| 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.

Image via Wellington Young Feminists Collective

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.

| Posted by Bel | The time is 4.32pm here in Wellington NZ |

A commenter on this recent post brought up the issue of when a doctor makes a judgement call, rather than giving medical advice.

Patients are in a vulnerable position when they enter a doctor's clinic, whether it be for the 'flu or a pregnancy scare, or a weird spotty rash that came up after gardening. It's our own bodies doing something we don't really understand and we're relying on someone else to tell us what to do next. Doctors are in such a position of authority, and we have to trust that all their years of training, and ability to pronounce the labels on prescription bottles, means that they have our best interests at heart.

There are times when a doctor's own interests overrule though. Rather than presenting a patient with the most relevant medical options for their situation, they may withhold information or services because of their own judgements. Not professional ones, but personal.

Storytime, folks: I went to my doctor to get the emergency contraceptive pill (ECP, or "morning after pill"). Yes, I know, you can get it at most pharmacies, sometimes even for free (although only recently in some regions, such as the Manawatu, where it has been SPOILER ALERT hugely popular).

But I am on medication for epilepsy and that messes with all kinds of other drugs, even just simple stuff like that panadol with caffiene in. Same as how plenty of anti-depressants can't be mixed and matched with just anything off the shelf.

Anyway, I decide to be comprehensive in my paranoia and make the doctor's appointment. It turns out to be a locum (what is with them, Valleygurl??) and after explaining why I'm there (*blush*), have her tell me that she won't prescribe me the contraceptive. Because of her morals. Which apply to her. But she decided that in this case, they also applied to me. And the medical services that I needed. She told me I should go elsewhere and suggested a nearby pharmacy that would be likely to prescribe the ECP. I wasn't charged for the appointment.

The Medical Council of New Zealand is revising their guidelines to ensure that patients are not caught up in doctors' personal conflicts. Earlier this year, it specifically revised its standards for doctors, a guide called "Good Medical Practice", to state that women who come to a doctor expressing doubt about continuing with a pregnancy must be given objective information on all available options - regardless of what your own beliefs are on the matter. If your personal judgement call is not in support of her choice, you still must act as a professional and inform her of her medical service options.

It's on page 4 of this pdf entitled "Beliefs and Medical Practice" if you want to read it yourself.

This level-headed and pragmatic approach to a sensitive situation has, of course, been trashed by the conservative anti-choice camp. But most scarily, it is doctors themselves that are against these guidelines. A High Court application was filed for a review of the standards, so that doctors could, on grounds of conscience, could not just refuse to prescribe contraceptives or referrals for abortions, but also withhold any information or advice on the subject.

The NZ Herald states that one of the doctors involved in this is Dr Mary English. As in, wife of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Bill English. Great. Chances of this group of over-opininated retrogrades having influence at a high level of government, then...? Ughhh.

Mrs & Mr English, looking glam, plotting to take over your uterus.

If you have not yet had your fill of fun pro-choice reading, then check out Boganette's recent post, triggering an email stating: "I saw your comment and how can you be pro-abortion? Your infertile. Doesn't that make you not want abortions?" (And high five for the Handmaid's Tale reference. I just read that book and DAMN it's good.)

Posted by Bel. The time is 3.17pm here in Wellington NZ. Reblogged from I Am Offended Because... by Ally

Eff You Peter Carlisle

by Ally of I Am Offended Because...

There is a pro-choice rally in Wellington on Tuesday. [Bel's note: i.e. tomorrow, 5th October. See details on poster below] I really wish that I could go. Partly because I want to feel like a proper days-of-yore feminist who goes to six protests before breakfast and then goes home to read the Beauty Myth. Partly because abortion is actually illegal in New Zealand and because getting an abortion requires already vulnerable women to jump through hoops like little sparkly-ruffed circus dogs. I'd like to go to the rally because for a woman to choose abortion in New Zealand she has to see two different doctors and she has to tell them that the continuation of her pregnancy will endanger her life, her mental health or her physical health. If she lives outside of Christchurch, Wellington or Auckland she will have to travel, often meaning many days away from work and away from her local support network. MP Steve Chadwick is currently proposing an Abortion Reform Bill to take abortion out of the Crimes Act, which surprisingly will be opposed by anti-abortion group Voice For Life. The life that they advocate for of course being that of unborn foetuses, rather than the full and healthy lives of women and their planned families. So I have a few pretty good reasons for wanting to go and protest.

