First they came for medical abortion in the Waikato…

To everyone who says that we effectively have abortion on demand, that the current laws are working fine so why fix something that isn’t broken, and that we abortion rights campaigners are just being overly dramatic when we repeatedly warn that, with the law as it currently stands, we are at risk of having our reproductive rights gradually eroded as is happening in the US, I present you with this:

Abortions in Waikato going to contractor, NZ Herald 29/11/11

Because some staff object to assisting with abortions, the Waikato DHB has had to hire a contractor to provide surgical abortions at three Waikato hospitals, and residents who wish to have a medical abortion instead will now be forced to travel to Auckland.

When reading this story, I was immediately struck by a couple of questions:

From Our Files: John Banks

On Sunday 14 April 1996 John Banks created a huge controversy when he expounded his views on abortion during his regular Sunday morning talk show on Radio Pacific. At the time he was a cabinet Minister (of Sport), the Prime Minister was Jim Bolger and the Minister of Health was Jenny Shipley. Both condemned Banks’s statements. This became the lead item on the TV1 News the following day. Here is a transcript of what he said:

I challenge you or any other New Zealander to name two other countries that murder more unborn children each year per capita than New Zealand. Everybody listening should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. This is state funded genocide and I am compiling a list of all the doctors in all the hospitals up and down the country that commit these murders every morning of the week and dump these babies either in the waste disposal unit in the hospital or into a ‘kleensac’ and I am going to release their names publicly so that you’ll be able to walk down the street “That’s a killer!” “That one who lives in that house. He’s another murderer!” “She kills babies before they are born!” and I’ll be able to identify the abortionist dash state funded killer because I’m getting the list together and I’m going to release it in Parliament so it can be published in every newspaper in the country.

This entry is part of an occasional “From Our Files” series in which we dig through ALRANZ newsletters and related files to give readers a bit of insight into the recent history (post-1960s) of the struggle for reproductive rights in New Zealand. All the entries are listed here.

Commentary on ‘Refusal to Treat’ Ruling

Comment on judgment MacKenzie J, 2 December 2010

This is a more detailed comment on the MacKenzie ruling discussed in our 21 November post titled How the Medical Council Sold Out Women.

This comment on MacKenzie’s December 2010 ruling in the case taken by a group of anti-abortion doctors against the Medical Council of New Zealand (MCNZ) must be read in conjunction with the revised guidelines from MCNZ dated October 2010. (MCNZ October 2010 Draft statement on “Beliefs and medical practice”) The revised guidelines are  substantially different from the draft guidelines dated March 2009 (MCNZ March 2009 Draft statement on “Beliefs and medical practice”) as a result of submissions from a  number of interested parties including a group of anti-abortion doctors who banded together under  the name of New Zealand Health Professionals Alliance Inc (NZHPA) in November 2009 expressly to challenge the MCNZ’s guidelines. ALRANZ also made a submission but only the NZHPA was accorded negotiating status with the MCNZ. When the NZHPA and the MCNZ failed to reach an agreement the NZHPA initiated court proceedings. The case was heard in the Wellington High Court on 1-2 November 2011 and the reserved judgment of MacKenzie J was delivered on 2 December 2010.

How the Medical Council Sold Out Women

 ALRANZ has been told that the Medical Council of New Zealand (MCNZ) has caved in to anti-abortion pressure, and decided not to appeal a judge’s ruling that gives doctors the right to simply show you the door if you want an abortion.

Why, you might wonder, has the MCNZ decided to sell out the women of New Zealand? Because, it says, it can’t afford to defend them. ALRANZ is appalled that the rights of women patients to the full spectrum of care is now essentially in the hands of whichever group has the most money to mount an expensive legal attack, which is what has happened in this case.

