| Posted by Bel | The time is 8.37am here in Wellington NZ |
World Health Day is April 7th and it was acknowledged and celebrated round these parts with a blogswarm on the topic: Abortion: it's a health issue, not a crime.
Head over to The Hand Mirror for a comprehensive index of posts from pro-choice bloggers and get up to speed.
But the issue of abortion law reform in New Zealand and improving the associated health services cannot be assumed as a once-off flurry.
That this medical procedure is in the Crimes Act is unacceptable. The law has remained unchanged since the 1970s. Most of the public is unaware because clinicians work hard to ensure the process is as free of red-tape as possible.
Open up discussions with the people around you. We need to be debating this and raising awareness of it. And, in election year more than ever, we must let our politicians know that this will not go away.
Gill Greer - former Executive Director of Family Planning, current President of International Planned Parenthood, she is aaamaze - is interviewed in this week's Listener magazine. Grab a copy, it's worth a read (online here but not readable in full yet).
She talks about how we can use sex to sell anything these days, have it in any context - but when we actually need to talk about the nuts and bolts of it, this becomes an impossible subject.
Put yourself in an awkward situation. Be the dork writing letters to Parliament. Ask your mum what she thinks about the right to choose. Put a link up on your facebook page to an article about our country's statistics. Pay the measly amount and get a membership to Family Planning or ALRANZ and stay up to date with the work they are doing.
April 7th was a great day to write and talk and link about why abortion is a health issue, not a crime. So are the other 364 days of the year. And you can be guaranteed that we will be out there making a ruckus until things change here in New Zealand.
The stupid thing being that the inherent "health issue" nature of abortion is so assumed in NZ that the only reason it's still a "crime" is that the majority of people don't know it is! ARGH.
Step One: Women achieve the right to vote. TICK.
[not that a lot of semantics are put as "women are GIVEN the right to vote" - I say that we AHIEVED it]
Step Two: The legal right to equal pay is achieved. TICK.
[even if it is not given]
Step Three: The right for women to control their own bodies is achieved. BIG FAT RED CROSS.
Sadly it is something that people might not think about or fight for until they need it.
(I meant NOTE that a lot of the semantics are...) #hashad4glassesofbubblysoisnotatbestlevelofcoherence