A Basic Lack of Trust

A Basic Lack of Trust

by | 4 Jun, 2023 | Our Blog

by Terry Bellamak

Last week Newshub asked Christopher Luxon whether contraception would be fully funded if National gets elected and rolls back Labour’s elimination of the $5 fee for prescriptions. Caught off guard, his answer revealed just how little thought or planning went into this policy. He said he did not consider those needing contraception to have “high medical needs.”

Luxon had once again stumbled into telling on himself. You would think a former CEO would be well across the business case for contraception – it prevents more costly health service events, like abortions, pregnancies, and childbirths. Instead Luxon seemed to answer not from his business superego, but from his evangelical id. Fundamentalists oppose both abortion and contraception, as we see in the USA.

The electorate, ever watchful for signs of plans to roll back reproductive rights, reacted with outrage. They remembered certain salient facts the National party would rather they forget:

  • Luxon is on record agreeing that abortion is ‘tantamount to murder’
  • Luxon has promised not to repeal the Abortion Legislation Act 2020, nor reduce funding for abortions BUT
  • The religious right has strong form for lying about reproductive rights when it suits their agenda. 
    • Supreme court justices in the US lied about abortion in their Senate confirmation hearings, leading to the overturning of Roe v Wade. 
    • Anti-abortion extremists in the USA and New Zealand still tell lies about abortion negatively affecting patients’ mental health, years after the Turnaway study proved otherwise. 
  • National MP Simon O’Connor, who ended his speech at the Abortion Legislation Act’s third reading with the ominous ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord’ in Latin, posted ‘Today is a good day’ when Roe was overturned. It took Luxon three tries to distance himself from O’Connor’s remarks and calm the waters.
  • In the past week National’s fundie caucus has been throwing its weight around, with Simeon Brown complaining about bilingual road signage, and O’Connor dog-whistling his opposition to same-sex marriage. Luxon is unable, or chooses not, to control them.
  • Also this week the National party showed form for reneging on good faith agreements, as shown by their surprise repudiation of the Medium Density Residential Standards agreement with the government.

And now here we have Luxon stating his belief that contraception is not important enough for National to cover people who need it. Bad look. No wonder people find it hard to credit his promises around protecting abortion rights.

Labour uncharacteristically took advantage of Luxon’s mistake. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins referred to the National party taking New Zealand back to the 1950s. Megan Woods tweeted a meme from the Handmaid’s Tale.

You can tell how much Woods’s jibe hit home by the pearl-clutching that ensued. The mildest hyperbole was condemned as dirty politics. 

Newshub seemed a bit shocked and dismayed that their gotcha question had landed so hard. The walkback started immediately as political journalists echoed the National party’s outrage, grabbing for their own pearls.

Some have criticised Labour for not eliminating the prescription fee six years ago. Why is this silly time-travel argument used so much? Making the announcement about free prescriptions changed the conversation. From that moment ‘everybody pays’ was off the table. In its place was ‘nobody pays’ and ‘some must pay.’ 

Who must pay for what involves a values-based discussion about what care the health service should fully fund. National should have known better than to turn the discussion to values when its loud and proud fundie caucus is so out of step with the New Zealand public. Aotearoa has a resolutely secular society that does not trust extreme religious politicians. 

That’s why Woods’s meme hit home. 

Given the importance of the rights at stake, i.e. bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom, who could blame New Zealanders for being super cautious about a party chock full of people who oppose their fundamental rights, including the leader? This is not the National party of Hon Amy Adams and Hon Nikki Kaye.

We have seen the speed with which the health care system in conservative US states has deteriorated into a shit show. People are being criminalised for making decisions about their own bodies in the privacy of their own homes. People with failing pregnancies are being forced to wait until they are at death’s door before doctors will treat them. The USA’s Savita Halappanavar may be only weeks away. 

If we elect a National government that breaks its promises and curtails reproductive rights, it will be too late for us. Given the grave nature of the risk, we have every right to be worried about National and their real intentions.

 

Open Letter to Christopher Luxon, Leader of the Opposition

by | 1 Apr, 2023 | Media Release

ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa Secretary Jacqueline Cavanagh sent the following open letter to Christopher Luxon. She objects to his demand for Green Party Co-Leader Marama Davidson’s to apologise for her accurate statements concerning the sources of violence in our communities.