If the MCNZ can’t afford to defend the women of New Zealand against anti-abortion attacks, Parliament needs to either provide the necessary funds (and encouragement) or strip the MCNZ of its statutory role over doctors. If this situation stands, it’s clear that while Parliament continues to do nothing about abortion – including spelling out that patients come first, not doctors – our rights are being sold off, piece by piece, to the highest bidder.

ALRANZ has called on the Minister of Health to investigate the handling of a matter that is of crucial importance to the women of New Zealand.

UPDATE 11:51 a.m.: Also, check out our media release on this issue and the New Zealand Herald’s story.

Read on to find out what happened in this case.  

From Our Files: The Women Who Went to Australia

This entry is part of an occasional “From Our Files” series in which we dig through ALRANZ newsletters and related files to give readers a bit of insight into the recent history (post-1960s) of the struggle for reproductive rights in New Zealand. All the entries are listed here.

From ALRANZ Newsletter April 1975:

“Characteristics of N.Z. Women Seeking Abortions In Australia”

A recent article in the New Zealand Medical Journal (1.) describes 145 New Zealand women seeking abortion at a Melbourne clinic between July 1972 and July 1974. The article is a harrowing account of the way in which, under the prohibitive abortion laws existing in this country, the physical and mental health of many women is jeopardized.

The age of the women ranged from 14 to 43 years, the average age being 21.4 years. Those women 20 years or under numbered 76 (including 8 schoolgirls under 16 years of age) while 18 were women 30 years or older.

It is not easy to fly to Australia for an abortion. The overall cost of the trip, in October 1974, was about $450.00. Most of the patients had not flown before and viewed the trip with some trepidation, in addition to having to contend with guilt and embarrassment about their condition.

Contraception never looked like so much fun! [video]

This ad from Cameroon for female condoms is pretty cool.

Voting for Reproductive Justice

The  conservative (lower-case ‘c’) groups are all coming out with their voter guides including Family First and, yesterday, Right to Life. Family First has put out a Value Your Vote guide  (blogged about at THM in terms of election spending issues) that is actually useful for pro-choice voters because on reproductive rights issues, we can just vote for everyone FF opposes.

FF also has a list of how those candidates who already have Parliamentary records have voted on issues it’s interested in. Again, if reproductive justice is one of your things, you can just look down the column of, say, “parental notification” and vote for the people who don’t get a tick, and/or are labeled “not family friendly”. (Who’s sick of the word “family” being co-opted by conservatism, raise your hands?) It’s handy, and a useful research tool, so thanks FF!

From Our Files: Arson at SOS

This entry is part of an occasional “From Our Files” series in which we dig through ALRANZ newsletters and related files to give readers a bit of insight into the recent history (post-1960s) of the struggle for reproductive rights in New Zealand. All the entries are listed here.

From ALRANZ Newsletter April 1978

On March 28^th 1978 the Ponsonby premises of the Auckland Sisters Overseas Services was severely damaged by fire. The arsonist(s) climbed a fire escape, forced entry through an upstairs window and lit 5 fires inside the rooms. Signed Repeal petitions and some records were lost in the fire, although SOS continued as usual – next door. 

Remember the fearful and crippling damage done to the Auckland Medical Aid Trust Hospital by other crusading arsonists in 1976?

What price women’s rights!!

Welcome!

Welcome to our brand new blog. Have a look around our pages to find out who we are, and how you can contribute to the blog too. To get us started we have included a few recent posts from our old blog (which you may or may not have come across in the past).

Ladies in the House

–Originally posted at our old blog, on 10 November 2011–

On Tuesday night, I attended a pre-election event organised by the Wellington Young Feminists Collective. It was a great event, well attended, with lots of good questions asked. On the panel were: Paul Foster-Bell (National Party candidate for Wellington Central), Jordan Carter (Labour Party list candidate), Ben Craven (NZ First candidate for Wellington Central), Holly Walker (Green Party candidate for Hutt South), Jan Logie (Green Party candidate for Mana), and Stephen Whittington (Act Party candidate for Wellington Central).