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I was tasked with asking a question about what political parties would do to reform our medically outdated 36 year old abortion law, including the fact that abortion is still in the Crimes Act (1961).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

Flurry of media coverage around parental notification

In May the Sunday Star Times appears to have started a bit of a campaign around supporting parental notification for "teen" abortions, featuring SHOCK stories at the top of their news agenda three weeks' running.

Mothers For Choice did some media work in response to this, in particular the following:

Spokesperson Rebecca Matthews on Back Benchers (in Chapter 2)
Row rages over school abortion  - NZ Herald
Some abortion secrets need to be kept, say advocates  - TVNZ
Debate continues over abortion controversy - Otago Daily Times
I wrote a blog post critiquing the original SST article
Mothers For Choice backs girls' right - our original media release on the issue at Scoop

Court of Appeal decide against Right to Life NZ

On June 1st the Court of Appeal announced their decision in the long-running case taken by Right To Life NZ (RTL) against the Abortion Supervisory Committee (ASC). 

The basic gist of it is that they have overturned the previous High Court decision is which Justice Miller raised questions about the legality of the 98% of abortions permitted on the grounds of the mental health of the pregnant person. 

The Court of Appeal has also rejected RTL's claims that the fetus has a right to life.  (Wonder if they're going to change their name?)

Here's the Court of Appeal decision (PDF, quite long) and a summary.  The ALRANZ site has a timeline of the whole saga.

Also a round-up of pro-choice blog-posts on the matter, from The Hand Mirror.

Media coverage:
Unborn have no right to life: Court of Appeal rules - Stuff
Appeal court strikes out abortion finding - NZ Herald
Praise for court ruling over abortion - Newstalk ZB - includes link to Mike Hosking talking to Dame Margaret Sparrow of ALRANZ about the announcement
Anti-abortion group considers taking case to Supreme Court - NZ Herald

Update soonish

There's been lots and lots going on since the last News post in October last year - not least a pro-choice gathering in Wellington and some media work recently on the issue of parental notification.  Hopefully we'll get some time to update the news section soon.  Our Facebook page is pretty much always up to date, so if in doubt check there.  Thanks for your patience.

Wgtn Abortion Rights demo today

No More Jumping Through Hoops, a protest in support of abortion law reform, was held today in Wellington.  Organised by Victoria's Action for Abortion Rights group, the aim of the demonstration was to show support for a pro-choice law change outside the Court of Appeal hearing of Right to Life v the Abortion Supervisory Committee.  More background on the court case, and the challenge it poses to access to abortion, can be found at the ALRANZ site.

You can see the Dominion Post article covering the protest here, including a great picture and some good quotes from two women involved in organising it.* 

Rebecca from Mothers For Choice was asked to speak briefly to the rally and her speech is below:

Mothers For Choice is a group of women - who, obviously, are mothers and hold a pro-choice position on abortion.

We define a pro-choice position on abortion as: respecting the right of individual women to choose for themselves whether or not to continue a pregnancy, without the need to seek permission from anyone else for a termination. Obviously, given that position, legislative change is very high on our agenda.

We have a very strong message for the Right to Life brigade – not only do you not own women’s bodies, you don’t own families. Your ilk has spoken on behalf of families for too long. Most people in most families want a decent law that means everyone who needs an abortion can get one, without having to make the kind of case necessary under current law.

As mothers, we know how hard parenting can be at the best of times, and as such we want women with unwanted pregnancies to be able to access abortion – free and safe abortion, when and where they need it.

One thing I try and encourage my daughter to do is to be brave. Whether its trying a new food for the first time, or playing on the playground or writing a letter she finds a bit tricky, I encourage her to have a go and be a bit brave. I want to encourage our politicians to demonstrate some bravery on abortion legislation.

They don’t have to be too brave – we believe very strongly that most people support law for abortion on demand. But they do have to face up to a small, committed opposition. But being a bit brave and showing some leadership on this issue is the right thing to do, and you will find many many more people will support you than criticize you.

My daughter is four. I hate the thought that when she is older, she would have to jump through hoops to get an abortion if she had an unwanted pregnancy. I don’t want any more women to have to do so. The time is long overdue for the law we need, and together we are going to make sure it happens. 

Hopefully this is the first of many new opportunities for those in favour of abortion law reform, and a woman's right to choose, to publicly voice our support for a positive change.  Well done to the organisers and attendees.

* Note that as I type the caption to the picture says the protesters are "Abortion Right to Life protesters" when they aren't!  Several people have already emailed the Dominion Post web editor (web@dompost.co.nz) to nicely ask for this to be corrected.  Update:  The caption has now been corrected, many thanks to the Dom for quick action to rectify it.

Talking about abortion

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.

Why abortion needs to be legal - talk in Auckland tomorrow

Thanks to the University of Auckland's Feminist Collective for the invitation to speak at this event on Friday 13th August, 12noon - 2pm, in the Executive Chambers at AUSA:

Come along to hear Julie Fairey talk about the importance of legalising abortion, followed by an opportunity for people (both women and men) to talk about their abortion experiences.

Bring a friend :)

Note: (as I am sure everyone is aware) due to the sensitive nature of the issue we ask that everyone is respectful - this isn't a debate over whether abortion is right or wrong but rather a discussion focused around being pro-choice....

Look forward to seeing you there!

Above is the message from the Facebook event page.