Last Thursday (22 September), the Women's Choice 2011 Suffrage Eve Debate took place at Auckland University. The event was chaired by EEO Commissioner Dr Judy McGregor, and representatives from Labour (Carol Beaumont), the Greens (Catherine Delahunty), ACT (Kath McCabe), Mana (Sue Bradford) and National (Dr Jackie Blue) answered questions from various women's organisations. 

ALRANZ's question was: "Our 36 year old abortion laws are medically outdated, what action would you like to take to reform the law?" 

Nikki asked the question on our behalf (thanks Nikki!) and wrote about the responses to the question on the Mothers for Choice blog. In short, all of the representatives stated that they were pro-choice, but none were able to say that their party had consensus on the issue and none of them were able to commit to putting in a bill in themselves. Read the post for Nikki's reaction to the candidates' responses, particularly to the suggestion by some that the decision to have an abortion is a "traumatic decision". 

Feminist blogger Scuba Nurse wrote a comprehensive summary of the event (cross-posted at the Hand Mirror). The whole post is worth a read for anyone interested in issues affecting women in New Zealand, including the responses to our question about abortion law reform of course. 

Thanks heaps Nikki and Scuba Nurse for reporting back on this event. And readers, stay posted for more reports on upcoming pre-election events.