 

Dear Mr Luxon

You have been quoted as saying that comments made by Marama Davidson were offensive and that she should apologise. You said you believed she must apologise publicly to the people that she hurt. I can only assume that you would expect a public apology from any other politician who says offensive things, in public, and in their capacity as a member of parliament.

I challenge you to live up to your own standards.

In an interview with Newshub in December 2021, you claimed that abortion is tantamount to murder. I had an abortion. You have, therefore, called me a murderer. The fact that I had the abortion to save my life and not leave the child I already had without a mother is a nuance your comment does not consider. Though my reasons do not matter because the decision to end a pregnancy is my right. 

I am not a murderer because abortion is healthcare, not a crime. People who access abortion do so for their own excellent reasons. You may disagree with those reasons, but 74% of New Zealanders agree that abortion should be available on request for any reason. 

I am personally offended by your statements, and I represent a community of people who are similarly offended by your comments. This is the community of people who accessed healthcare services in accordance with the law to end their pregnancies, and the spouses, partners, children and loved ones of those persons. 

I ask you to apologise publicly and unreservedly for your offensive comments, in which you called me a murderer. I believe that a failure to do so calls into question the integrity of your calls for other politicians to apologise. Failure to do so is most certainly failing to live up to the same standards to which you hold other politicians accountable. 

 I await your apology, without holding my breath.

 

Yours sincerely,

Jacqueline Cavanagh

Secretary, ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa


ALRANZ supports rally for trans acceptance and reproductive rights

ALRANZ supports rally for trans acceptance and reproductive rights

by | 23 Mar, 2023 | Media Release

ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa stands in unwavering solidarity with Queer Endurance/Defiance, who are organizing the Rally for Trans Acceptance and Reproductive Rights  in Wellington on Sunday 26th March at 1.30pm.

 The rally responds to the speaking tour of anti-trans, anti-abortion and anti-contraception UK extremist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, known as Posie Parker. Immigration New Zealand is allowing Keen-Minshull to travel to New Zealand despite her links with white supremacists.  ALRANZ strongly condemns Keen-Minshull’s hateful and divisive views. Her extremist rhetoric aims to harm and marginalize individuals, particularly women and gender minorities, and restrict their access to vital reproductive healthcare.

 After a strong neo-nazi presence at Keen-Minshulls’ Hobart rally and her anti-trans hate speech, prime minister Chris Hipkins has condemned the use of free speech to incite hatred and violence. ALRANZ spokesperson Fleur Kelsey states “her anti-trans extremist hate speech is not welcome here and does not reflect the views of the majority of New Zealanders” and urges Immigration New Zealand to reconsider and deny Keen-Minshulls’ entry to Aotearoa immediately.

 ALRANZ is committed to upholding the rights of queer and trans people to gender affirming and reproductive healthcare which meets their needs. We urge supporters and allies to join in solidarity at this rally if you are able to. Together, we can drown out the voices of hate and bigotry and show support for the marginalized in our communities.

This is Not America

This is Not America

by | 10 Feb, 2023 | Our Blog

by Craig Young

The New Zealand anti-abortion movement seems to believe that we’re the fifty-first US state  rather than a sovereign country. Otherwise, why would they wholly parrot every cue and soundbyte from their US counterparts?

Now, some might say that this is because the anti-abortion and pro-choice movements are both transnational networks, but in reality, the information flows within our movement are quite dissimilar to theirs. ALRANZ was originally named for the United Kingdom’s Abortion Law Reform Association, just as Voice for Life was originally named SPUC (the Society for Protection of the Unborn Child) after the UK SPUC. However, by the eighties, things had started to diverge from this initial model. 

This first became noticeable in 1983. Our American members may remember that at this point, prohibitionist anti-abortionists tried to introduce a “Human Life Amendment” that would have prohibited abortion across the United States, except that the Democrats made substantial gains in the midterm elections and sank the idea. Because SPUC and the anti-abortion newspaper Humanity (sic) had concluded that the US anti-abortion movement was making more headway than the more incrementalist British SPUC, it decided to increasingly use propaganda, rhetoric, tactics, and strategies from the United States. Thus, when the Court of Appeal decided that there was no “BMZEF personhood” clause within the Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion Act after Wall v Livingston,  SPUC and anti-abortion National MP Doug Kidd decided to lobby for a “Status of the Unborn Child Bill”, which would have prohibited abortion, except it sank at its first reading. 

