My schedule is pretty chocker today so blogging was going to be last on the list. But one of my daily emails from Statistics NZ just arrived and I am disgusted.
Almost 18,000 abortions were performed in New Zealand in 2008, a few hundred down on the year before.
Women aged 20-24 years had the highest abortion rate (median age of women having an abortion was 24.3 years) and most abortions (63 percent) were a woman’s first abortion.
All those babies.
There are legitimate reasons for some women to ask for abortions – but 18,000 of them?
There are legitimate reasons for some unwanted pregnancies – but 18,000 of them?
Fifty condoms don’t burst every day.
Going back to the old “ship them off to the cousins in Hawke’s Bay for a long holiday” may not be an option but somewhere along the line women have to own up to our ability to carry another life.
If you don’t want to get pregnant – take precautions!!
rivettingKateTaylor 
Perhaps the amount of abortions has nothing to do with women not owning up to their ability to carry life. Look at the world. How many televisions do you own. How many things in your home are from ikea. How many homeless people do you immediately reject in your mind as filthy and uncivilized when you pass them on the street on your way to guzzle down another Cafe Latte at Starbucks. Think about it. We live in a self centered, fucked up world empty of reason and direction. There’s nothing and nobody you can blame for this. Our brains cannot fathom the possibilities that are distinct and individual. We cannot fathom what the values of another person are or what situation they are in. I hope you’re reincarnated into a lower class. That’d teach you to gab about other people’s choices.
By: Lynda on December 7, 2009
at 8:40 pm
At no point did I say women should not have the right to choose abortion, thank you very much. But surely we would be less of a f’d up world, to use your comment, if we didn’t have to deal with the psychological issues that arise from 18,000 women having to make the decision to abort a baby. All I was saying, was that there are plenty of other choices out there by way of precautions and morning-after pills, as well as taking responsibility for your actions and giving another childless couple the chance at adoption. Neither do I want a huge increase of women reliant on the DPB. Again, I am not taking away a woman’s right to choose the best option for her at the time depending on the circumstances. I just think we are too accepting of those statistics. I watched the movie with Keisha Castle-Hughes and Rena Owen on TVNZ the other night and would never like to return to the days in the 40s or 50s of girls being sent to workhouses to have babies taken away from them. And Lynda, you have made assumptions about me that I do not appreciate. I would be just as happy reincarnated into a lower class – I work for every dollar just like you do – and my family, my friends and my community are a million times more important to me than anything else. My world is not empty of reason and direction. I feel sorry for you that yours is.
By: Kate Rivett-Taylor on December 12, 2009
at 9:36 am