A tale of two women
‘The law is disturbing’
There are rare cases where choosing whether to have an abortion is one of life and death for the mother.
Penny and her husband Max — not their real names — were devastated after a life-threatening health issue arose nine weeks into her second pregnancy. An abortion was the only option left.
The couple went to their GP to get the referral. They had been going to her for years.
It was at that point they learned she was Catholic and would not help because of a religious objection.
Because of the urgency of their situation she did refer them to another GP at the same clinic, but Penny says she made it clear she did not usually take that step.
“Even though they knew this was a crisis and it was going to have to happen, we were having to put forward our case — to save my life. Is there any other life-saving procedure that sits within the Crimes Act and that you have to jump through hoops to access?
“I actually found the stigma and the judgment was more detrimental to my recovery than any of the health issues I had.”
She had people tell her they would never have been able to choose between their baby and their life “and saying if one of us is going to go, we both have to go”.
“I have taken on all this to save my family and my friends the grief of losing me. And I apologised to people and society for a long, long time and then I just thought ‘this is ridiculous’.”
Abortions on the grounds of physical health and danger to life made up just 0.5 per cent of all abortions in 2016, compared to the 97 per cent which are on mental health grounds.
Penny’s husband says when their doctor referred them, it made him wonder about people in rural areas where there might only be one GP.
“I appreciate people have their right to their own moral positions, but to essentially refuse to perform a certain type of service and not make that known to their patients in advance was fairly disturbing.
“Quite frankly, people who have moral objections to medicine should choose other careers and I have very little sympathy for them.
“[The law] is an ass and it is a law that effectively prohibits people getting healthcare.
“It’s based on essentially Christian moral ethics, whereas in almost every other facet of public life we are moving away from having priests and popes tell us how to live and how to think.”
Penny is now involved in the campaign for abortion law reform and in a support group for mothers who ended wanted pregnancies. “They had nurseries set up, they had names picked out. No woman wakes up at 34 weeks and thinks ‘oh, I must just go and have an abortion today’.
“I tell my story because before this happened to me I probably had set in my head that ‘oh yeah, women who have abortions are just teenagers or didn’t use contraception’. Then when you’ve gone through it yourself you realise there’s this whole raft [of situations]. It’s just not my place to judge.”
A nuanced choice
Erena Lagas is involved in her church, has a husband and a son she adores.
But it was not always this way. Behind her is a life of drugs, alcohol, abuse and prostitution.
She has had two abortions and was one of the women who featured in a full-page newspaper advertisement alongside Family First to argue for care in the reforms.
Her first abortion was when she was 18. She had little contact with her family after leaving home at 14 and was in an on-off relationship with a violent man.
“I was horrified. My first thought was ‘what am I bringing the baby into?”’
The Family Planning clinic doctor saw her shocked face and asked if she wanted information on abortion. “It was purely my reaction to the pregnancy stick. I was horrified, but I was also very, very scared. Like anybody in panic, they will take that first path given to them. It was the abortion route and I ran for it.”
Another specialist later tried to give her information, but by then she just wanted it done.
“I shoved it to the back of my head and my heart — get drunk and move on.”
The second abortion was two years later. By then she was living in a brothel in Auckland and mixing with gangs. Her partner was not violent, but was about to be sent to prison.
“Again, not the greatest role model for a child.”
Unlike the first abortion, she was conscious throughout. “I still remember it vividly. It was the most traumatic of the two.”
It was two years before she started to change her life.
It happened after a violent attempted rape that went to court. “I put up such a such a fight. I woke up the next day and realised that if I had fought so hard to live, then what the hell was I doing with my life, living so riskily, ready to die. My wakeup call was that I had fought so hard to live.”
She left her partner, settled in Tauranga and met her future husband a year later. She got involved in church and did not dwell on the abortions for some time.
She remembers falling pregnant with her son and chosing to go through the pregnancy without even thinking about it. It brought back the memory of her abortions. “It was that moment of ‘wow, I choose this’. It brought a whole lot of things to the surface that I hadn’t dealt with and didn’t realise were there.”
Her position is more nuanced than a simple yes or no to choice.
She does not think abortion should be overly restricted but more information and a lot more support is needed afterwards.