National party leader Christopher Luxon is questioned on abortion law in New Zealand. Video / Mark Mitchell
Opinion
OPINION
Prices are rising, inflation is inflating. The cost of living is high. It just got higher for women and not just at the supermarket and gas station. When the news of the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US, ending 50 years of protection for women's reproductive rights,a shiver went up my spine.
For my generation, a late period meant a trip to Australia, if you had the money. It meant friends' stories of rape by backstreet abortionists. Or a home for "unwed mothers" where babies could be taken without consent. Some of those stories are only now being told by courageous, still traumatised women. Certain doctors, because of personal beliefs, refused to prescribe the pill if you weren't married. We lived in constant fear. I write about these things often. It used to be to remind myself how far we had come. Now it's in the hope my daughter and granddaughter don't ever have to live like that.
Things changed here but it was only two years ago that abortion was removed from the Crimes Act. When he became leader of the Opposition, Christopher Luxon was asked by Newshub's Jenna Lynch if he believed that abortion was "tantamount to murder". Tantamount: equivalent in seriousness to; virtually the same as. He did.
"I'm a pro-life person and that's what a pro-life position is." Lynch asked if there were exceptions – rape, incest – to his stance. He wouldn't say. "There are bigger issues for New Zealanders to get focused on," he maintained. "It's quite a big issue for a lot of women," said Lynch.
Is this of concern? Let the mansplaining begin. PR person Ben Thomas, former National Government press secretary, blamed social media. "People's brains are finding patterns in completely unrelated things [because] of their proximity on the timeline." People's brains. All in our heads. Women get that a lot.
Luxon has had umpteen goes at trying to reassure women that abortion law here is "settled" but the dissonance between his personal view and political position has you examining the runes. When he says, "The complete removal of abortion law in the overturning of Roe v Wade in the USA is distressing for many women everywhere," does he mean that less "complete" changes to access to abortion might be contemplated?
His attempts to defuse the issue were made harder thanks to pesky social media again. When the US decision broke, National MP Simon O'Connor posted a gleeful message - "Today is a good day" – in a delirious sea of love hearts. Luxon made him take it down. Not before people were reminded of O'Connor's speech in Parliament against the bill that decriminalised abortion. "A day is coming … when the truth continues to come out for those who speak for life will be heard once again loud and clear. History is replete with that," he said. He wound things up with "a little indulgence to myself", some words in Latin: "Mihi vindicta ego retribuam dici dominus." He didn't translate. It means: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord."
National MP Simon O'Connor said the overturning of Roe v Wade was 'a good day'. Photo / Mark Mitchell
To recap: Luxon believes that the women - mothers, daughters, grandmothers, children - who have had legal abortions are doing something "tantamount" to murder. O'Connor invokes the wrath of God upon them. I'm struggling to feel reassured.
Women are telling their stories. Today FM newsreader Trudi Nelson spoke with quiet emotion about her grandmother. "She came down from Whangārei to Auckland and had a backstreet abortion and passed away … from blood poisoning. So my mum grew up without a mum."
Luxon has said that nothing will change on his watch. Let the mansplaining continue: "What I would say to you is the National Party is a party for women. Women are most concerned at the moment around the cost-of-living crisis and where this country's going."
He doesn't see that the spectre of what his hard-line anti-abortion views represent, of where they can lead, is a very real "cost of living" for women in this country. That is not reassuring at all.