But mostly, I'd like to go to the rally to say a big 'fuck you' to Peter Carlisle. I don't know who Peter Carlisle is, but he posted this on the Facebook event page for the No More Jumping Through Hoops Abortion Rights Protest and I instantly hated him:

Needless to say, I am more than a little offended by the dismissive, misogynist, homophobic, slut-shaming and inaccurate Peter Carlisle. So were a whole lot of other open legged lesbians on the event page. Nicola made this brilliant point:

Astute, although I often wish that we didn't have to use extreme situations like rape or incest to suggest that a woman should be entitled full control of her body. Hannah casually pointed out Peter's apparent lack of basic biological knowledge:

My friend Izzy, a she-wolf if there ever was one, eloquently put Peter in his place:

But Tessa possibly had the best argument of all:

And just quietly, Peter Carlisle is not only poorly informed about basic biology but also about the meaning of the word contraception. He should possibly get his facts right before posting on a Facebook event filled with slutty lesbians who also happen to be pedants. Contraception is something that is used to prevent conception, so I am guessing that most women who request abortion are a little past that point. And if Peter means that women are using abortion as a method of birth control, perhaps he should go and read this awesome blog post at the Curvature. Here is a snippet:

"Because do you understand the actual words you are speaking? Do you know what birth control is? It’s right there, in the name. It is something you use to control whether or not you give birth. That’s it. Ta-da. The end. When someone says “lots of women use abortion as a form of birth control!” what they mean is “lots of women use abortion.” The extra words are unnecessary. How the hell else are you going to use it?"

I would love to go to that protest to shove it to Peter Carlisle. I would like to shove it to all of the Peter Carlisles of the world; men who think they ought to have a say in what women do with their bodies. I would love to go because full equality depends upon women having full control over their fertility. I would love to show my support for Steve Chadwick's bill, because often it is not abortion that causes mental distress, it is the obstacles that women face. I would love to shove it to Peter Carlisle for suggesting that women who have abortions are sexually promiscuous and for even thinking that the amount of sex a woman has is something that can be used as an insult. It would be great to ask him about a pile of things, like why he thinks that my being a lesbian (or at least a woman who is in a same sex relationship) somehow seems to undermine my stance on reproductive rights or why he seems to think that women are solely responsible for planning when to have kids. I would like to take him up on why he thinks it is appropriate to tell another human being to just shut their legs. I would like to tell him about how no contraceptive is 100% effective and about how nobody is perfect and about the many women who have died in back alley procedures as a consequence of limited access to safe and legal abortion . I would like to tie him to a chair and make him watch Vera Drake. I would like to ask him why he feels so comfortable with the idea of forcing his moral beliefs onto others. I would like to politely suggest that if Peter Carlisle doesn't like abortions then maybe he doesn't have to get one, but he shouldn't rob others of their personal choice.

But I can't go to the protest. I will be sitting at my desk at work devoting eight hours of my day to typing, mediocrity and capitalism. But maybe you can. Go. Shove it to Peter Carlisle.


If you live in Wellington and you want to stick it to Peter Carlisle you should go to the No More Jumping Through Hoops: Abortion Rights Protest at the Court of Appeal tomorrow, on the 5th of October. Make a stand against Right to Life is taking the Abortion Supervisory Committee to court, to try and further restrict women's access to abortion in New Zealand.Meet on the corner of Aitken and Molesworth Street at 12.30pm and wear something red. I understand that organisers are also looking for volunteers to hand out fliers this afternoon at the train station and on Tuesday morning they need help blowing up balloons.

Email actionforabortionrights [at] gmail.com for more information or go to the Facebook event page.

Reblogged from I Am Offended Because... by Ally

Posted by Bel. The time is 10pm here in Wellington NZ.

The controversial "abortion" episode of Family Guy screened last night here on C4 in New Zealand. This clip seems to be anti-anti-abortion, but does that make it pro-choice?



Labour MP Steve Chadwick has just proposed a bill that would decriminalise abortion in New Zealand and mean it was truly a woman's choice, rather than part of a process which 98% of the time involves having to be declared mentally unstable by two different doctors.

For further information, please check out The Hand Mirror's recent postings on these important developments.

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