Election 2023: How Parties Score on Issues of Reproductive Justice

by | 21 Sep, 2023 | Our Blog

On 14 October 2023, Aotearoa New Zealand will go to the polls to vote on who they want to represent them in Parliament.  ALRANZ has been consistent that reproductive rights are on the ballot this election.  From implementing safe areas, to funding contraception, to the general global rollback of women’s rights, voters should be confident they are voting for a party that can be trusted with these important issues.  ALRANZ has gathered data on five different metrics for these scorecards from publicly available sources in order to make an assessment on which parties will be good for reproductive rights, and which parties will stagnate (or even reverse) progress.

First, Act (well, David Seymour) voted in favour of abortion law reform in 2020 and has been a long-standing proponent of the idea the state should not interfere in private medical decisions.  While ultimately voting yes to safe areas in 2022, David Seymour was the reason the provision was removed from law reform in 2020.  Furthermore, both David Seymour and Deputy Leader Brooke van Velden have made public comments expressing concerns about safe areas and freedom of speech.  (You can read ALRANZ’s position on those concerns here.)  ALRANZ is therefore unconvinced ACT would actually implement safe areas if they got into power.  There is no mention of anything related to women’s health, rights, or reproductive justice in the rest of ACT’s material for this election.

The Green Party have been consistent and dedicated allies to the reproductive justice movement.  The entire caucus voted in favour of both law reform and safe areas.  The caucus has also been outspoken on issues of reproductive justice globally, issuing statements on things like the overturn of Roe v Wade in the United States.  While not specifically mentioning future issues to do with reproductive rights, the Green Party manifesto mentions involvement in 0800 DECIDE, and notes the Green Party wants to finalise and resource the women’s health strategy.  The women’s health strategy includes issues of access to contraception.  ALRANZ is confident on the Green Party’s commitment to reproductive justice.

80 per cent of the Labour Party caucus voted in favour of abortion law reform in 2020.  The top 5 on Labour’s current list (Chris Hipkins, Kelvin Davis, Carmel Sepuloni, Grant Roberston and Megan Woods) all voted in favour.   95 per cent of the Labour caucus voted in favour of safe areas, all MPs in the top 20 on Labour’s current list.  This commitment on paper has become a reality:  11 providers have had safe areas implemented under a Labour-led government and Labour introduced the 0800 DECIDE helpline.  The information about Labour’s position on issues of reproductive justice are easy to find in their “women’s health manifesto”, which shows these issues are a priority for them.  Labour have comprehensive policies on maternal health, birth injuries, cervical cancer, breast cancer, endometriosis treatment, funding period products in school, removing prescription fees for access to contraception and increasing Pharmac funding to explore birth control options.

The National Party have a chequered history with reproductive rights.  Just 35 per cent of caucus voted in favour of law reform in 2020.  In the National Party’s current list, number 4 and 5 (Shane Reti and Paul Goldsmith) both voted no.  While all of the top 5 (along with 73 per cent of the caucus) voted yes to safe areas in 2022, ALRANZ is sceptical of National’s willingness to preserve or implement safe areas given Reti and Goldsmith would be the Ministers of Health and Justice (respectively) under a National-led government.  National do not have a general women’s health policy, but have committed to expanding free breast cancer screenings.  National wish to re-introduce prescription fees for contraceptive drugs, although Deputy Leader Nicola Willis did hint National were “looking into” long acting reversal contraceptives (LARCs).  ALRANZ is concerned about a National led government in large part due to the anti-choice beliefs of leader Christopher Luxon.  This is reflected in his caucus: 50 per cent of National’s top 20 got a downwards vote from ALRANZ in our previous scorecard.

New Zealand First were the only party to get a score in the negative numbers, in large part due to their complete silence on all issues of women’s rights and reproductive justice.  Publicly, what we know is that just 22 per cent of the New Zealand First caucus (two MPs) voted for law reform in 2020.  Winston Peters, Shane Jones and Mark Patterson all voted no (numbers 1, 2 and 5 on the New Zealand First list).  Both Te Pāti Māori MPs voted yes on safe areas in 2022, but otherwise have shown little public engagement with issues of reproductive rights.  Some of this may be due to the health policy on their website being a dead link.  Finally, TOP’s website contained easy-to-find policies, including one on fully funding contraception (including LARCs), fully funding antenatal ultrasounds and prioritising women’s health.  Despite not being in Parliament during law reform or safe areas, TOP have been dedicated and consistent advocates of reproductive justice (and great friends to ALRANZ).

While who to vote for is a choice for each individual voter, ALRANZ implores everyone to decide what level of risk you comfortable with this election.  Because we only need to look overseas to see the devastating effects electing people who are not pro-choice can have.

If you believe any information on this scorecard is not an accurate reflection of a party’s policy or position, please contact ALRANZ here.  Please include in your message a reference to publicly available information that contradicts what ALRANZ has said.