That wasn’t the end of the story. Influenced by the US anti-abortion movement and the highly Americanised New Zealand fundamentalist Protestant subculture, as well as opposition to homosexual law reform in the mid-eighties, the Pro-Life Action Group, Christians for Life and Operation Rescue formed to picket and trespass within abortion clinic property. Unfortunately, this led to profound tensions within the anti-abortion movement itself, between those who favoured parliamentary lobbying and those who wanted to engage in exhibitionist spectacles in the name of their philosophy and religious conviction.  As the only result of Operation Rescue New Zealand’s antics was the reaffirmation of Wall v Livingstone at the Court of Appeal and then at the Privy Council, the legislative conservatives pulled the plug on Operation Rescue and refused to further fund its activities. 

Amusingly, there was then another schism within the New Zealand anti-abortion movement as militant Christchurch SPUC, under the leadership of former Operation Rescue Christchurch enthusiast Ken Orr, decided to resurrect the Status of the Unborn Child Bill from the early eighties- again, mirroring the split between the US American Life League and National Right to Life Committee over prohibitionist versus incrementalist anti-abortion tactics. SPUC expelled Christchurch SPUC, which rebranded as Right to Life New Zealand. 

Over time, the New Zealand anti-abortion movement fell more and more under the spell of US anti-abortion propaganda, rhetoric, tactics, and strategies. During the Abortion Legislation Act debate, this became quite apparent on Voice for Life’s Facebook page and its continual citation of American political and historical precedents.  It was almost as if it had given up trying to adapt them to New Zealand’s very different society, politics and culture, which is much less religious than the United States. This may demonstrate the shallow roots that the “New Zealand” anti-abortion movement actually has within Aotearoa/New Zealand society and culture.  Meanwhile, ALRANZ had taken note of a greater range of pro-choice precedents within societies more akin to our own, such as Canada and Australia. And unlike our opponents, we adapted them to our own domestic context, much like our own Australian and Canadian counterparts. 

It seems appropriate to end on a reflective note. If one looks at Voice for Life’s Facebook page, one sees VFL President Kate Cormack standing outside a US (Republican) Congressional office. Which says it all, really. But as the late great David Bowie so memorably sang once, This is Not America.

“Abortion Reversal” is Dangerous

by | 29 Sep, 2022 | Our Blog

by Terry Bellamak

In mid-September Pharmac decided to fully fund progesterone. The change is expected to increase access to hormone replacement therapy for symptoms of menopause.

Progesterone has another, more sinister unapproved use, as part of anti-choice movement’s dance of misogyny. They call it “abortion reversal,” and say it is for all those pregnant people who take the first pill, then suddenly change their mind (reinforcing the myth of female indecision and fickleness).

In 2012 Dr George Delgado, an anti-abortion doctor in California, released his study of six women who took progesterone after having taken mifipristone, to stop their medical abortions. According to Delgado, four of the six continued their pregnancies.

In 2019, researchers from the University of California at Davis tried to replicate Delgado’s findings in a randomised, controlled trial. Safety concerns, however, caused them to end the study after just 12 patients had been enrolled. Three of the enrolled patients experienced severe haemorrhage requiring hospital care.

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology says “abortion reversal” is not backed by science, and calls it “unproven and unethical.” The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada warns that it can cause serious complications for patients. The American Medical Association calls it “patently false” and “unproven.” No reputable medical association supports this unapproved use of progesterone.

In New Zealand, the Ministry of Health advises patients can change their minds about abortion right up until the abortion begins. At that point the abortion cannot be reversed. This advice accords with the advice of respected international medical bodies.

So why are we talking about this?

Because there may be anti-abortion doctors in Aotearoa who might be willing to gamble with their patients’ health by prescribing progesterone for this unapproved “abortion reversal.” Any doctor who behaves so recklessly should face sanctions from whatever medical body they belong to, be it the College of General Practitioners, the Royal Australia New Zealand College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, or the Medical Council of New Zealand.

Right now, after Pharmac’s announcement, would be the best time for these medical associations to spell out what sanctions would be taken against practitioners who are found to have prescribed progesterone for this purpose. Considering the risks, those sanctions should be serious.

ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa calls upon the College of General Practitioners, the Royal Australia New Zealand College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, or the Medical Council of New Zealand to denounce the unapproved use of progesterone for “abortion reversal” and to state the penalties they will impose on doctors who gamble with their patients’ health in this way.