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There is still a lot of misinformation about the abortion process. Photo: Getty Images
There is still a lot of misinformation about the abortion process. Photo: Getty Images

SocietyFebruary 24, 2018

It’s OK to be uncomfortable about abortion

Guest writer
There is still a lot of misinformation about the abortion process. Photo: Getty Images
There is still a lot of misinformation about the abortion process. Photo: Getty Images

With the announcement that Labour is moving towards abortion law reform, New Zealand is gearing up to talk about a topic that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. So how can we acknowledge and move past the discomfort towards a law that works?

In case you didn’t realise, abortion is still in the Crimes Act. Provision for abortion is made through technicalities and regulated by a set of outdated laws. Patients and healthcare providers are required to jump through hoops and sometimes even lie to obtain permission from two certifying consultants.

District Health Boards control access to abortion, and anti-choice board members regularly make life harder for both patients and providers. The law isn’t working and Labour have admitted it. This is good news, but it means a fight is coming.

I grew up pro-life and now I’m on the committee of ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa. Looking back at what I believed when I was 16 is weird, but it also helps me see both why the anti-choice movement is so zealous and why abortion is a human right.

I went to a Catholic high school where students regularly chose ‘the horrors of abortion’ as a topic for public speaking. We had pamphlets handed out in what should have been sex ed containing ‘case studies’ of women who had sex outside of marriage and terrible things happened to them. Like having an abortion that rendered them infertile for the rest of their lives.

Fiercely believing that abortion is the state-sanctioned killing of children to which everyone else turns a blind eye enables people to justify an unsettling amount of self-righteous awfulness. If you truly believe you’re saving the lives of innocent, terrified babies, why would you respect a person’s right to get into an abortion clinic unhindered?

Being pro-life is never a belief you’re encouraged to engage critically with. Like many things in both organised religion and teen peer groups, it just is. Abortion is bad. God is real. The guy who plays Michael in Roswell is way hotter than the guy who plays Max. Blowjobs aren’t sex and I’m definitely still a virgin.

Family Life International NZ’s Michael Loretz leads a vigil in prayer at the 40 Days for Life vigil in Auckland. Photo Alex Braae.

When I went to university, I got involved with student politics and the women’s rights movement and I quickly came to understand that a pro-life society would be terrifying. The idea of forced gestation and people being punished for taking matters into their own hands wasn’t something I had truly thought about before, and I came to realise that I was pro-choice. But I still thought I would never have an abortion myself, and boy did I feel smug about that.

Some people – like 20-year-old me – are so quick to bring up that while they could personally never do that, they’re still pro-choice. And that’s not very pro-choice at all. It’s virtue signalling that makes people who have had abortions feel shit.

As the story so often goes, after a pregnancy scare I realised I was a hypocritical little sod who would absolutely have an abortion. My road to all-out pro-choice activism was pretty short after that, and there’s a glib meme I now love that says ‘I bet you one unplanned pregnancy you’re actually pro-choice’.

My story is fairly common for people who went to religious schools or were raised pro-life. But even people who weren’t still live in a world where anti-choice pseudoscience and Christian teachings are accepted as fact.

Despite being debunked, the idea that women who’ve had abortions are more likely to suffer from mental health issues is still widely believed. People also commonly think abortion can create later fertility issues and that people often regret their abortion, despite studies saying otherwise.

And despite the Christian church being totally fine with abortion for centuries, the belief that life starts at conception has been absorbed as the dominant view by countries colonised by Christianity. Christian ideas are part of the fabric of our society, whether we’re Christian or not.

Even for people working to unlearn anti-choice propaganda, the topic of when life begins is still a deeply personal belief. The simple answer is not to engage with questions that truly have no right answer and let people chose what is right for them. And this is where pro-choice activism is vital.

In 2010, at a family planning conference, I was in the audience for a keynote speech by Ann Furedi, the chief executive of BPAS, the UK’s largest independent abortion provider. She said that every time a woman has an abortion it should be celebrated as her taking family planning into her own hands.

While I agree in principle, I think it’s a bloody hard ask that people celebrate their abortions in a society that stigmatises abortion, and even within an ideal society that doesn’t. Finding yourself with an unplanned pregnancy touches a whole lot of raw nerves for reasons I’ve outlined above.

And even if those nerves weren’t raw and we had a perfectly neutral society where all views were respected (but the provision of abortion was never at stake) it’s still going to be a hard choice for some. Irrespective of faith, the decision to terminate a pregnancy can weigh heavy on relationships, family, money, and health.

So yes, it’s okay to feel uncomfortable about abortion. It’s okay to feel that you could never have one. It’s okay to know people who have grieved over their choice, or perhaps even grieve over yours.