Luxon “won’t change” Aotearoa’s abortion laws, but he likely won’t enforce them either

Luxon “won’t change” Aotearoa’s abortion laws, but he likely won’t enforce them either

by | 15 Jun, 2023 | Our Blog

Image from Simeon Brown on Facebook. National Party leader Christopher Luxon (R) and MP for Pakuranga Simeon Brown (L) are both anti-choice.

By Alma De Anda, Abortion Rights Aotearoa Co-Treasurer

On 18 March 2022, a law was passed in Aotearoa to allow for the creation of ‘safe areas’ around abortion service providers to protect staff and patients from intimidation from anti-choice protestors.  (This is following the removal of safe areas from the initial Bill decriminalising abortion in 2020, thanks to the ACT party.)  Yet, as I type this, there have been NO safe areas established around any abortion provider in the entire country due to the unnecessarily arduous process to implement one.  Former ALRANZ (Abortion Rights Aotearoa) President Terry Bellamak wrote about this in March.  Three months later and there is still no progress.

The safe areas amendment passed because the government acknowledged abortion care is healthcare and should be treated as such.  Despite this approach, implementing safe areas has proved to be an arduous process.  This means anti-choice, anti-abortion extremists can still get together to harass anyone (patients or staff) entering or exiting abortion care facilities.  We use the word ‘extremists’ in this context because it is extreme and dangerous to believe that a government or any one person has a right to force someone to stay pregnant against their will. 

ALRANZ receives messages from concerned citizens wondering why people are still harassing abortion seekers and abortion providers if it’s unlawful.  We must reply and explain the tedious and ridiculously long process that leaves providers and patients exposed to violence and harassment each day after an abortion provider’s application is received.  A hopeful time estimate for the completion of the process is at least six to nine months.

If this glacial progress is what we have under a pro-choice government, one wonders what it would be like under one lacking the political will to implement abortion law reform.  If a National or a National/ACT government win the next election, we could see the advancement of abortion access and abortion equity across Aotearoa die from purposeful procedural stagnation. 

Abortion rights do not exist in a silo, and ALRANZ knows people have a wide range of beliefs about God and religion.  ALRANZ has no issue with religious freedom, what we are concerned with is the Christian nationalism seeping its way into politics in Aotearoa.  We know several key members of the National Party are actively and vocally opposed to abortion rights, as well as other human rights related to sexuality, race, and gender. 

Party leader and MP for Botany Christopher Luxon is anti-choice and believes abortion is tantamount to murder.  That implicitly means Luxon believes that one in four women in Aotearoa are murderers.  Similarly, Tāmaki MP Simon O’Connor was overjoyed at the overturning of Roe v Wade, which ended the constitutional protection for abortion in the United States.  O’Connor is also a fan of appearing on podcasts and YouTube channels to talk about the “annoying” topics of race and gender.  (I won’t link to those, but if you want to look for them yourselves, you will find them.  I do not recommend it though.)  MP for Pakuranga Simeon Brown was “holding back tears” at the thought of abortion law reform and, as demonstrated when he voted “no” alongside seven of his National colleagues at the third reading of the Bill banning conversion therapy, thinks it is OK to tell LGBTQIA+ youth that his God does not approve of their ‘lifestyle’.  Likewise, Northland-based MP Dr Shane Reti has personal views in direct conflict with abortion and LGBTQIA+ rights allegedly because of his Catholic faith.  Reti would become the Minister for Health under a National government.  How would he, or any of these other high-profile National MPs, advance or even conserve abortion rights in Aotearoa?

The short answer: they won’t.  The National Party might not undo abortion law reform like what is happening in the United States.  However, as the safe areas stagnation demonstrates the government does not have to introduce specific legislation to stifle abortion access.  All they have to do is drag their feet on any aspect around abortion service delivery and they can still say, “See, we did not touch abortion law reform.”

And they would be correct, but they would not do what 74 per cent of New Zealanders want regarding abortion – to properly implement choice for all. 

Anniversary of Safe Areas Bill’s Passage Passes with No Safe Areas

by | 19 Mar, 2023 | Media Release

Last Saturday 18 March, Aotearoa New Zealand marked the first anniversary of the passage of the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Act 2022. ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa notes that in spite of the act, New Zealand has no safe areas.

 

The process to create a safe area is cumbersome and time-consuming. It requires months of work by the Ministry of Health to plot out the safe area and get it approved. After all that, the fate of a safe area is in the hands of Cabinet, which can move it forward or ignore it.

 

There are currently about a dozen safe area applications in the pipeline. Half are ready for Cabinet to consider.

 

People who receive or provide abortion care need safe areas yesterday. Every day, people have to walk by judgemental anti-abortion protesters with huge, misleading, gory signs in order to access safe, legal health care. 

