Dear National Party of NZ.
How’s things?
Pretty tough week eh? Goading an MP with huge amounts of dirt on you into a self harm moment with anonymous allegations of sexual harassment while having a hand in his sectioning can make everyone of you feel drenched in a toxic sludge that will stain you all collectively forever.
For. Ever.
You know, the way John Key is radioactive with mass surveillance state and ponytails.
What’s worse is you now have to do the whole inquiry into the culture of the Party and if it’s awful for women with a straight face thing.
It can’t be easy being Blue right now.
If you were wanting a way to redeem yourself at least an inch from the way you went all Soviet Union on JLR, how about this whole abortion thing huh?
Siomon Bridges has to be all social conservative about it and channel 18th century views on women to make his stand against legalising abortion valid, but what about the rest of you? Surely you can’t be happy with the current bullshit law, and that if a woman in the 21st Century wishes to have an abortion, she should be able to access that immediately, locally and without cost.
The current law is a joke, you all know it, and the Government has a proposal to take it out of the middle ages and make it a modern law.
Come on National, if you want to pretend to care about women, supporting this change would go a lot further than your whitewash inquiry into Party culture.
Please National, for everyones sake, just once, just this once, do the right thing.
It’s confusing as.
It seems those conservatives insist on you having children, but don’t want to fund their welfare, education or even want them to live in a house. But at the same time they won’t let them die when they are in extreme pain .
Is it a brethren thing or just a conservative thing to insist that people have children so they can watch them suffer. I mean , I’m not an authority on mental health but FFS, that would see a bit like a mental illness to get off on watching others suffer
Perhaps a little bit of deliberate misunderstanding there I think Mike. It’s not a brethren thing, it’s a human thing to value people at all stages of life and simply a different mind-set to help your neighbours in need through cooperation and charity rather than the coercion of the state.
I don’t know about abortions but I do count 56 compelling arguments for compulsory birth control.
paula bennett looks like she’s just come from a screen test for a lead in a remake of ‘Mars Attacks’. she hangs upside down too much, that’s what I think.
Ha ha Countryboy, brilliant!
Yes she makes Alien or Predator seem like choir boys.
Peak abortion was reached in 2004-2007, it’s actually been steadily trending downward over the last 10 years for some reason (~5,000 fewer than a decade ago).
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/abortion-statistics-year-ended-december-2017
If the demographics of abortions in the US are anything to go by (they might not be, given you have to pay big bucks in the US for an abortion), it’s mostly the young, minorities and the poor who seek them, you know those that traditionally tend to be left-wing leaning. You’d think National would be all for it for the most cynical of reasons: lowering future potential labour voters [ducks].
https://www.guttmacher.org/infographic/2017/abortion-rates-race-and-ethnicity
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-chen/demographics-of-abortion_b_567915.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092202831.html
Yes, the better National MPs will do the right thing and oppose allowing abortion up to birth, allowing abortion on grounds of foetal gender, protecting women from being forced into an abortion by fathers and/or families, and holding the line against abortion for genetic abnormalities (aka killing the disabled).
I hope Labour, the Greens, and NZ First will have the good sense to do the same.
Chris: “….oppose allowing abortion up to birth, allowing abortion on grounds of foetal gender, protecting women from being forced into an abortion by fathers and/or families, and holding the line against abortion for genetic abnormalities (aka killing the disabled).”
Reductio ad absurdum.
Abortion is a health issue. It isn’t my – or your – business if a woman chooses to have one. It’s her business alone.
Nobody is requiring anybody to have an abortion: those opposed to the procedure are free not to have it. But it’s not down to the rest of us to try and set boundaries around the procedure for those women who need or wish to have one.
Thank you, D’esterre. I’m reading all these comments from persons with men’s names who therefore probably do not have wombs, and unlikely to become pregnant, and clearly were never unwanted children or they would not be neglecting to address themselves to the question of what happens to the unwanted children.
What happens to the children whose mothers don’t want them? I think this calls for a certain bluntness and honesty. It’s a question which needs to be answered, but it is not, because it rarely gets asked.
We never hear anti-choicers expressing concern for children entering the world unwanted and unloved and uncared for.Why ?
Their concern stops when such babies are born, and this is what they fixate on.
When life actually kicks in in an often harsh and brutal way, they’ve achieved their end, and generally have no interest in the born babies. We don’t even have orphanges any more.
There are double standards here.
Our horrific child and baby murder rates prove that there is no goddess mother syndrome which kicks in and ensures that every baby lives happily ever after.Some live lives of screaming hell and horror.Then they die.
According to Christian theology, they then enjoy eternal life in limbo or heaven, so they are not lost souls.
Some do manage to live lives knowing they were/are unwanted and unloved.Not nice.
This is too huge an issue for conscience-less MP’s and other nutters to jeopardise; the decision has to be in the hands of those directly concerned.