Most of the people who feel this way aren’t lobbying the government to ban abortion because they realise, like I did, that a society which forces people to carry out pregnancies they don’t want is a nightmarish hellscape no one wants to live in.

More Reading

So maybe you’re in that category – you’re technically pro-choice but too uncomfortable with abortion to engage with the public battle that’s about to happen. Maybe you think that hellscape scenario is an overblown or unlikely outcome, despite the abortion battles United States, Australia, Poland and Ireland. Or maybe it’s just too messy of a topic for you to want to take a side in.

To you, I say the five words that dissolved my few remaining anti-choice sympathies: Banning abortion doesn’t stop abortions. Banning abortion stops safe abortions and it kills people. In fact, unsafe abortions kills around 50,000 people annually worldwide.

You’re about to have a lot of power. As the law is reviewed and a potential reform bill enters Parliament, politicians will invoke you constantly – the average person who is neither vehemently anti-choice nor all that comfortable talking about being pro-choice. This battle will be public and long and you’ll have many chances to affirm that yes it’s a tricky topic, yes it makes people uncomfortable, but you stand for the right to choose and a law which reflects that. You’re the silent majority, so please speak up.

Keep going!
Seddon Park, Hamilton. Photo: supplied
Seddon Park, Hamilton. Photo: supplied

SocietyFebruary 24, 2018

Seddon Park barred disabled patrons like me from their seats. Should we be mad?

Guest writer
Seddon Park, Hamilton. Photo: supplied
Seddon Park, Hamilton. Photo: supplied

An outcry over the treatment of disabled patrons at Hamilton’s Seddon Park during a recent Blackcaps match could have been avoided with just a bit of prior communication, says sports writer and disabled person Michael Pulman.

During last Saturday’s Twenty20 International at Seddon Park, disabled patrons were turned away from their designated seating in order to make way for a large marquee for visiting English media.

The specifically designed accessible seating area was developed at Seddon Park back in 2013 after the venue received several complaints about its accessibility. Featuring three access tiers, and located close to bathroom and food facilities, the top tier – most commonly used for wheelchair users – was inaccessible for the popular T20 match against England.

Despite the remaining two tiers being available, security at the venue turned a handful of wheelchair users away, directing them to a makeshift area tightly sandwiched between two corporate tents up on a raised embankment on the right-hand side of the ground.

Getting to this area required wheelchair patrons to get themselves over a large concrete step, covered over by a plastic mesh sheet. Testing it out personally, I discovered that driving over this sheet was dangerous, especially for those in lighter wheelchairs. Not only that, my wheelchair couldn’t get itself over the step without assistance from a group of passersby.

Here I need to make it clear that this situation did not affect me personally. I was at Seddon Park in a working role as part of the media covering the New Zealand side, so I was seated elsewhere. But as someone who has experienced the consequences from this sort of poor thinking, and complete lack of communication, I can attest that it makes the entire experience of going to a game more than a little stressful.

I myself have experienced poor access at Seddon Park prior to the construction of the designated accessible seating section, well before my role in the media began.

The miscommunication on this occasion occurred when stadium security told wheelchair users that the area was only for visiting English media and turned them toward the makeshift section that was barely accessible for most wheelchair users.

The Response

After my comments on social media gained a little bit of traction, I was contacted by the Hamilton City Council which then connected me with the H3 Group, venue managers of Seddon Park.

They apologised for the change, but said that two tiers on the designated platform were available for use, as well as the tight replacement spot between the two corporate tents on the embankment.

H3 Group said they were sincerely sorry that people’s event experience was hampered. New Zealand Cricket also got in contact, wanting to express their sincere apologies for the miscommunication. They were adamant that disabled people will be able use designated section in the future.

The Lesson

The story here isn’t about discrimination, it’s about a lack of awareness and subsequent lack of consultation.

And really, all of this is really beside the point. Past events at Seddon Park have showed, clearly, that the top tier of the specifically-designed platform is the most popular amongst disabled patrons. This was the exact area that was inaccessible, and will again be inaccessible for the ODI on Sunday.

While I acknowledge the venue does have limited space for large groups of media and that NZC had to make space somewhere, disabled patrons shouldn’t have had their designated seating area affected in the first place. For between $30 and $45 for a ticket, plus the cost of paying the cost for a caregiver to attend, all patrons should deserve to have an experience that isn’t affected by things that don’t concern them.

That includes disabled patrons. No active discrimination took place here, but what did happen at Seddon Park was just as much an awareness issue as it was a communication issue. Disabled people with access needs must be consulted on these matters. It’s only the right and decent thing to do.

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