Abortion in New Zealand

Status
Not open for further replies.
FiveLinden said:
The businesses are not known as profitable. They depend on public funds and charity.
Click to expand...
Non-profits still seem to have a curious habit of growing in both presence and performance though, don’t they? Not paying tax while accessing public funds tends to help the growth trajectory.
 
FiveLinden said:
40.png
Finn:
Could you clarify? Do you believe the number of abortions is likely to reduce under the proposed reforms?
Click to expand...
Yes. The New Zealand system at present allows access to abortion before 20 weeks effectively on request but requires women to jump through hoops such as having to talk to two certifying consultants in addition to their own doctor. This undermines normal communication between women and their health providers and breaks down trust. Abortion numbers are already trending down, probably because of better contraceptive usage. Better relationships between doctors and their primary health providers will increase this trend. If you want an abortion in New Zealand now you can get one, so the inevitable increase as a result of easier access will be small and more than offset by better health practice. (I know Catholics see this as bad, not good, but I’m just explaining my sums)
Click to expand...
Sounds very similar to the UK.

Technically, abortion in the UK is only permitted under reasons due to health (physical for both mother/child and mental) and requires the sign off from two doctors to certify it is legal under those conditions before it can be performed. In reality this has resulted in something no different to abortion on demand as the woman presenting to her GP and requesting an abortion because she simply does not want or intended to be pregnant is sufficient enough to fulfil the ‘continuing the pregnancy would cause harm to the woman’s mental health’ criteria.

If the UK followed the example of New Zealand and removed the medical/legal hoops, I imagine there would be no difference to our abortion rates because they are only a formality rather than a stringently applied restriction.
 
ScouseGirl said:
The kind of socialism that is atheistic and that rejects the principle of private ownership of property should not be confused with the kind of socialism that is seen in western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.) catholic03:
Click to expand...
At base, I’m not certain there’s always a sharp distinction to be made between the types of socialism and I’m afraid I’m also not sure that Cardinal Bourne was correct. I’ve tried to find more information on that quote but although it shows up in a few places, they all trace back to a Time article which is behind a paywall. Not doubting it, as such, but I’d be interested in the wider context.

The early years of the British Labour Party were a tug of war between the hard and moderate left. Although the moderates largely won out from an electoral perspective, there’s always been a hard socialist/communist element in the party and still is today.

There’s an interesting Spectator article on how thoroughly the trade unions were penetrated by Soviet interests in the 1970’s and how much influence they held over the party and then PM Callaghan.

 
ScouseGirl said:
The example I gave was the British Labour Party, which I assume is broadly similar to the NZ Labour Party, which is in fact linked with the UK Labour Party through membership of the Progressive Alliance.
Click to expand...
There are differences between Labour Parties. As you will know in the United Kingdom, the House of Lords, acts as an ‘upper house’ to Parliament which is considered the ‘lower house’. An upper house generally has the power to make amendments or reject bills (legislation to be). In the United Kingdom the House of Lords has this power, but generally can only delay bills. The House is made up of un-elected Lords, who are generally appointed by the Queen.

Whereas in New Zealand= doesn’t have anything like that. Once upon a time New Zealand did have an upper house, the Legislative Council. This it was done away with when it was considered un-useful. This means that bills can pass really quickly in New Zealand’s system.

As you know the United Kingdom , have the traditional first-past-the-post voting system. The way this system works is the country is divided into constituencies. A constituency is a geographical area, with a certain number of voters. Each constituency is represented by a seat in Parliament. To hold that seat, you need to be ‘first past the post’, that is, get the most number of votes in an election.

Whereas in New Zealand we have a proportional representation system, called MMP. In this system, voters get two votes, one for their electorate (equivalent of a constituency), and one for a party vote. What this means at the end of the day is that the make up of Parliament will reflect the overall nationwide party vote. In this voting system it is difficult for anyone party to get 50% of the vote share alone, so coalitions with other parties have to be made.

In terms of forming a Government, both nations are the same - but since the Queen does not often come to NZ - she gets the Governor General to do this for her. The Executive Council does the job of the Privy Council. Again the Queen follows the advice of her PM.

In New Zealand local government elections are not run under the banner of National vs Labour, like the Conservatives v.s. Liberal in the UK. There are left v.s. right factions but the politics is less pronounced.

We do have race based parties here and they do hold representation in Parliament through the Maori seats - the Maori Party. The UK does have parties which represents the various nationalist groups such as the Irish or the Scottish.
 
Nope. They unfortunately did not get any seats this election term.
 
When people speak of “socialism” in the context of a Western democracy such as New Zealand, they invariably mean social democracy, which is not condemned by the Church (and in fact is the norm in Europe) and which does not deny private property.
What you call socialism is more commonly called communism in modern times…
 
I’ll keep New Zealand in my prayers. Ever since the Ireland vote it’s been really depressing seeing so many countries legalize abortion. It’s just sick.
 
ScouseGirl said:
Most of those people just thought that Corbyn was a nice lefty type and didn’t realise that he was also (fundamentally) anti-European and has a lot of distinctly illiberal friends and allies in the Middle East, Latin America, and the UK.
Click to expand...
Hasn’t he survived at least one challenge?
 
(Yup. Our daughter was born in the front seat of our car as I was driving the wrong way down a one way street 3 blocks from the hospital.)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top