1. yeah there is so much fucking bullshit women who have an abortion have to face, and I get tired of it. We are called monsters for having an abortion but then if we have children and we need help from the govrnment we are shamed for that as well. You can’t win. The pro-lifers do nothing but spread lies, like you said.

   • Yup.

     The hysterical rhetoric; the exaggerations; and the outright lies. The anti-abortion lobby did themselves no favours with their deceptive tactics.

     • You are spot on Frank – just that it is someone else that has been caught telling the lies this time. Is that going to make for a second swing in your views back to the pro-life pov?

       http://prolife.org.nz/green-party-political-media-advisor-false-statements-nz-abortion-law/

       (Green Party Political and Media Advisor caught making false statements about NZ abortion law)

       • Leah was correct: “The law says abortion is illegal. Full stop.”

         For an abortion to be carried out, a woman must gain consent and jump through hoops.

         It’s exactly the same as owning a pistol. Owning a pistol is illegal. Full stop. To gain an exemption from that law, you must have an exemption, for example being a registered collector or a sporting shooter.

         So yet again, your group does not tell the full, accurate story, Margaret.

         That is what really annoys the hell out of me. You don’t tell the full story, you put a spin on it.

       • By the way, Margaret, the leading image on that article you linked to is, again, thouroughly dishonest: “Abortion up to birth for unborn persons with disabilities”.

         When I read dishonest nonsense like that, your group validates my current beliefs.

     • And what about the role of Bill English’s wife in this disinformation campaign?
       Doctor Mary English has been before select committees recently, and she hasn’t been a voice for the pro-choice lobby.

       Pro-choice.

       Nuff said.

2. Your post is short and sweet and to the point, and full of references to both the policy and other discussion. This is a post with some punch to it, not like the lies and slander the pro-lies groups spread. Good work Frank!

   • Thanks, Mike. (I must learn the art of brevity one day… )

     😉

3. Thanks Frank. What you say needs to be said. I commented on the post also here at TDB by Rachael of the Greens that people should really read the current law on abortion (section 187A of the Crimes Act), which if they are really concerned about law that singles out the disabled etc., is a thousand times awful. And if one doesn’t want to have laws that target groups and ‘reasons’ one should not specify any groups or reasons aka let the individual person who is pregnant make this decision for themselves, in consultation with whoever they choose to involve.

   • AlisonM

     +2
     (meant to upclick, but finger slipped onto wrong button)

4. I grew up as a Catholic. My parting with the church came when I was a young adult, and it was over the issue of the church’s policy on birth control. And it was on account of a couple of sentinel events in other women’s lives – or, in one case, death. These were women I knew. It coincided with the increasing visibility of feminism.

   I realised that a bunch of blokes in frocks, who were not themselves married and therefore not (at least theoretically) in any way intimately involved with the realities of conception and childbirth, thought they knew better than I and other women did what was best for our bodies. That wasn’t for me, so I decamped from the church.

   These past events inform my views now. I want any mention of abortion removed from the Crimes Act; I want repeal of the Abortion, Sterilisation and Contraception Act 1977. I want other women who want or need to have abortions to have easy access to safe, legal abortion services, with just the safeguards that surround other gynaecological procedures: nothing more.

   Pro-lifers’ views notwithstanding, there’s nothing about abortion which in-principle sets it apart from other methods of contraception. Pro-lifers are welcome to hold their religious views: I won’t stand in their way. But their views can’t influence or restrict women’s rights to have such procedures.

5. The irony of it all is that the conservative opposition *should* be pro-abortion if they were to remain true to their political and moral ideals. The hypocrisy of it all comes when after being anti-abortion they then proceed to rail on single mums collecting the DPB and do nothing to support adoptive services in New Zealand.

   The last thing they should want is single, young, low-income females being forced to keep an unwanted pregnancy, it simply breeds a cycle of poverty and the very state dependency that they supposedly oppose.

6. Frank, I am far from a pro-lifer (I am one of the dreaded fence-sitters and somewhat satisfied with the status quo, aside from the harassment of women that currently goes on by the hard pro-lifers (which I don’t think a law change will fix)), but have the Greens misunderstood the status quo about abortions after 20 weeks?

   Seems to me that s187A(aa) only applies to abortions before 20 weeks (i.e., that those beyond 20 weeks involving serious handicap would still be illegal):

   (1) For the purposes of sections 183 and 186, any act specified in either of those sections is done unlawfully UNLESS, in the case of a pregnancy of not more than 20 weeks’ gestation, the person doing the act believes—

   […]

   (aa) that there is a substantial risk that the child, if born, would be so physically or mentally abnormal as to be seriously handicapped;

   No?

   • By the way, Pigman – thanks for that link. It’s just what I was looking for and you’ve just saved me an hours’ worth of ‘net searching. Owe ya one! *thumbs up*

7. “Fairly conservative”???

   I recall you giving lessons to Ghengis Khan. In Hungarian. 😉

   • Mark – *snort!* 😀

     Genghis, that bleedin’ heart liberal… He never could master all 44 letters in the language!

     Ah, how things change. They reckon one gets more conservative as one ages. I seem to be heading towards some kind of Anarcho-Marxist-Leninist-Maoist paradigm (though I’ve yet to be persuaded on the free ice cream/llamas issue). 😀

   • Fair question, Pigman.

     I believe Para 3 explains it further;

     For the purposes of sections 183 and 186, any act specified in either of those sections is done unlawfully unless, in the case of a pregnancy of more than 20 weeks’ gestation, the person doing the act believes that the miscarriage is necessary to save the life of the woman or girl or to prevent serious permanent injury to her physical or mental health.

     http://www.legislation.co.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM329364.html?search=ts_act_abortion_noresel

     • That’s well and good for dealing with a situation where that risk actually exists, but the part of this that has my interest is as it relates to children with Down Syndrome (don’t have any of my own, but it was an irrational fear during my wife’s pregnancy due to the screening tests not being available where I live).

       As far as I can see, the Greens policy represents an extension that would enable a couple who discover (at say 26 weeks) that their child has Down Syndrome to have it aborted. While that might suit Michael Laws, it has icky eugenics factor from my point of view.

       • The Green Party policy refers to “or in the case of severe fetal abnormalities”.

         I doubt 99% of folk would consider Downs Syndrome to be a “severe fetal abnormality”.

         As far as I can see, this has been a red herring raised by certain lobby groups.

       • There may now well be abortions after 20 weeks because Downs syndrome is identified.

         This situation would probably not change by removing abortion from the crimes act.

         The facts are that the vast majority of abortions are done before 20 weeks.

         From Dept of Stats the latest data for 2012 shows 55% of abortions being performed before 10 weeks gestation, and a further 39% between the 10th and 13th week gestation. This leaves only 6% after the 13th week.

         Furthermore, according to another article here on TDB:

         “In 2013, for example, of the 14,745 abortions undertaken, just 66 were for post 20 week pregnancies”

         That’s just 0.45% of abortions were performed after 20 weeks. Thats a tiny percentage, and I would bet my life savings that a majority of those 66 abortions were for cases of serious threat to the mothers life, and / or fetus’ life.

         Focussing on that very tiny percentage is what the forced-pregnancy brigade do so well. Its really dishonest. I don’t want to go there.

         • Indeed, Lara. Thanks for posting that data.

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