Pro-Life Protests: the joys of taking away a woman's right

I still remember the first time I was introduced to the concept of abortion.

I was like 10 years old. My family is Irish so we were attending this Irish Catholic church in Hamilton called St Patrick's or somethingggg. As we filed through the church foyer to enter the main building I caught sight of a small poster pinned to the church noticeboard. 

The poster featured a picture of a fully formed foetus, a close-up on its creepy face, and the caption 'Pls don't kill mE' (or something like that..). I remember thinking, kill? a baby? ??? Whatever this abortion business is, it must be BAD NEWZ. 

Fast forward 15 years. Reflecting on that moment, in the church atrium, I can now see, clear as day, how deliberately misleading and manipulating that poster was. Not only are abortions not performed on foetuses anywhere near as developed as the one on that poster, but foetuses actually! can't! talk!, so that caption was almost definitely not written by an actual foetus. 

((Which means that,,, some grown up adult man or woman,,, actually wrote that caption, from the point of view of a foetus, which is quite. creepy. actually. Especially because. They have no idea if that is even what the foetus would have wanted to say.))

Scrolling through RNZ today, I came across a news article about a pro-life protest that occurred yesterday in Wellington. waht. I thought to myself. Is this 2018 or 1818? Turns out, it was 1818. At least to some people. A pro-life group, Voice for Life, had put 13,285 pairs of knitted baby boots outside parliament to protest the number of abortions that occurred in New Zealand in 2017. The protesters were calling for tighter abortion laws, in wake of a push to make abortion more accessible in New Zealand following the abortion reform in Ireland earlier this year. 

The president of Voice for Life, Jacqui DeRuiter, lead the protest. She wanted to prove to parliament that more liberal abortion laws were not called for in New Zealand. In exchange for her proposed denial of healthcare to women she offers: more support for mothers. Whether Ms DeRuiters is offering to pay for everyone's medical bills and is opening an orphanage to take in every child of a women who was stripped of the human right of bodily autonomy is unclear, her archaic and offensive views, however, were not. 

Currently, under New Zealand's 4000 year old abortion law, women must obtain the permission of two certifying consultants to have an abortion, which must be justified under the Crimes Act. This costs the New Zealand taxpayer over $5 million per year in consultant fees, so I am genuinely s h o c k e d that Ms DeRuiters and the other members of Voice for Life are able to afford the wool for 13,285 knitted boots when they obviously love putting so much money towards robbing women of their rights. 

Perhaps even more shockingly; rape, age, and financial situation are not legal grounds for obtaining an abortion. The majority of abortions in New Zealand are granted on mental health grounds, and the average time it takes to get access to an abortion from the time of the first GP referral is 25 days. 

Despite my disdain and hatred for the pro-life movement, I manage to have a microgram of understanding. I still remember what it was like to be 10 years old and momentarily deceived by a church bulletin board. Churches are notorious for their general hatred of women, and unfortunately, still have a lot of sway over the opinions of the populous, even though God has basically been debunked by child poverty.

Encouragingly, nearly twice the amount of people attended yesterday's protest in order to protest the protest. And while I sadly believe that churches might be here to stay, I still have faith. I have faith that our out-dated laws will slowly change. Because like, if Ireland can do it, pretty sure anyone can do it..........