Looks like yesterday's ruling on the dubious legality of most abortions performed in NZ has the pro-aborts up in arms.
Today's Dom Post on page A9 has an article titled "Anger at judge's abortion legality ruling", where both Women's Health Action Trust director Jo Fitzpatrick and Family Planning Chief Executive Jackie Edmond are quoted as being in favour of abortion on demand.
A Stuff article, titled "Decision raises fears over abortion" alludes to the dark old days during the 40's and 50's when "when many women died from illegal abortions", a quote that can be attributed to the Family Planning Chief Executive.
Related Link: Maternal deaths down in Nicaragua once abortion is eliminated
Today's Dom Post on page A9 has an article titled "Anger at judge's abortion legality ruling", where both Women's Health Action Trust director Jo Fitzpatrick and Family Planning Chief Executive Jackie Edmond are quoted as being in favour of abortion on demand.
A Stuff article, titled "Decision raises fears over abortion" alludes to the dark old days during the 40's and 50's when "when many women died from illegal abortions", a quote that can be attributed to the Family Planning Chief Executive.
Family Planning chief executive Jackie Edmond said there was a danger the ruling would make access to abortion more difficult for women. "If you start restricting abortion, we know that that actually leads to other things.And then we have the clincher - abortions must be legal because that way they are "safe":
"We're talking back into the 1940s and '50s, when New Zealand had a significant number of women die every year of illegal abortions. I don't think that's where, as a country, we want to head."
Christchurch GP Pippa MacKay, who performs abortions at Lyndhurst Hospital, said women needed access to safe abortions.What all these "caring" women quote don't mention (because maybe they don't know, or they do know but choose not to say) is that in countries where abortion has been made illegal, the maternal death rate has dropped dramatically (58% down in one year in Nicaragua!). So far from being "safe", legal abortion endangers women's lives to the point where in a country with legal abortion we have a country with a higher than necessary death rate for woman that are mothers.
"For as long as people have been having sex, there have been abortions," she said. "Unplanned pregnancies won't go away because abortion is illegal. That would be putting women's lives at risk."
Related Link: Maternal deaths down in Nicaragua once abortion is eliminated
For those who may wish to quickly stereotype this as a left vs right, liberal vs conservative argument and trot out the tired argument about the irony that many who do not support abortion, do support the death penalty:
ReplyDeleteI do not support abortion. I also do not support the death penalty or euthanasia. I have no problem with Civil Unions. I support healthy welfare and have voted 'left' more than 'right' in my history of voting... though with this election looming, I am an educated undecided voter. I support women's rights and a healthy feminist movement.
I sometimes disagree with the sentiments expressed at NZ Conservative, but I think this court ruling has been a long time coming and thus I am in agreement with many of their comments around this.
With this in mind, please all, refrain from condescending comments that are simply extreme characterizations of simplistic left and right politics. This discussion is a lot more nuanced than that.
Thanks for the comment Fritchie. Perhaps you might wish to read this comment thread - I think it supports your request: Understanding the issues, in spite of the rant
ReplyDeleteI'd also suggest you stay away from places like Frogblog and NRT who certainly try to over simplify the issue as "evil Christian Fundamentalism" and how the pro-life people are not willing to "listen to rational argument".
You might also want to stay away from No Minister, where the pro-abortion crowd are trying to make this about how hypocritical I am for paying taxes that are used for state funded abortion, or that it is apparently men that only push for abortion, yet they never will have a baby (and in the feminist utopian dream world, fathers are immaterial except for purposes of paying child support).
And then there's the newspapers that promote are very black and white view, where secular liberalism is the voice of reason. It certainly is pragmatic to 'reduce crime' by promoting abortion, but don't you find that kind of argument just a little scary?
Sorry, typo above:
ReplyDeleteWhere I said or that it is apparently men that only push for abortion, yet they never will have a baby
I meant to say:
or that it is apparently men that only push the pro-life stance, yet they never will have a baby
That concept is obviously a sexist and anti-humanist characterisation of the issue. How dare men be pro-life when a women's rights are at stake??
