Commission steps up on abortion

The Law Commission’s role isn’t to do our thinking for us. Nor to instruct us in what is moral. But it exists for a reason and it has lived up to that reason in its report on abortion law reform. Amid what has for so long been one of the most deeply entrenched debates in New Zealand, each trench awash with a sense of pain, the commission presents the Government, and the public, not with a peace plan but at least a considered, educated and valid focus for attention.

This is not a mechanism to keep the fight fair, but perhaps less futile. All necessary because we’ve been caught in a state of inertia that should satisfy no-one. Now it’s time for momentum.

The impetus comes from the valid direction; the Government of the day.

Justice Minister Andrew Little proposes to make abortion a heath issue rather than a criminal one and so he should.

It’s not just the majority view, it’s the right one. Little sought a steer from the commission on the legal implications and by way of reply comes, perhaps firstly, an acknowledgment that the law as it stands leads to delays and presents barriers for women seeking abortion services.

That, in itself, has long been unacceptable. When laws fail to work as intended, they must be repaired. This is a requirement of democracy.

Those who consider the law under scrutiny to be, in its very essence, wrong and harmful have a legitimate opportunity to step up once and seek to be heard and to persuade.

The commission’s report covers much ground but at its heart presents three options: whether to have a statutory test of whether abortion is appropriate in the circumstances; or have no test and leave the decision to be made by the woman and her doctor; or a test that would only be required for a woman more than 22 weeks pregnant.

None of these represents the status quo and rightly so.

The requirement for a woman to see two separate doctors was surely put in place as an act of political, rather than medical, caution.

As abortion opponents have long pointed out, it’s been a tedious charade in any case.

And as the Abortion Law Reform Association contends, it’s not a requirement for any other health issues.

David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill has been a timely and welcome source of passionate, widespread debate.

The community and the Government are now on the brink of another.

You could call that wearying, some might say deliberately so. Taken together they test not only our higher qualities, but also the rather less elevated matter of our collective stamina.

Yet each has arisen in response to a real need. When the time comes for MPs to have their conscience vote, they will do so having been the subject of intense lobbying and with the encouragement from Family Planning to reject the notion that laws should be enacted to reflect the individual conscience, or religious or moral beliefs, of an individual lawmaker. This plea goes too far.

While the law specifically allows a conscience vote, conscience is the last thing that should be taken out of it.

‘‘When laws fail to work as intended, they must be repaired. This is a requirement of democracy.’’