Abortion has long been a political hot potato
part because antibiotics reduced deaths from blood
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Abortion
part because antibiotics reduced deaths from blood poisoning. Abortion panic: 1920s–1930s After the First World War abortion became a public issue, debated by politicians, doctors and women’s groups, and in newspaper columns. Nationally known doctors, including Frederic Truby King of the Plunket Society and Doris Gordon of the Obstetrical Society, argued that abortion (along with birth control) was to blame for a falling birth rate and the possibility of ‘racial decline’ (the loss of European population dominance). 8/15/23, 11:44 PM Abortion https://teara.govt.nz/en/abortion/print 3/11 abortions would ‘extinguish [New Zealand’s] white people’. In 1936 the government set up a committee to consider the high rate of death caused by back-street abortions. The committee’s report focused on the falling birth rate, and was strongly against abortion. However, panic about the birth rate and abortion was overtaken by war and then by a baby boom. Footnotes Quoted in Jacqueline Matthews, ‘Hyde, Robin.’ Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4h41/1 (last accessed 11 March 2011). Back Doris C. Gordon and Francis Bennett, Gentlemen of the Jury. New Plymouth: Thomas Avery, 1937, p. 18. Back Who and how Who had abortions Both married and single women sought abortions. Historians have suggested that in the 1920s and 1930s, married women would try to self-abort, while single women were more likely to go to an abortionist. Who provided abortions Those providing abortions were sometimes skilled: a maternity nurse, a doctor or a chemist. But many had no medical training – money could be made from desperate women, who, regarded as accomplices to a crime, would not go to the police. Back-street operators were often spoken of as dirty, incompetent and unsafe. Despite this, many illegal abortions were successful. A great deal of money could be made, and word of mouth would not have favoured those whose patients remained pregnant, or ended up in hospital or dead. Cost The cost of abortion depended on who was involved, the methods used, and how much a woman could pay. The range was wide. In the mid-1930s, Annie Aves carried out 183 abortions and earned £2,232 in 18 months, averaging £12 for each abortion (around $1,400 in 2018 terms). In the early 1940s an abortion carried out by a doctor could cost as much as £100 (around $8,600 in 2018 terms). 2 8/15/23, 11:44 PM Abortion https://teara.govt.nz/en/abortion/print 4/11 Home and back-street methods Many women desperate to end a pregnancy would first try to do so at home. Attempts to induce miscarriage included vigorous and excessive exercise, jumping off tables, falling down stairs, taking hot baths while drinking half a bottle of gin, and taking laxatives. In an attempt to physically dislodge the foetus, some women would insert knitting needles, crochet hooks, sharpened pencils or blunted meat skewers into their womb. Another method was injecting fluids (iodine, glycerine or disinfectant) into the uterus using catheters and syringes. Other methods were also used by abortionists, including metallic poisons, quinine, ergot or one of the pills marketed as ‘regulators‘. Dangers The methods were often ineffective and many of them were dangerous. Large amounts of metallic poisons or quinine could kill the woman, and ergot could cause gangrene and mental disturbance. Objects inserted into the uterus could tear it and other internal organs. Pumping air into the womb could cause blocked blood vessels. Surgical abortions The methods used by doctors varied, but the most common from the 19th century was dilation and curettage. This involved opening the cervix (neck of the womb) and scraping out the contents. Doctors were also known to use saline infusions (which provoked a painful labour) and Caesarean sections. Opposition and support from the 1960s Activism gets going In the decades following the Second World War, when the Pākehā birth rate was high, beliefs about sex, birth control and mothering were shifting, including amongst doctors. It became slightly easier to get an abortion. The number of abortions performed in public hospitals jumped from less than 70 in 1965 to more than 300 in 1970. When court decisions in 1969 and 1970 made it easier to get abortions in Australia, some New Zealand women travelled across the Tasman for the operation. Fearing that similar decisions would be made by a New Zealand court, and aware of the increase in hospital abortions, those opposed to abortion began to organise. So did those in favour. 