Opinion 8
Ashburton Guardian
www.guardianonline.co.nz
Thursday, August 8, 2019
OUR VIEW
Abortion bill gets it half right D
on’t get me wrong, I’m not against an overhaul of New Zealand’s abortion laws, that’s long overdue, but there are a few worrying issues hiding in the mass of words that are the current Bill. Absolutely, abortion should be removed from the Crimes Act; absolutely it should become an issue of choice for a woman. It’s archaic thinking to tie abortion only to saving the life of a mother or preserving her physical or mental health. The way the law currently stands whether or not your plea for an abortion is successful depends on the approval of two doctors. Luck of the draw who you get. Choose to get one any other way and you’re breaking the law.
The new Bill gets it right in many respects but, in including a clause that would allow abortion after 20 weeks with the support of a health practitioner, it goes way, way too far. How you view a post 20 week abortion will have everything to do with your own experience with pre-term babies. If you’ve spent time in the neo natal unit in Christchurch Hospital, spent time watching tiny, tiny babies, born many
weeks before their time, battle for life, heard and seen the success stories that many of those babies become, you might think differently. Fifteen years ago, a young man close to my heart was born at 24 weeks and five days gestation. He weighed just 800 grams. Today he is an academically able, musically gifted, spirited, caring and, in every way, a normal teen. Today a baby of his gestation could have been an abortion statistic if the pregnant woman had found an amenable health practitioner. It all comes down to viability. When is a baby a baby and when is it not? It’s difficult to argue with the right of a woman to choose an abortion in her first trimester, or
even up to 16 weeks. After that it’s a pretty grey area. Not too many years ago a baby born at 32 weeks gestation was considered viable. With new ways of supporting premmies, viability came down to 28 weeks, then 25 weeks and now there are babies born at 23 weeks who not only survive but who go on to lead normal, healthy lives. That’s just three weeks over the 20 week abortion mark. It’s not too much of a leap to push that viability barrier out even further. And yet, as a country we’re considering allowing abortions beyond 20 weeks. Yes, the criteria will be around the woman’s physical and mental health and her wellbeing, and one assumes that takes into account issues around the health
of the unborn baby, but that’s a pretty broad brush. It’s getting into morally uncomfortable territory. No argument, a woman should have a right to choose what happens to her body, but the time for making that choice must come well before the halfway mark in a pregnancy. The Bill has its first reading today and MPs will vote according to their own conscience. If it passes, the public will have an opportunity for input. In my book there are two issues at stake here, The first is around removing abortion from the Crimes Act – that’s a no-brainer; it’s the second issue, late term abortion that’s the worrying part and a rethink is needed.
returned to port. In 2002, Saddam Hussein organised a big military parade and then warned “the forces of evil” not to attack Iraq as he sought once more to shift the debate away from world demands that he live up to agreements that ended the Gulf War. In 2003, the Boston Roman Catholic archdiocese offered $55 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits stemming from alleged sex abuse by priests. In 2008, China opened the Summer Olympic Games with an extravaganza of fireworks and pageantry. Ten years ago: A small plane collided with a sightseeing helicopter over
the Hudson River in New York City, killing nine people, including five Italian tourists. Typhoon Morakot slammed into Taiwan, leaving more than 670 either dead or missing. Five years ago: The US unleashed its first airstrikes against the Islamic State group in northern Iraq amid a worsening humanitarian crisis. Israel and militants from Gaza resumed cross-border attacks, after a three-day truce expired. One year ago: The United States announced that it would impose new sanctions on Russia for illegally using a chemical weapon in an attempt to kill a former spy and his daughter in Britain. Today’s birthdays: Actress
Nita Talbot is 89. Actor Dustin Hoffman is 82. Actress Connie Stevens is 81. Country singer Phil Balsley is 80. Actor Larry Wilcox is 72. Actor Keith Carradine is 70. Movie director Martin Brest is 68. Percussionist Anton Fig is 66. Actor Donny Most is 66. Rock musician Dennis Drew is 62. Actor-singer Harry Crosby is 61. Rock musician The Edge is 58. Rock musician Rikki Rockett is 58. Rapper Kool Moe Dee is 57. Rock musician Ralph Rieckermann is 57. Rock singer Scott Stapp is 46. Country singer Mark Wills is 46. Actor Kohl Sudduth is 45. Rock musician Tom Linton is 44. Singer JC Chasez is 43. Actress Tawny Cypress is 43. Rhythm-and-
blues singer Drew Lachey is 43. Rhythm-and-blues singer Marsha Ambrosius is 42. Actress Lindsay Sloane is 42. Actress Countess Vaughn is 41. Actor Michael Urie is 39. Tennis player Roger Federer is 38. Actress Meagan Good is 38. Rock musician Eric Howk is 38. Actress Jackie Cruz is 35. Princess Beatrice of York is 31. Actor Ken Baumann is 30. Pop singer Shawn Mendes is 21. Actress Bebe Wood is 18. Thought for today: “It is the anonymous ‘they,’ the enigmatic ‘they’ who are in charge. Who is ‘they’? I don’t know. Nobody knows. Not even ‘they’ themselves.” — Joseph Heller, American author (1923-1999). – AP
Sue Newman
SENIOR REPORTER
TODAY IN HISTORY Today is Thursday, August 8, the 220th day of 2019. There are 145 days left in the year. Today’s highlight in history: On August 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon, facing damaging new revelations in the Watergate scandal, announced he would resign the following day. On this date: In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for St Helena to spend the remainder of his days in exile. In 1876, Thomas A Edison received a patent for his mimeograph. In 1915, during World War One, New Zealand’s Wellington Battalion captured Chunuk Bair In 1942, during World War Two, six Nazi saboteurs who were captured after landing in the US were executed in Washington, DC; two others who co-operated with authorities were spared. In 1945, President Harry S. Truman signed the US instrument of ratification for the United Nations Charter. The Soviet Union declared war against Japan during World War Two. In 1968, the Republican national convention in Miami Beach nominated Richard Nixon for president on the first ballot. In 1973, Vice President Spiro T Agnew branded as “damned lies” reports he had taken kickbacks from government contracts in Maryland, and vowed not to resign – which he ended up doing. In 1993, in Somalia, four US soldiers were killed when a land mine was detonated underneath their vehicle, prompting President Bill Clinton to order Army Rangers to try to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. in 1995, Shakti (Asian Women’s Support Group) began in New Zealand In 2000, the wreckage of the Confederate submarine H L Hunley, which sank in 1864 after attacking the Union ship Housatonic, was recovered off the South Carolina coast and