If you are using the argument that, according to scripture, aborted babies will end up in eternal life, therefore I assume justifying the ending of the baby’s life, then you could use the same argument in favour of murder.
I don’t really get your point anyway. Either you accept that an unborn child is a human and you are taking its life via abortion, or it is not a human. Which is it?
Andy you are the first person I have heard attempt to justify murder on the grounds that it sends people to heaven.
Certain people, murdered or not, never make it to heaven because they are evil sinners who go straight to hell.
So never murder someone as a favour to them or you don’t know where you may end up yourself.
And how about not over-simplifying a heart-breaking issue.
Andy: “Either you accept that an unborn child is a human and you are taking its life via abortion, or it is not a human. Which is it?”
This is the argument from theism; religion, if you prefer. Given that not all women seeking abortions are, or will be, theists, that perspective cannot underpin the issue of access to any health procedure, abortion included. In any event, some women who are theists may wish to have an abortion; it’s important that they’re free to do so.
Theists are welcome to their views; nobody is forcing them to have an abortion.
This is how I see things: I want any mention of abortion removed from the Crimes Act; I want repeal of the Abortion, Sterilisation and Contraception Act 1977. I want 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.
” It isn’t my – or your – business if a woman chooses to have one. It’s her business alone”
Exactly. Well put.
National promoted the “killing of their disabled” when Chris Findlayson created a law whereby parents could not sue the government over non payment of care.
You failed to mentioned those that seek an abortion through rape.
Those in National that do care WILL allow the right of choice rather than their standard authoritarian right wing approach.
There will always be abortions.
Will safe ones be available?
E-clectic: “Will safe ones be available?”
Given that as things now stand, abortions are provided in the health service, there’s no reason to suppose that they’d be any less safe than they now are.
Interesting how different people read things differently. I read that comment to mean that currently, as the law stands, with the hoops we have to jump through and the access being so limited, that it promotes unsafe practices. That the law change will make things better.
Cenjoyoke: “I read that comment to mean that currently, as the law stands, with the hoops we have to jump through and the access being so limited, that it promotes unsafe practices. That the law change will make things better.”
A fair enough interpretation, and one I’d go along with. I hadn’t thought of that: I’d just seen it from the medical perspective.
Hard the nats on justice and criminals,only those breaking the laws that break public dubious laws,but serious like all capitalist laws control property,get a harsher sentence under their rule breaking a window of private property than breaking the face of a public citizen.
The nats on abortion,old school farm fence with their religion and state control,course their state control nothing like any caring one,just fenced property home ownership dept control,and the church,general not the one of that other city within a city.
Political,satire or what,who missed scrubbing out this lots oldies in the photo above. Did not their social control,not suggest,but proffered in a round about way to our youth state dependent young girls a form of eugenic control.
Perfect, you’ll win the Nats vote on abortions by stating there’s money to be made from it.
I left a comment with link about what happens to the cells of the aborted fetus.
Does the truth not suit TDB?
If your post was something objectionable and patent bullshit , no wonder TDB chose not to publish it. You anti-abortionists say the most revolting and (false) things to push your 19th century agenda.
It seems to me Grandma, that you are deliberately trying to emotionally blackmail women faced with having to make what is often a totally horrific personal decision. Shame on you.
It seems to me Grandma, that you are old enough to know that there are few, if any absolutes, and that is what we all should be weighing up before we assume any right to judge others, let alone to control them.
It’s better for women to be educated with and have full knowledge of the facts before proceeding with something that will weigh on their conscience for the rest their days. This I know for a fact. Come down from your high horse, Snow White.
No,I am not climbing down Grandma, and nor, unlike you, will I make condescending assumptions about women who have abortions, or presume them to be uneducated according to the criteria of Grandma.
There are places angels fear to tread, and this may well be one of them – more reason perhaps not to rush in and clobber women who find themselves in such difficult places.
I have a love for the truth and I strongly believe that any woman faced with making such a decision knows the truth…and importantly receives support for that decision. One decision cannot be reversed and it is important to know the truth surrounding that decision. The other requires all the support that both parties need.
I invite anyone wanting to know the truth about the first decision to simply type in the words “what are aborted fetus cells used for”.
I think anyone wishing an abortion should be required to watch an educational video of the full procedure and thereafter make the decision….with full support given either way.
Sex education seems to be important in schools. Let’s start telling our children the truth. After that, their actions are their responsibility.
Grandma Moses your comments and responses to Snow White, who is right on the button, indicate that you assume that women only fall pregnant after intimacy with their partner and some of them then choose to have an abortion without thinking it through. How ridiculously naive and archaic is that? The more you say the more you reveal how unintelligent you are.
Answer this – if a woman is abducted and raped or gang raped and falls pregnant as a result of that heinous crime, (not to mention the horrific physical and psychological injuries she also receives) is it your position that she should not have an abortion and if she did she should be turned into a criminal for doing so?
