Abortion – An Issue Of Ethics Or Equality
It’s a medical procedure thousands of Kiwi women undergo each year. Yet in 2017, it is still illegal. Divisive, controversial and politically charged, the topic of abortion has long been a subject of contention. Reaching its peak of controversy in the 1970s and 1980s when pro-life and pro-choice protesters collided outside the New Zealand parliament, the issue is once again in the spotlight thanks to a recent announcement from Labour’s Jacinda Ardern. After revealing in the lead-up to September’s election her plans to decriminalise abortion, the debate has become more than a question of life or death. Now a discussion of gender politics, those within the pro-choice movement are calling for an end to what they believe is sexist legislation. But as anti-abortionists continue to fight against decriminalising the act on the basis they are saving innocent lives, the issue of abortion remains more polarising and complex than ever before.
Traditionally, discussions involving abortion have been focused on a woman’s right to have free reign over her body, versus the unborn child’s right to life. While, in essence, the topic has always been regarded as a feminist issue in that it involves women’s bodies, the recent resurgence of feminism has shifted the debate. No longer a straightforward (albeit complicated) argument on whether abortion is an ethical crime, feminists, politicians and even government organisations are shifting the conversation towards gender politics. In March this year, the Abortion Supervisory Committee (ASC), a state institution that oversees abortion practices, presented its annual report to Parliament’s Justice and Electoral committee. Labelling current abortion legislation as ‘outdated’ and ‘not inclusive’, the institution called for the legislation to be updated.
Although it did not call for any significant amendments to the current laws (this is not the role of the committee), the ASC’s appearance in parliament did initiate fierce debate over abortion legislation. Under current legislation, abortion is still considered a crime. Only legal in cases of incest, fetal abnormality, mental sub-normality or where the physical or mental health of the mother is believed to be severely impacted by having a child, women wishing to go through with the procedure require the approval of two certifying consultants. Other factors that may be taken into consideration by medical professionals, but are not grounds enough on their own, include sexual violation and extremes of age. The legislation, which falls under the Crimes Act and the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act, has not been updated for 40 years.
Despite the murky legality of New Zealand’s legislation laws, a total of 12,823 women underwent the procedure in 2016, according to Statistics New Zealand. A further estimated one in four women are said to have had an abortion. Charlotte Welsh* is part of this statistic. Now aged 27, Welsh had an abortion when she was 20 years old after a casual relationship resulted in an unwanted pregnancy. Unemployed and freshly enrolled in university, the now graduated charity worker decided to end her pregnancy. “I was not emotionally, physically or financially ready at all. That’s why I decided as soon as I found out – there was no doubt in my mind – it was what I was going to do. There were no thoughts about keeping [the baby].”
While Welsh says she did not experience any difficulty obtaining approval for her abortion (a fact she attributes to her age and university acceptance), she fully supports a change in the law – a change she believes would bring greater gender equality.
“Abortion is 100 percent a feminist issue… even now, the fact that we are having Jacinda try to make it legalised… I can’t believe that it hasn’t already happened. How many men speak out about that in politics? What if it was the other way around? Men would, of course, get to choose.”
Like Welsh, Ardern’s views on abortion stem from the view of equality, rather than morality. In a heated 90-minute televised leaders’ discussion in September 2017, the political leader declared she would decriminalise abortion if elected prime minister. “People need to be able to make their own decisions,” Ardern argued. “I accept there will be people out there who will disagree with abortion, and I want them to have that as their right, but I also want women who want access to have it as their right too. This is about everyone being able to make their own decision.”
But not everyone is pleased with Ardern’s announcement, nor is everyone happy with what has now become a feminist debate. One such person is political writer Karl Du Fresne, who earlier this year expressed his concern over the ASC’s comments in an article for The Dominion Post. “Abortion rights activists took the report as the cue to mount a fresh campaign for liberalisation of the law, as the committee surely must have known they would. In truth, the renewed debate is about much more than semantics. Complaints about sexist language are a smokescreen, because merely making the act gender-neutral wouldn’t achieve the activists’ objective. When they talk about ‘reviewing’ the legislation, what they really mean is rewriting it to make abortion available on request – their goal since the 1970s.”
