It’s about time Women in NZ were treated like adults when it comes to abortion
I’m so pro-Abortion that I’d even allow a Woman couple of months after the baby is born to get rid of it.
Ok, that’s very facetious of me, but I just can’t tolerate people who feel they have some right to tell women what medical procedures they can or can’t have.
As far as I’m concerned, an abortion is a medical decision between the woman and the Dr doing it, it really has sweet bugger all to do with anyone else.
Yes, sure there are some Men who feel that as the impregnator of said women that they have some say over what happens, and they would be very wrong.
Chaps, let me spell it out. As a man, you only get a say once the woman has decided to keep it, and all you have at that stage is a deeply depressed acceptance of the decision to keep it and an even sadder agreement to meet the child support payments.
That’s it.
Welcome to the debt circle of life and wear a condom next time no matter how many times she tells you she’s on the pill.
News that some women however are not getting the easy ride through our ridiculous loophole of abortion legislation is proof that we need to seriously amend the current joke that is our abortion laws…
Hundreds of Kiwi women told their abortions were ‘not justified’
Hundreds of “not justified abortion” certificates were handed out to pregnant Kiwi women in 2016.
Even as the overall abortion rate has trended down since 2010, the number of women told their abortion would not be “justified” has remained steady.
Abortion is technically a crime in New Zealand. Two certified medical practitioners must deem the abortion medically necessary or justified for it to be legal, but in practice the law is routinely subverted by both doctors and patients.
Last year, 252 “not justified abortion” certificates were issued. Close to 1500 have been handed out this decade.
…this reeks of Christian Drs declining abortions under their ‘life-is-precious-even-the-embryonic-life- that-hasn’t-even-been-born-yet-praise-Christ’ mindset.
The current joke law claims that women have to be mentally disturbed by the pregnancy before they can get an abortion and these women then have to jump through this 2 dr approval crap before they can use the abortion loophole to get one.
Which when you think about it is bullshit.
If a woman wants an abortion, even for the most vain or selfish reasons imaginable – they should get their bloody abortion without needing to convince two drs of anything.
This is a medical procedure, and like any medical procedure, if you have given your consent in good faith and this is what you want, then you should bloody well get it.
As a man, I wouldn’t accept this patronising bullshit if I needed or wanted a medical procedure performed, so why the hell should our fellow sisters have to perform this degrading and condescending two step to get a medical procedure they want?
Men wouldn’t accept being treated like children, why should women accept it?
The law needs updating and it it needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. Unfortunately we have a God fearing Prime Minister who is the most socially conservative leader we’ve ever had, if National were serious about standing up for women’s rights, they would make this a priority.
I was disturbed to see the number of women turned down for abortions. I had always thought Doctors just did the right thing and ‘ticked the box’ that yes, the pregnancy is a risk to the mental well being of the mother.
Because its a no brainer, having a pregnancy you do not want is going to mess with your head.
For starters…what on earth happened to those 252 women who were handed a “not justified abortion” certificates last year alone.
What an unbelievable nightmare.
As a mother of 3 very much wanted children, who has also had a termination, I consider forcing women to go through with a pregnancy against her wishes, whatever her reasons, to be torture.
And then we sit around looking at the crime statistics which are undoubtedly partly driven by our high rates of (largely undiagnosed) Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
At the very very least, terminations should be granted automatically on medical grounds to anyone with real concerns over their alcohol consumption, which is pretty much the entire population in NZ.
Yes, quite so. And consider also the side-benefit of a reduction in crime: see http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/
A memorable line from a young female member of the audience of the show of an American (TV) Doctor espousing his anti-abortion opinion:-
“You gotta uterus?” – to which he conceded he did not.
“No uterus No opinion” she rasped.
Margaret: ““No uterus No opinion” she rasped.”
Heheh: about sums it up!
Personally I would okay an abortion over any a birth, but as a thinking person I would rather avoid the pregnancy in the first place.
Humans are as smart as yeast.
it takes two to tango Robert but only one can get pregnant so far
Robert Atack: “…. I would rather avoid the pregnancy in the first place.”
Indeed. As would most women not looking to get pregnant. However, and unfortunately, contraception can fail. Heck: tubal ligation can fail. I could tell you stories…..
In the final analysis, it’s a woman’s choice whether she carries a pregnancy to term, or has an abortion. Not my business, not yours. Not anybody else’s except hers.
Not quite. The male – particularly if they are engaged or married and wanting family – needs to be at least consulted.
Most women don’t get pregnant without male assistance.
I would *deeply* resent not being consulted if in a loving relationship and backing her all through pregnancy. I think that would be fair comment for any decent male in such a situation.
It’s still a woman’s body, Robert. You might be in a loving relationship, but you don’t own her.
Ahaaa! The good ol’ Victorian ‘Owner’ husband.
Well done. Set us all back another 100 years whydontcha?
No uterus, no opinion…
If a woman that you’re in a long term relationship with, who knows you are wanting a family, gets an abortion, she’s just done you a massive favor.
She isn’t the woman for you.
And if you did talk her into the pregnancy – you’d best start shopping around for a good lawyer, because the divorce is going to get ugly.
(when I say ‘your’, I just mean Random Hypothetical Male, its nothing personal)
If men can control women’s bodies then it stands to reason that women can control men’s bodies. I betcha that will make some men think twice before passing judgement.
I cannot believe it’s some fifty years since I was a young bloke witnessing the first wave of feminism here in Aotearoa. Here it is 2017 and ‘that’ fight is still going on.
Some things never fucking change.
The very same arguments were put up then by the tired old scrotes of religious conservatism as are being put up now.
And they are equally fucking invalid.
You’re all quick to crow about NZ being the first country to give women the vote. Hooray for us!
But you can’t quite let go of patriarchal power and control. What, keep ’em in the kitchen?
Shame on you dinosaurs! Grow up for fuck’s sake…
Christ almighty, the American evangelicals have taken over New Zealand as well.
An abortion is a decision between the the woman and the woman alone. It’s not up to the Doctor – they’re there to do a job. No one would be tolerate being given a moral bashing from their car mechanic for asking them to change a tire they were concerned about, why should anyone, woman or otherwise, have to put up with this sh**?
Honestly, the “pro-life” abortion campaigning has nothing to do with “God”, and everything to do with giving mindless fanatical “believers” something to do, to keep them from exercising critical thinking:
“… pressure from Republican party operatives to form a movement that could steal socially conservative voters from Democrats.
…
Falwell and his array of allies disseminated this interpretation of the Bible, in a top-down political campaign, to millions of evangelicals across America, with mailers sporting titles like “Scriptures for Life.””
And,
“… its founding moral outrage stemmed not from Roe v. Wade, but from the prospect of government-imposed desegregation; it rest its intellectual foundation on highly dubious, non-scholarly arguments… it mobilized lay evangelicals to action by telling them the Bible teaches something it does not actually teach; and it actively suppressed the scholarship of evangelicals who held alternative viewpoints.”
http://religiondispatches.org/the-not-so-lofty-origins-of-the-evangelical-pro-life-movement/