HOW THE GREENS BECAME NZ’S ABORTION PARTY
Earlier this week, the NZ Green Party announced that they were going to be making the introduction of a new extreme abortion law one of their key policy planks for the upcoming election.
Make no mistake about it, this has been a long planned move that came from militant pro-abortion lobby groups outside of the Green Party – groups like the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ), an organisation that is headed by an American abortion activist and which has been lobbying for abortion-up-to-birth for some time now.
Anyone watching today’s announcement would have seen the press releases from groups like ALRANZ, which were released in a well orchestrated campaign around the same time that the Greens were making public their desires to see an extreme new abortion law introduced in New Zealand.
Despite all this, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Green Party has just bitten off more than it can possibly chew, and it now risks alienating itself from mainstream New Zealanders – many of whom would have formerly voted for them, until they decided to promote this controversial legislation and place themselves firmly on the ideological fringes.
Let’s just consider what the Greens are promoting in their new extreme abortion policy:
-Abortion on demand up to 20 weeks – that’s the abortion of babies that are at approximately this level of development, and at a stage when most mothers can feel them moving around inside their womb.
-The more widespread use of early medical abortions, which the research clearly shows result in far more complications for women than surgical ones do.
-They want NZ to adopt the extreme pro-abortion ideology which declares the aborting of an unborn human being to be a “human right” – something that not even the United Nations has endorsed.
-They want to use the law to target crisis pregnancy centres, which offer women in need free practical and financial support, and counselling, that they don’t get elsewhere.
-They want to deny NZ medical professionals the long-standing right to freedom of conscience, and force them to participate in a procedure that is both ethically highly controversial and which is mostly carried out for social reasons in this country.
They want to expand the law to allow abortion-up-to-birth for unborn persons with disabilities, despite the, now laughable claim that they are also the party that is committed to “removing the barriers that prevent people with impairments participating fully in society.
What makes this whole thing even more astounding is the fact that not only are the Greens now calling for the introduction of an extreme abortion law in New Zealand, but they have also completely overlooked one of the greatest flaws in our current abortion law – the lack of informed consent for women.
The Greens actually state, in their new policy, that one of the fundamental requirements for informed consent – mandatory counselling (about risks, alternatives, etc.) – will NOT be required under their policy. The ludicrous nature of this position is really something to behold (especially when you consider that they are claiming that their policy shows some sort of commitment to female wellbeing.)
And just consider the contradictory and confused nature of the reasoning that the Greens are claiming for producing this policy:
“The current laws reinforce abortion stigma, and are discriminatory towards people with disabilities.”
And yet this same policy also promotes abortion up to birth if you are an unborn person with a disability.
I seriously doubt the Greens are this stupid, and would instead suggest that this is little more than a hollow excuse to introduce an extreme abortion law into New Zealand under false pretences.
“We trust women to make decisions that are best for them and their whānau/family. We want to ensure equal access to all potential options is available to pregnant women.”
And yet their new policy does not require any form of mandatory counselling, which would be the only way to ensure that such options are presented to pregnant women, and that abortion providers can be kept accountable to this supposed commitment.
“Decriminalisation will also reduce the stigma and judgement that is often the result of the reason a woman chooses to have an abortion.”
Seriously?!
Since when are NZ women stigmatised for abortion in this country?
Last year we had almost 15,000 abortions in New Zealand, a fact which makes an absolute mockery of the falsehood being promoted, by supporters of this extreme new abortion law, that NZ women currently have a severely restricted access to abortion under our existing laws.
Like I said, I don’t think that the Greens have actually thought through their commitment to this extreme abortion law properly, and how it is going to hurt them at the polls.
Not only are they now going to have to work harder than ever before to convince mainstream New Zealanders that they are not a fringe party full of extreme ideologues, but they are also going to have to do this in an environment where many of their potential voters will be eying up the new Internet Party as a serious alternative.
I suspect that both David Cunliffe and John Key might be secretly smiling about the ground they will win back as a result of the Green’s newfound commitment to extreme abortion law.