During the same televised debate in which Ardern made the controversial announcement, National leader Bill English declared his intent to ensure the laws remain unchanged: “if the changes came before parliament I would be opposed to liberalising the law,” English advised the audience. “I support the current law and I would not set out to change it.” But while the leader of the National Party remains firmly against updating abortion laws, the remainder of the country appears to be divided. In a national poll conducted in 2017 by Curia Market Research on behalf of the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ), 1000 random participants were interviewed for their views on abortion. While the majority of those interviewed agreed abortion should be legal if a woman does not want to be a mother (51 percent) and if she cannot afford a child (54 percent), the survey suggests there still remains a significant percentage of New Zealanders who are pro-life. Likewise, M2Woman’s own informal Facebook poll on the topic suggests that although the majority of readers (1400) believe New Zealand’s laws are outdated, there is still a smaller number who disagree (at least 50 readers who responded to the poll disagreed).
One organisation eager to give a voice to those who are against abortion is Right to Life. A leading pro-life organisation in New Zealand, Right to Life regularly campaigns against the legalisation of abortion. Members are also against the use of contraceptive pills and implants like Jadelle, which are used to prevent pregnancy. For Right to Life president, Chris O’Brien, the issue of abortion has less to do with feminism and more to do with protecting the lives of unborn children.
“Right to Life is opposed to abortion simply because we know that it is wrong to kill an innocent human being. To say that the unborn is not a human being simply because it has not been born is an argument that cannot be substantiated,” O’Brien explains.
“No scientist who claims that human life does not start at conception would be taken seriously.” Citing a news story in which 21-year-old Ohio woman Emile Weaver was found guilty of murder after giving birth to the child and disposing of it in a dumpster, O’Brien suggests there is little difference between murder and abortion. “If [the mother] had visited an abortion clinic a few hours earlier she could legally have had her child aborted as in that country, abortion is legal up to the point of birth and, in fact, the procedure known as Partial Birth Abortion is regularly practiced.
“We cannot know the pressures that woman had been under to have done such a horrific thing, and hopefully the courts would have taken that into consideration, but [we] must ask: what makes one action a crime punishable with life imprisonment on one hand and the other completely legal and even state-funded on the other?”
Of course, the answer to O’Brien’s question all depends on one’s own views as to what constitutes a life. Scientifically speaking, the answer is hard to determine. As Arthur Caplan, professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Centre explains, there is no singular consensus. Indeed, the argument becomes even more complex when religion is considered (some Muslims for example, believe life begins after 40 days, while the majority of Jews believe life happens over a period of time, rather than upon conception).
“Many scientists would say they don’t know when life begins. There are a series of landmark moments,” Caplan explains in an interview with Slate. “The first is conception, the second is the development of the spine, the third the development of the brain, consciousness, and so on.” While there are certainly pro-life scientists who do believe life begins at conception, there is also a debate as to whether this is even relevant to the discussion.
“People ask when does life begin, as if there’s a sharp moment, but one of the difficulties is that all of the proposed boundaries are fraught with problems,” Jonathan Glover, director of the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King’s College London, told The Guardian in 2005. “The primitive streak may well be the precursor of the nervous system, but its development doesn’t mark the beginning of consciousness, so it is irrelevant.”
In other words, consciousness is said to be a better indicator of life, as this when the foetus can feel emotions such as pain. In a 2005 article published by the University of California’s Department of Anesthesia and Peri-operative Care, researchers found foetuses in the early stages of development are unlikely to feel pain or even be aware of their surroundings as they lack the developed nervous system and brain required to do so. The authors, who came to this conclusion after examining thousands of research articles on the topic, suggest the neuroanatomical system required to feel pain is not completely developed until 26 weeks into the pregnancy. Most scientists who have expressed their views on the subject agree foetuses cannot feel pain until the later stages of pregnancy (after the time in which nearly all abortions occur).
In New Zealand, women are able to have an abortion after 20 weeks gestation. However, this is only if the mother’s life is in danger or if she may be at risk of permanent injury to her physical or mental health. In 2016, 57 percent of abortions in the country were performed before 10 weeks into the pregnancy. Nevertheless, in many other countries, abortions are not so accessible. For women in most parts of Europe, the procedure is only allowed without restriction up to between 10 and 14 weeks gestation (while the majority of European countries permit abortions beyond this point, they can only be performed on specific grounds). Within the United States, it may soon become more difficult for women to have an abortion. In October 2017, Republicans passed legislation that would criminalise abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, except under circumstances where the life of the mother is at risk or in cases involving incest and rape. Those who attempt to carry out abortions could face a fine and up to five years in prison.
