Abortion law reform passed its first hurdle in Parliament last Thursday. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Abortion law reform passed its first hurdle in Parliament last Thursday. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Opinion
COMMENT:
Three fifths. Sixty per cent. That's the proportion of National Party MPs who voted in favour of the abortion legalisation bill at first reading last week.
Over 90 per cent of Labour MPs voted for it too, but you'd expect that because this bill was brought to the houseafter the Prime Minister made a pledge to try and take abortion out of the Crimes Act and make it a health issue.
Between National and Labour alone there were 75 MPs who voted in favour of the bill. That's just over 62 per cent of the total number of MPs.
If so many in National felt that way, and clearly many in Labour would feel that way, why wasn't something done about abortion sooner?
Our abortion laws are currently outrageously bad. For doctors who provide abortions "illegally", they can face up to 14 years in prison.
If something inside the National Party during the Key Government was considered "off-brand" then it wasn't done, says David Cormack. Photo / Mark Mitchell
That's the same maximum sentence you can get for kidnapping, sexual connection with a child under 12, and attempted murder.
For something so egregiously out of step with society and with fairness, you would think that somebody would want to have done something about it.
But we had nine years of a National government that had no appetite whatsoever for change.
And if it was raised, I'm told that Key's Chief of Staff Wayne Eagleson and Bill English would roadblock it because that government saw social change as off-brand.
Off-brand.
If something inside the National Party was considered "off-brand" then it wasn't done.
No thought given to whether it was the right thing to do, but rather whether it would be perceived as something the National Party should and would do.
That is a failure of leadership.
This Government, and in particular the Prime Minister and Andrew Little, should be applauded for having the courage to take something that is so obviously the right thing to do, but also a bit scary, and actually work on it.
All the leaders of political parties voted for the bill at first reading.
I've written in the past about Simon Bridges being quite stubbornly intractable about our abortion laws. He saw no need to change them, even telling RNZ's Susie Ferguson, "I have not seen the case for change in this area. Overall, I think the regime we have for abortions is working well."
I am pleased that he has since decided to move his stance, though only time will tell if this was a valid change of opinion or a nakedly political move when we see how he votes at second and third reading.
At least Judith Collins had the courage to come out and say she'd vote for the bill all the way through, and Amy Adams has been working closely with the Government to get this right.
It is a damning indictment on John Key that nothing was ever done in this space.
I would hate to think that it took a woman Prime Minister for us to look at women's health issues as something that we need to talk about seriously. I would hate to think that, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
A lot of National's attacks on the Prime Minister this term have been around perceived weakness, while using ugly dog-whistles with sexist undertones.
Well there isn't anything much more courageous than getting abortion front and centre before the public. She didn't do this because it was on-brand for her or the Labour Party, she made a commitment to move the law out of the Crimes Act and she stuck to it because it's the right thing to do.
Justice Minister Andrew Little has spearheaded abortion law reform. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
If it turns out Bridges actually retains his anti-abortion stance and changes his position to vote against the bill at second or third reading, then I think we'll know who the truly weak one is of the two.
I will criticise this Government for its lack of spine in making big changes to how those in lower socio-economic tiers are treated, and I will criticise this Government for the way in which some parties within the coalition are a disgraceful handbrake on progressive change, but on this I congratulate them. I congratulate them for being brave enough to talk about abortion, for getting a bill drafted and for putting it to the vote.