 

ALRANZ president Dr Tracy Morison said, “Parliament passed the Safe Areas Bill because they saw the need for it. If there’s a need, and there definitely is, then the process for creating safe areas isn’t fit for purpose because not one safe area has been created to date.”

 

ALRANZ believes Cabinet needs to approve the safe areas applications as a matter of urgency, or admit the government got it wrong when they set out the requirements for creating safe areas.

Losing Our Religion

Losing Our Religion

by | 6 Dec, 2022 | Our Blog

by Craig Young

The Aotearoa/New Zealand anti-abortion movement still doesn’t get it. In the United States, there’s at least some semblance of ersatz pluralism, despite the fact that their movement is overwhelmingly dominated by conservative Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants. There are self-labelled anti-abortion “agnostics and atheists”, pseudofeminists, LGBTQI+ gtroups, scientists, pagans, medical practitioners, ad nauseum. This adds some unconvincing garnishing to the US anti-abortion movement. Some anti-abortion Orthodox Jews and Muslims are also involved in both Britain and the United States.

But in Aotearoa/New Zealand? Their movement is oblivious to the need to look secular in the context of plummeting Christian religious observance. There is only one Maori figure, Hilary Kieft, in Taranaki and no Maori organisations listed in the anti-abortion March for Life’s list of endorsers, which seem to consist entirely of fundamentalist Protestants and conservative Catholics- Couples for Christ, Family Life International NZ, Family First, Right to Life New Zealand, Voice for Life New Zealand, Jesus for NZ, Promise Keepers, John Paul II Centre for Life, NZ Catholic Bishops Conference, (fundamentalist) NZ Christian Network, and the Executive Presbytery of the Assemblies of God. Notice something? Well, for starters, there are no mainline Protestants, no-one from other faith groups, no self-professed atheists or agnostics, no anti-abortion womens groups, and no medical or scientific organisations whatsoever. Proof, if anyone ever needed it, that the New Zealand/Aotearoa anti-abortion movement is almost wholly pakeha and conservative Christian. And they’re certainly not out there to win friends and influence people- Family First’s Bob McCoskrie dislikes progressive Christians, Voice for Life doesn’t even pretend to be politically nonpartisan anymore, and McCoskrie also thinks the anti-abortion movement needs more men.

We should be happy at this outcome. If they carry on this way, they will be unable to deal with either side of Aotearoa/New Zealand politics, with Labour and the Greens already uninclined to listen to them due to their blatant partisan bias and National and ACT trying to distance themselves from an unpopular extremist movement.  The New Conservatives, One Party and Vision New Zealand might make occasional anti-abortion noises, but they’re more obsessed with the anti-vaccination movement than with other fringe opponents of reproductive freedom and LGBTQI issues.

Burning Down the House

Burning Down the House

by | 21 Nov, 2022 | Our Blog

by Terry Bellamak

Back in May, when the US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v Jackson was leaked by persons unknown, the world thought such treachery was unprecedented in US history. It turns out we were wrong.

The Rev Bob Schenck, a former anti-abortion leader turned whistle-blower, disclosed to Chief Justice Roberts (and now to the New York Times) that in 2014 Justice Alito leaked the results of the Burwell v Hobby Lobby decision to Schenck’s agents, whom he called “stealth missionaries.” The leak gave Schenck and other conservative parties with an interest in the decision a head start on their public relations work. 

This revelation throws unexpected light on the Dobbs leak. At the time, astute court watchers speculated radical conservatives on the court leaked the decision to lock in Chief Justice Roberts’s yes vote and to prevent his persuading other justices to water it down. 

The justice with the most to gain by such a move was Justice Alito himself, who wrote the decision. Given his alleged form in this area, he now appears to be the prime suspect in the May leak.

Both the leak and the Dobbs decision itself have brought the US Supreme Court into unprecedented disrepute. It has reinforced the prevailing perception of the court as a haven for partisan right-wing hackery. Even the lower courts have joined in the criticism, as did Judge Robert CI McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County in Georgia, in a pithy footnote to his decision in Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective v State of Georgia: 

Despite its frothy language disparaging the views espoused by previous Justices, the magic of Dobbs is not its special insight into historical “facts” or its monopoly on constitutional hermeneutics. It is simply numbers. More Justices today believe that the U.S. Constitution does not protect a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body than did in that same institution 50 years ago. This new majority has provided our nation with a revised (and controlling) interpretation of what the unchanged words of the U.S. Constitution really mean. And until that interpretation changes again, it is the law.

What can you do when an institution that has no effective oversight becomes politicised? And loses not only the appearance of impartiality, but the reality as well?

If Alito is the culprit, he might as well be on a mission to destroy the Roberts court, or even SCOTUS itself. He’s like an arsonist in a house made of straw.