And what about the wife/partner who is raped within marriage by a brutal husband/partner who also beats her on a regular basis? Should she too be turned into a criminal for having an abortion? According to you, the answer is yes. Let’s hope none of your family face that predicament because Grandma Moses will have or hear nothing of their suffering and direct them to have the baby.
Your assumptions are based on you looking at the world through religious rose-tinted glasses and believing that pregnancy results only in marriage and between a loving couple.
Your love for the truth is simply the truth according to your own narrative and not the truth of reality. How can you say that anyone wishing an abortion should be required to watch an educational video of the full procedure and then make a decision. Try telling that to the woman who has been traumatised as I have described.
Your directive approach and jaw-dropping naivety is despicable. You should be ashamed of yourself. Unfortunately, you and people like you never are because you are unable to express understanding of and compassion towards others.
Grandma Moses: “I have a love for the truth….”
This statement sounds a bit holier-than-thou, if I may say so. I imagine that all of us do, including those of us who are keen to see a law change which treats women like grownups with regard to access to abortions. I’m sure that you don’t assume that you’ve cornered the market in truth.
“..simply type in the words “what are aborted fetus cells used for”.”
I’ve heard and read this stuff before. My response is: so what if fetuses are used for research, or treatment? Fetal cord blood is similarly used, and for the life of me I can’t see the difference.
“I think anyone wishing an abortion should be required to watch an educational video of the full procedure…”
Ha! The same could be said of childbirth. But in the normal course of events, childbirth videos are shown at ante-natal classes. They scare the shit out of women and their partners, but by then it’s way too late.
Here’s a truth for you: an inconvenient truth, even. There’s no in-principle difference between abortion and other methods of birth control. This fact is recognised by the Catholic church. In societies such as ours, where there hasn’t been a culture of abortion, the notion makes many people – possibly even you – feel icky. Yet – and here’s a paradox – other forms of birth control don’t make you feel that way. That’s inconsistent, you know.
Grandma Moses: “It’s better for women to be educated with and have full knowledge of the facts before proceeding with something that will weigh on their conscience for the rest their days.”
In my view, full knowledge of the complexities of reproduction and contraception would bring peace of mind to any woman deciding on an abortion.
Moreover, given that there is no in-principle difference between abortion and other forms of contraception, surely it would be the case that some women using those other forms of contraception would feel the weight on their consciences of all those births prevented? I’ve not heard that this is an issue of moment among women.
Shh D’Esterre, they haven’t read Thomas Aquinas.This was well and truly imbued in traditional Catholicism, and my poor Mother who was a convert, had more children than she had ever wanted.
So she thrashed them all soundly and put them to bed.
I prefer to think that it was the laws of Popes that wrecked her life, and not we the children carrying the unsought burden of being unwanted.
In 1879 Pope Leo X111 ordered that all students study Aquinas as the norm, only to be departed from for grave reasons.
James Baxter:
I do recognise that the smashed
myths have somehow to be replaced
or reconstructed.
That is why I became a Christian guru
a barefooted and bearded eccentric, a
bad smell in the noses of many good citizens.
A Scorpio Circled by Fire 1972
Snow White: “…my poor Mother who was a convert, had more children than she had ever wanted.”
Indeed. A familiar story to those of us who grew up Catholic. The women had a very difficult time of it, especially the converts, who weren’t enculturated to it from childhood.
The issue of fertility – and how to control it – greatly concerned my female relatives, 60+ years ago, in my childhood. I heard many of those stories, when I had my nose in a book, and the grownups had forgotten I was in the corner of the room.
“I prefer to think that it was the laws of Popes that wrecked her life, and not we the children carrying the unsought burden of being unwanted.”
You’re exactly right to think of it in those terms. Nor, I’m guessing, would you have been unloved, once you were born. My late mother reassured me on that score: for all that she struggled with yet another unwelcome pregnancy, she said that she wouldn’t have been without any of us, once we’d arrived.
Nevertheless, I understood what she was saying: absent all of us, her life would have been so different. She was very well-educated, had had ambitions to travel. None of that was possible.
It’s because of my childhood, and seeing the pain of my female relatives – and a death in childbirth – that caused me to reject the church and its stance on birth control.
“Please National, for everyones sake, just once, just this once, do the right thing”
And a Grownup girl waits…
I want to abort the National Party from the NZ Inc political landscape, help me, doctor, please help me.
Abortion is a woman’s business alone? In an ideal society pregnancy & caring for children would be seen as a social responsibility, more than a personal one. I can’t say how this would impact on the decision to abort, but a truly caring society would not punish women who opted for abortion.
Janio: “Abortion is a woman’s business alone?”
It is. That’s because it is the woman who must carry the fetus to term.
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