tasked with asking a question about what political parties would do to reform our medically outdated 36 year old abortion law, including the fact that abortion is still in the Crimes Act (1961).

All representatives replied that they were pro-choice, which I was pleased to hear, yet none of them were able to say that their party had consensus on the issue and none of them were able to commit to putting in a bill in themselves.

This disappoints me.

A couple of the candidates went on to mention the “traumatic decision” that women have to make when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. I agree that there is distress involved with unplanned pregnancy but I disagree that much of the distress is around the decision itself.

The distress lies in the process to get an abortion.
The distress is in the lengthy waiting times.
The distress is in the multiple appointments.
The distress is having to convince two certifying consultants that they should approve your own decision.
The distress is going to an unfamiliar environment and feeling that you should be ashamed of something you shouldn’t be.

It’s about time that politicians acknowledged that the law creates distress for women who are already having to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. It’s about time we changed our abortion law to really allow a woman the right to choose and let’s not subject her to the distress of the current system.

Let’s take abortion out of the Crimes Act.

Herald: Women feel wait for abortion too long

Article in the Herald earlier this week, including:

Women are waiting nearly a month on average to get an abortion - and they feel that is too long, research by Auckland University has found.
The study, published in the journal Reproductive Health, looked at the timeliness of services provided by nine New Zealand clinics.
More than half of women at the clinics were having abortions in or after their 10th week of pregnancy, with an average wait of 25 days after seeing their referring doctor.
Lead researcher Martha Silva said abortion was a safe procedure but the risk of complications increased with gestational age.
Clinics and referring doctors needed to make an effort to reduce waiting times, she said.
In an anonymous questionnaire, 38 per cent of women felt they had waited too long and would have wanted the procedure sooner, while 15 per cent thought the wait was too long, but did not mind waiting.
...Part of the delay was caused by the requirement to gain the approval of two certifying consultants before having an abortion.

Click through for the whole Herald article (from NZPA) and you can find the full journal article here.

Update:  I've written at my everyday blog, The Hand Mirror, about my issues with the misleading photo and caption used by the Herald in their online version of this story.  Further update:  The Herald has now changed the picture to one of Steve Chadwick, with reference to her possible Bill.  Thanks to everyone who raised the issue with The Herald for bringing about this positive change.  Boganette has also written about the fetus picture issue today, as well as giving Mothers For Choice a nice promo.