Abortion Blogswarm: No Going Back. Going Forward Instead

Abortion Law: No Going Back. Going Forward Instead.

Because this year is ALRANZ’s 40th anniversary (well, if you count its first public meeting in March 1971 as the start date), it seems appropriate we join the New Zealand pro-choice movement’s blogswarm by looking back – and for two reasons (though there are lots more).

The first is that we need to know where we’ve been to remind us that we don’t want to go there again. Where we’ve been in New Zealand is forcing thousands of women to travel to Australia and farther afield for abortions, having hundreds (if not more, but no one really counted) dying from unsafe illegal abortions (yes, there were also illegal abortions that were actually safe) and coercing other uncounted numbers of women and girls into continuing with unwanted pregnancies then making them give their children up for adoption. There are other effects, too. Less measurable perhaps, but no less overwhelming, like the women who wrote to ALRANZ in the 1970s begging for help because they had five children already and couldn’t cope. They don’t show up in the statistics. We don’t know what happened to them.

The second reason is to remind the passengers in the “don’t rock the boat” boat that while we’ve come a long way (baby?), we have a long way to go. For all of those out there who think we should quit agitating because everything’s so much better now, isn’t it (you know who you are), listen up. "Better than then" is not   good enough. It means abortion access is just one judge’s ruling away from being severely limited, if not ended outright. Because our abortion laws are out of date and still located in the Crimes Act, we could be "back then" all too easily.

ALRANZ’s second-ever blog entry at this site, in July 2009, also looked back, and if you didn’t happen to read the piece – an Auckland Star article from 1978 about a group of 14 to 17 year-olds and their trip to a Sydney abortion clinic (not the kind of school trip you probably want for your daughter) – hop on over. It’s called “No Going Back: Trans-Tasman Trade”.

Dame Margaret Sparrow’s new book, “Abortion Then & Now”, chronicles perhaps better than anything else could the other side of the trans-Tasman option: the illegal abortions going on right here at home. In its pages – and the book has been reviewed by The Listener and at Scoop Review of Books -- women tell their own harrowing stories of self-abortion, illegal abortion and unsafe abortion. If abortion were treated under New Zealand law as health issue, not a crime, we might feel some measure of security in knowing no one will have to face those horrors again; that we won't have to rustle up an air fare and clinic fees for a trip to Melbourne, find an excuse to get off work, find care for kids and lie about where we've been.

Anti-abortion advocates like to say they care about women. You can see it’s true because their Web sites don’t only include that ubiquitous abortion counter that reads “Abortion will kill 120,000 babies today. Since opening this web page [rapidly rising number] babies have died from abortion.” No, they also include, quite prominently displayed, that other counter. The one that says: “Abortion restrictions will kill 129 women today, and send 13,670 to hospital. Since opening this Web page [rapidly rising number] of unsafe abortions have been carried out.” 

No, just kidding. They don’t have that second counter on their web sites, even though they really, really do care about women.

So, our second blast from the past, in honour of the blog swarm (thanks Julie from The Hand Mirror) is an excerpt from the submission made by the Auckland Medical Aid Trust, which set up New Zealand’s first abortion clinic in Remuera in 1974, to the Royal Commission on Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion (1975-77). It’s a bit drier than the gripping first-person accounts in “Abortion Then & Now”. But keep going. And consider why we don’t want to go back and why we must go forward:

Excerpt, AMAT Submission to the Royal Commission on Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion.

Self Induced Abortions

There is no doubt that many women who think they are pregnant try to self-induce an abortion. In a careful study concerning abortion practice in Auckland (Gemming & Crighton 1973), the authors produced estimates which they believed were conservative because of under reporting. They estimated 2,600 women seriously considered abortion each year, and 1,300 attempted abortions while 810 thought they were successful in their attempt. These figures were for Auckland alone.

In 1974 a total of 5,951 abortions occurred in public hospitals in New Zealand – of these 5,032 (84.5%) were spontaneous and 919 (15.5%) therapeutic (Department of Health Submissions 1975). However, it is not known how many of these cases listed as spontaneous were the result of natural miscarriages or how many are the result of induction by non-medical persons or self-induced. Studies in Britain (Diggory 1966) have suggested as many as two thirds of such cases came into this category.

Dr Hunton [Rex Hunton was the pioneering medical director at the AMAT clinic and fought fearlessly to improve abortion access in New Zealand] has experienced at least one woman who has stated that she has attempted self-induction of miscarriage by each of the following methods. Most were unsuccessful in their attempts: 

Partaking unusual exercise

Riding motor cycle on rocky road

Horse riding

Jumping from a height (a table)

Falling over (one patient while tied up)

Falling down stairs

Hitting abdomen

Inviting boyfriend to hit abdomen

Constricting abdomen with belts or ropes

Taking quinine tablets

Excessive alcohol consumption

Overdose of contraceptives (2 packets at once)

Overdoses of thyroid tablets

Sleeping tablets

Tranquilizers and anti-depressants

Large dosage of purgatives, Epsom salts or castor oil

Boiling up fern roots and drinking beverage

Hot baths with added medicants (Epsom salts)

Hot baths with excessive alcohol (gin)

Douching with very hot water

Douching with salt solution

Inserting tampon soaked in eucalyptus (or other medicants) into the vagina

Using mirror to try and insert foreign body into uterus

Inserting foreign body blindly into vagina and uterus

Puncturing abdomen with needle

Abortion is a health matter. And that list is what can happen when it is treated as a crime. Under New Zealand law, abortion is treated as a crime. That. Must. Change.