But pro-choice advocates against president Donald Trump’s Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act argue the legislation is not as it seems. Feminist lawyer and New York Times writer Jill Filipovic explains: “It’s not about the life of the embryo or fetus. It’s certainly not about helping or protecting women. It’s about hostility to women’s social advancement, which has been rapid, and which would have been wholly impossible without access to contraception and abortion. And it’s not just Trump whose antipathy toward women’s rights and freedoms plays out particularly pronouncedly around abortion rights.”
Like Filipovic, local members of the pro-choice movement believe abortion legislation is a feminist issue. National president of the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ) Terry Bellamak, believes current laws are unjust. “Abortion is a feminist issue because pregnant people’s (mostly women’s) right to make medical decisions for themselves is being breached,” she says. “The state has no business forcing people to endure childbirth and become parents against their will.”
The national president of the organisation that advocates for more liberal abortion laws, also says current legislation was purposely created based on sexist ideals. “The Royal Commission, whose report formed the basis for the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977 specifically meant to take the decision out of the hands of mere women and place it in the hands of doctors, who were explicitly presumed to be male,” she says.
Undoubtedly, the legislation, which was designed to be a compromise between both pro-choice and pro-life advocates, is not without its flaws, perhaps most noticeable is its susceptibility to bias from medical professionals whose personal opinions could potentially affect their decisions on whether or not an abortion is warranted. While decidedly difficult to prove, there have been reports of women who feel the medical advice they have been given is based on personal opinion. In 2014, an online database called My Decision made headlines when it was launched with the aim of providing patients with lists of doctors allegedly opposed to terminations and contraception. The most recent figures from Statistics NZ show in 2016 a total of 252 abortions were deemed not justified by medical professionals (although it is difficult to pinpoint how many women were actually denied the procedure as a third consultant can declare an abortion is justified). Charlotte Welsh says she wouldn’t be surprised if claims of doctor bias were true. “It could be based on the medical professional’s own personal opinions about abortion… it’s a completely biased subject,” the 27 year old says.
“I completely see why women have to lie if they want to make sure they can have an abortion.”
Moreover, the nature of the law has made it difficult for legislation to keep up with medical advances such as abortion tablets, as Bellamak explains. “The law was written before early medical abortion existed. Ideally, people bring the pills home, get comfortable, take the first pill, wait a day or two, then take the rest of the pills,” she says. “But the law says abortions must happen in clinics. So the patient has to drive to the clinic to take the first pill, then drive home.” For women living in rural areas, who are forced to drive home while miscarrying, this can be particularly dangerous. In spite of such dangers, those aligned with the pro-life movement maintain any law changes made by Prime Minister Ardern are not in the best interests of women or their unborn children. “Jacinda Ardern claims to be a feminist in supporting a woman’s right to kill her child in the womb. She is not,” says O’Brien. “She conveniently forgets that nearly half of the children aborted are female. How does she support women making it easier to kill women before birth?”
Although strictly opposed to any law changes that would make abortion easier to obtain, the pro-life president of Right to Life agrees there are significant flaws in the current legislation. O’Brien believes the law as it stands allows for the criteria for abortion to be abused but also says he is glad there are at least some steps in place before an abortion is granted.
But for women like Welsh, the law remains unjust and misogynistic. “What if I was 27, owned my own home, had a stable relationship, had a great career and then this [pregnancy] happens? Would I fall under the legalities?”
Like Welsh, Bellamak is concerned for women who do not meet the current requirements. Welcoming Ardern’s recent announcement, Bellamak’s organisation is hopeful New Zealand will eventually have legislation similar to Canada’s – one of the few countries with no legal restrictions on abortions. “To state the obvious: people have accessed abortion for thousands of years. The law or the state has never been able to change that. The state only has the power to determine whether those inevitable abortions will be safe or not. If they cannot access safe abortions, people will be injured or die accessing unsafe ones,” she says.
And while it still remains to be seen whether Ardern’s legislation will ever become legalised, one factor is clear: while neither the pro-life nor pro-choice movements are likely to reach an agreement any time in the near future, both parties can agree that current laws are inadequate.
Abortion & The Law:
- Abortion is still considered a crime under the Crimes Act and the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act and is only available under certain criteria.
- In cases of incest, fetal abnormality, mental sub-normality or where the physical or mental health of the mother is thought to be severely impacted by having a child abortions can be performed.
- Other factors that may be taken into consideration by medical professionals, but are not grounds enough on their own, include sexual violation and extremes of age.
- Women wishing to undergo the procedure must seek the approval of two certifying consultants.
- In most cases abortions are performed before 10 weeks into the pregnancy. However women do have the option to undergo the procedure after 20 weeks but only if their life is in danger or there is a risk of permanent damage or injury.