@K: “Here in NZ women are under increasing social pressure to have abortions in preference to accepting welfare.”

How can this be the case if abortion is illegal-but-with-loopholes? Who is exerting that pressure? It cannot be the government: it of all institutions must be seen to be upholding the law.

I’m aware that Paula Bennett had introduced a scheme whereby some female beneficiaries were being offered long-term contraception. This seems to me to be a good thing, surely; better contraception than abortion. I guess that’s how the pro-lifers would see it.

@ SABO: Do stop shouting, my dear fellow. Your message gets lost in the noise. Besides which, it’s really really annoying…

@Nomush: “Why are so many, mainly men, so obsessed with western women’s reproduction? Millions of women and girls are dying all over the world from starvation, gang rape, sexual slavery, fmg, unsafe birthing conditions etc etc yet they remain silent on these.”

Curious, isn’t it? This by itself should alert women to the fact that such men aren’t interested in women’s health and wellbeing. What they’re obsessed with is exerting control over women.

@ Cassie: “The true reality is that anyone can have an abortion , even in NZ. All they have to do is play the game right. What’s so difficult about using the right words to play the game?”

Given the legal situation surrounding abortion, this cannot be so; you undermine your own argument by asserting it. What you claim here implies that many medical professionals involved with certifying abortions are acting outside the law. This sounds slanderous to me, and I daresay said doctors might take exception at having their professional reputations so impugned.

“… abortions are really a disgusting and immoral end remedy for an immoral culture that promotes sexual promiscuity amongst even the very young of society today.
It is only very few that are a result of actual rape, and nobody would argue with that kind of case.”

You do see the inconsistency in what you’re saying here, don’t you? You can’t, on the one hand, claim that abortions are “disgusting and immoral”, but, on the other hand, say that abortion is OK in rape cases. You can’t have it both ways, I’m afraid.

It seems to me that your views on abortion put you firmly in the Catholic camp. Go look at the Vatican website: their philosophical stance is very clear and consistent. Abortion is always and everywhere wrong. This is the line you must take: no loopholes.

But of course this view of abortion is essentially religious. It cannot apply to the rest of us who aren’t religious.

P.S nice bit of slut shaming in your post, you have zero right to tell a women what she can or cannot do with her body. But please tell me how you are different in your art practice, from a mass media that endlessly slut shames and women… kinda just reminds me of the dude who started that FB “women who eat on the tube” and called it art. Wank wank.

Are you serious? I just gave you examples of women being denied abortions? I even linked to a report to back up my claim. Abortion is not a non-issue it is a major issue.

It does not matter why a women wants an abortion, she should be able to have one whatever her reason. it is her body, her choice.

@ Kim Veldt:”Don’t want a child, fine. Pick your butt up off the chair, go get the birth control freely available on any given street corner, and *use it*.”

I’m delighted for you that control of your fertility is so straightforward. Unfortunately, it isn’t true of many – perhaps most – women.

It isn’t for you to tell the rest of us what we should do with regard to contraception; nor should religious views such as yours underpin the legality (or otherwise) of abortion laws here.

You’re perfectly free to see abortion in religious terms, and engage with the issue on those terms. But the rest of us must be able to access safe, legal abortions, whatever our reasons for doing so may be. We don’t live in a theocracy, after all.

It really isn’t your business – or mine, come to that – if other women wish to have an abortion. Stay out of it: keep your opinions to yourself.

Calls for liberalisation of the abortion law legitimise right wing policies that contribute to the mother’s situation.

no Barbra Kruger is just a lot more established than you, and a lot more respected.