For those that like that perverse logic, we could of course push the other statistic: it's overwhelmingly men in control and making profit from the abortion services industry.
I think more attention should be paid to the women who speak out about their regrets over having an abortion - women faced with this situation for the first time are confused, fearful, and not finding a lot of support. So society is saying "don't worry, we'll make it easy to kill your baby" and the damage that offer does should not be dsimissed lightly.
Zen, I appreciate that at this blog, there isn't likely to be even the slightest disquiet felt by men trying to tell women what they must or must not do re abortion, because the men involved think human life is at stake. My beef over at No Minister is with the other crowd, the "Me and My Money" guys, for whom it's all about their taxes and their child support payments. Well, that, and with people like Orr who really should consider what the nation's non-Christian women are going to think about some old man coming on TV to lecture them about something he'll never have to go through. I can tell you the feedback I heard was anything but kind - would it have killed him to round up a female spokesmensch?
ReplyDeleteHi PM. Thanks for your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThis is obviously a tough debate on so many levels. I personally am very uncomfortable presenting the opinion that I'm telling a women what to do with her body. That aspect goes against the grain for me. However, in my mind, I haven't quite got to that point in the argument (it just sounds that way) - I'm really just stuck on the point that no matter how one dices it, after 5 weeks, we are asking a doctor to go and kill a beating heart.
This beating heart relies on the mother for survival, but it is a complete individual at that point - it can even have a different blood type from Mum.
And it's still going to rely on Mother for survival once its born, except that at that point if Mother neglects her child, some MAN will possibly pass judgment and throw her in jail...
So, before I actually get to the point of deciding I can tell a women what to do with her body (and I'm not quite there yet), I think we all need to agree what we are doing is asking a Doctor to kill.
(and if the Mother asked the Doctor to kill her instead of her child, we seem to assume the Mother is depressed and needs help, not assistance with finding the right poison..although it seems the liberals are moving up quickly to sort this violation of rights too)
But to quote some other males who have opinions on these things:
Neville Sender, M.D., who runs an abortion clinic, Metropolitan Medical Service, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin: "We know it is killing, but the states permit killing under certain circumstances."
Warren Hern, M.D., of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Boulder Colorado: "There is no possibility of denial of an act of destruction by the operator. It is before one's eyes. The sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current."
Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers: "Women enter abortion clinics to kill their fetuses. It is a form of killing. You're ending a life."
Oops, found some men working for the wrong side. Sorry about that, it's politically correct to only quote pro-choice women... :-)
My beef over at No Minister is with the other crowd, the "Me and My Money" guys, for whom it's all about their taxes and their child support payments.
ReplyDeleteYeah, some people really have a problem with both consequences and responsibility. What they need to do is phone victim support. However, that would rely on some big socialist government setting up a victim support agency in the first place, because I can't imagine any guys taking out insurance for this sort of thing.
Hi PM
ReplyDeleteI agree about the tax thing crowd argument. You are right in that I see it as a moral life issue primarily - and the science backs that argument up because, for the sake of this argument, a child at 12 weeks gestation is clearly a human in form.
I personally recognise life at conception, but for the sake of abortion arguments today, it is scientifically demonstrable, which is what people want to have.
However, the tax people have a point in one regard only. If we make smokers pay tax for their lifestyle choice, should we not make those who seek abortions too?
Further to this, condoms and the contraceptive pill should NOT be PHARMAC subsidised - they are expenditures incurred for a lifestyle decision.
But the real problem in all this is the bullshit peddled by so called "womans rights advocates" (and many of them are men as well). Abortions would go down if we taught our children to respect themselves and other more. Its that simple.
I wonder if any of the media outlets have actually read the decision, I just did and I almost feel like I'm living in some kind of parallel universe to everyone else.
ReplyDeleteYes Fergus - I've read the decision also, and a few of the points that attracted my attention have not really been properly discussed as yet.
ReplyDeleteA few people have taken this an an opportunity just to go over the base line arguments (myself included, being relatively new to this debate).
Hopefully, we'll get into the other meaty points over the weeks. I'm not sure much will actually change at the moment.