8/15/23, 11:44 PM Abortion https://teara.govt.nz/en/abortion/print 5/11 Sisterhood split Feeling about abortion ran so high that women with opposing views were sometimes unable to work together. There was a walk-out from the 1973 Women’s Convention when a resolution supporting abortion on demand was passed. Those opposed to abortion left the National Organisation for Women. SPUC The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) led the opposition to abortion in the 1970s. Set up in 1970, SPUC was well-funded and had a large and active membership. The Catholic Church was SPUC’s most important source of members and money. In the 1970s SPUC also attracted a number of high-profile members, including Ruth Kirk, wife of Prime Minister Norman Kirk. It claimed that more than 30 members of Parliament were members. Members of SPUC and their sympathisers regularly picketed abortion clinics (the first of which opened in Auckland in 1974), praying, singing and telling women going in not to kill their babies. Occasionally protesters would follow a woman home and tell her family that she had had an abortion. Anti-abortion feminists Opposition by some feminists to abortion caused furious debate within the women’s liberation movement. Anti- abortion feminists formed a group, Feminists for Life, which argued that women who became pregnant should be supported with maternity leave and childcare. ALRANZ and WONAAC The Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ) was started in 1971. It had male and female members, and argued that abortion was a decision for a woman and her doctor. The more radical Women’s National Abortion Action Campaign (WONAAC) split from ALRANZ in 1973. A women-only group, it argued that abortion was a woman’s right and her decision alone. There were also many short-lived groups, like the Auckland Anti-Hospitals Amendment Bill Committee, which supported the Auckland Medical Aid Centre, an abortion clinic, and the Backstreet Theatre group, which toured New Zealand in 1976. REPEAL REPEAL was formed after Parliament pushed the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act through in 1977. The act significantly restricted access to abortion. Opinion polls and submissions prior to the act being passed suggested it was out of step with public feeling on the issue. In three months REPEAL collected 319,000 signatures on a petition seeking repeal of the act. Parliamentary reluctance to reconsider what was a bitterly divisive issue meant the petition was not formally presented to the house. 8/15/23, 11:44 PM Abortion https://teara.govt.nz/en/abortion/print 6/11 Under the carpet By the late 1970s some people just wanted an end to the controversy. At a 1978 National Party conference one of those attending pleaded: ‘We’ve all had a guts-full of the issue. Let’s get it under the carpet.’ Parliament and churches Some members of Parliament supported women’s right to abortion, notably Mary Batchelor, George Gair, Whetū Tirikātene-Sullivan and Marilyn Waring. The Catholic Church was consistent in its strong opposition to abortion, but the stance of other churches shifted over time. In the 1970s the Anglican, Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian churches all took a relatively liberal psition on abortion. This liberalisation was the source of ongoing dissension within the churches. Footnotes Erich Geiringer, Spuc ’em all!: abortion politics, 1978. Waiura: A. Taylor, 1978, p. 18. Back Controversy: 1974 to 1980s In 1974 access to abortion became easier when New Zealand’s first abortion clinic opened. There was fierce support for women’s right to abortion and equally intense opposition. People took sides, using arson, harassment and abuse, court cases, police raids, street marches and pickets, acts of Parliament and vigils. Rate The number of known abortions climbed rapidly through the 1970s and 1980s. In 1971 the rate per woman was 0.02. By 1986 it was 0.30. First abortion clinic The Auckland Medical Aid Centre (AMAC) opened in 1974, providing abortions in the first trimester (1–14 weeks) of pregnancy. After referral by their own doctor, women were assessed by a doctor at the centre, provided with counselling and, if approved, had the operation. Once a woman reached AMAC, the process took two days; later it would take only one. It was a private clinic, and women had to pay $80 in 1974 (around $830 in 2018 terms). In its first year AMAC provided 2,288 women with abortions; the following year this rose to 4,005. In part, this very rapid rise was a result of a clamp-down in Australia on New Zealand women’s access to Australian government-subsidised abortions. 1 8/15/23, 11:44 PM Abortion https://teara.govt.nz/en/abortion/print 7/11 Big-bellied blokes Labour MP Mary Batchelor was the only member of Parliament to oppose the Hospitals Amendment Act 1974. ‘There are 83 men and four women voting on this bill’, she said, ‘and the men will never have to carry anything heavier in their bellies than a good meal.’ A new method AMAC introduced the use of vacuum aspiration (sucking out the womb’s contents). The very low rate of infection and damage to the uterus made this method a Download 174.61 Kb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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