The Darker Side of Saint Jacinda

She has saved us, has she not? Tens of thousands of people who might have died horribly in hospital from Covid-19, gasping and choking, are living happy, fulfilled lives. Acting like a kind but firm teacher, Jacinda Ardern has shepherded us and scolded us and praised us and kept us in after school for our own good. And most New Zealanders – especially those not losing their jobs and businesses and remaining on full pay by having a government-funded job, like school teachers – love her for it. Oh the economy will sort itself out, they say. We’ll just have to pull our belts in a bit. The pandemic might even be a blessing in disguise, showing us how to have a low-carbon economy.

The image is of madonna with child. It is no coincidence that she is adored for having a child while running a country, with a smiling, attentive partner in the background. She cared so much that every death (all 21 of them) from Covid-19 was “a tragedy”, as her constant companion through all this, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield, put it.  Yes, most of the casualties of the pandemic in New Zealand were the elderly with other health conditions, who may have been taken by the annual influenza, which causes "only about" 500 deaths on average (see the, now-deleted, official graphic below). But still, Ardern conveyed that these corona virus were particularly tragic deaths, perhaps because they happened on her watch, when she was in total control of the country via the provisions of Alert Level 4 and a state or emergency.

But during all this our saint, our madonna, shepherded an abortion bill into legislation that is one of the most brutal in the world. Any woman, and by “woman” we are talking about any female capable of getting pregnant, can obtain an abortion, without restrictions, up to 20 weeks’ gestation. That is five months’ pregnant. She can still get an abortion after 5 months, but her health practitioner (who can be a nurse practitioner) needs to consult with another health practitioner. Prior to 5 months they must advise the woman that counselling services are available, but under section 13(2) “may not, as a condition of providing abortion services to a woman, require the woman to attend counselling before or after the provision of those services”.

So a scared young girl, who finds herself pregnant but then hides it for month after month, can arrange to get an abortion without having to talk to anyone about it, or receive advice about the huge decision she is making.

There had been criticism of the Bill in the latter part of 2019. The Abortion Legislation Committee received 25,000 written submissions, but, clearly bored in advance, decided to hear only 150 oral submissions out of the 2,890 who opted to speak. In response to criticism, the Chair of the Committee, Ruth Dyson, reiterated the committee's commitment to hearing a range of perspectives while remarking that "hearing the same thing over and over again doesn't add value to the committee at all." And they would have heard the same thing again and again, because 91.6% of the 25,000 submissions opposed the Bill.

Andrew Little, who sponsored the Bill, was thrilled after the Act came into force on 24 March, while everyone was distracted by the pandemic. Writing in the Guardian (of course), he said that “arguments opposing the change were arguments against abortion per se. The old canards of ‘full term abortion’ and ‘unborn children’ were trotted out.” Clearly any kind of moral objections to abortion up to birth are simply “old canards”. Little painted the old legislation as the residue of a more sexist age, and the new one as a victory for women’s rights. In describing the origins of the Bill, he stressed that “Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and I asked our law commission to advise on shifting our abortion law from its criminal framework to a health one.” And Jacinda and her Labour-led coalition are now triumphant:

We’ve moved on from an age when law-making and decisions were dominated by men’s perspectives and an innate distrust of women making decisions on their own health and ethical grounds.

Our new abortion law is not in the vanguard, but it is principled and truly reflects New Zealand in the 21^st century.

One could well ask, if women really are so good at making their own health and ethical decisions, why can't they decide whether to have an abortion before 20 weeks? Why can they not follow Ardern's approach for tackling New Zealand's Covid-19 response: "We must go hard and we must go early"? But Little may be right about the Act reflecting New Zealand in the 21^st century. It is not a nice place to be.

Kate Flinders