05 May Reason #856 to Love New Zealand
Stories like this cause barely a ripple of controversy:
Girls may be given free access to the emergency contraceptive pill at their local Auckland pharmacies in a bid to reduce teen pregnancies and abortions.
The medicine can already be sold by many pharmacists without a doctor’s prescription, including to girls without parental consent.
An Auckland District Health Board committee will tomorrow consider a staff proposal to make the pill free through community pharmacies in Auckland city.
People given the Levonelle 1 pill by their pharmacist would also be offered a packet of condoms and a pamphlet on sexual health and contraception.
Sane family planning driven by medical experts, not by religious fanatics who are far more interested in controlling women’s sexuality than in promoting women’s health. What’s the world coming to?
Professor Heller,
Barely a ripple of controversy … the story you link to states that:
Conservative groups yesterday objected on grounds that parents would be left out of decision-making over their children and that emergency contraception can sometimes be abortion.
and later:
Brendan Malone, spokesman for the Catholic Church-aligned Family Life International group, said widening access was a “deceptive” response to teen pregnancy and abortions.
Sounds like NZ is no different than the good ol’ USA!!!
The NewStream Dream,
Uh, not quite. Here, religious fundamentalists drive public health policy. In New Zealand, as in other socially liberal countries, they merely comment on these matters, which are seen as…SHOCKING!…best left to you know, health experts.
In the US, as John Stewart so eloquently put it a few nights ago, we teach teenagers that boys have a god-stick and girls have a shame cave, and that premarital sex is like using your toothbrush to clean the toilet and then using it again(!).
Though…nevermind. Slut-enabling kiwis!
WHERE WAS THE INQUISITION!? WHERE WAS THE INQUISITION!? WHERE WAS THE INQUISITION!? WHERE WAS THE INQUISITION!?
WHERE WAS THE INQUISITION!?
Actually, US abortion laws are some of if not the most liberal in the world. If my memory serves me, I think Scalia has cited European abortion restrictions as a tongue-in-cheek shot at other judges who don’t like to look abroad when it doesn’t serve their interest.
Look, in any country, these are hard questions with strong opinions on both sides. NZ is no different.
NSD,
True enough, but Una is right — the discourse is fundamentally different here than in the US. Yes, conservative groups disagree with the pending change. Yes, they talk to reporters about their disagreement. But they also accept the results of the democratic process. They don’t lie about the facts, they don’t pretend science doesn’t exist, and they don’t kill abortion doctors and bomb abortion clinics.
‘But they also accept the results of the democratic process.’
What an interesting concept: having laws concerning abortion be the result of the democratic process. Perhaps the U.S. should try that.
Well, it did once but as you know, abortion-rights advocates refused to accept the results of the democratic process. And if the ‘conservative groups’ in NZ were to achieve majority support, they would no doubt find themselves likewise labeled ‘religious fanatics’, contrasting with the present fond treatment.
The news item is Reason No. 1 for Sexual Predators to Love New Zealand: drug stores hand out abortifacients to the underage without a prescription and without parental involvement.
It reminds one of Bill Clinton supporting abortion. Of course he supports it.
KH said, “But they also accept the results of the democratic process.”
I found that quite amusing as well. So all those names like Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were names of legislation passed by Congress or state legislatures?
Silly me, and here I thought those names referred to judicial decisions that preempted/side-stepped the democratic process.
Silly me, here I thought that Supreme Court Justices were appointed by democratically-elected Presidents with the advice and consent of democratically-elected Senators.
As for the availability of the morning-after pill being encouragement for sexual predators — well, that argument is simply too ridiculous to warrant a response. I suppose you’re against condoms, too? After all, they truly are the sexual predator’s best friend. (And really, we all know that young women are far too naive and emotional and dumb to make their own sexual decisions. I’m so glad that right-wingers are gracious enough to make those decisions for them.)
KH,
That’s very telling. Yes, at your level of generality judicial decision making is a result of a/the democratic process. However, at that expansive level of generality, the term loses most of its meaning. One man, one vote, one time is a democractic process as well under your definition. As a consequence, I’d posit that your definition is ridiculously overbroad and purposefully misconstrues the issue. Another example is that under your definition the members of the ICJ are a product of democractic processes. You can and might argue that, but I’d suggest its very lonely territory.
KH, when you say “I thought that Supreme Court Justices were appointed …”, I think you are making the other side’s arguments for them. That is exactly the point. They are “appointed,” not elected. It is some consolation that the appointers are elected, I suppose. But let’s be honest here. There are different degrees of democracy. Having decisions made by elected officials is more democratic than having decisions made by the appointees of elected officials.
Ok, laying aside the democracy aspect here, I think Kevin was trying to make the point that, in New Zealand, religious groups do not get to drive and shape public health policy. That’s called good governance, a real separation of religion and public policy-making, and, you know, sanity.
I personally don’t think public opinion (expressed through voting or any other means) and pressure groups should determine public health policy. The results of public health policies can be measured. It’s science. It’s medicine. Those are things we leave up to scientists and doctors, not to individuals pushing a religious agenda (or, in the case of the Drug War, morons, racists, and prison system profiteers…I digress.)
In a liberal democracy, we should be able to debate the “moral” aspects of things sex education, contraception, and access to family planning all we want and with incredibly, painfully, embarrassingly uninformed arguments if we want to –but unless we have hard scientific evidence to back up our arguments, we shouldn’t affect policy.
Everyone, please watch this clip. Jon Stewart says it all.
Fundies are the only ones who think underage girls shouldn’t go around having sex with no consequences? Are the two-thirds of Americans who support parental notification religious nuts?
It’s one thing to make abortion legal, but quite another to hand out birth control/abortion to teens without even involving their families.
“[U]nderage girls shouldn’t go around having sex with no consequences”? Yes, they certainly should. They should have sex — and enjoy having sex — with anyone their own age they want, as long as they are safe when they do so. And that means educating them about the dangers of sex and making birth control and the morning-after pill available to them, no questions asked. Minors are going to have sex, no matter how loudly conservatives moralize. So if helping minors avoid STDs and unwanted pregnancies requires cutting their parents out of the loop, so be it.
Frankly, your choice of words gives away the ball game. We know all too well what “consequences” conservatives want to visit on minors who dare to enjoy sex — pregnancy, sickness, death. All in the name of “family values.” It’s absolutely perverse.
Una,
I saw that Daily Show clip. It is pretty hilarious. The quip about “god stick” and “shame cave” is priceless. Do you know if he came up with that on his own? Or has that been floating around?
Una abandons democracy in favor of government by public health experts, but then derides ‘morons, racists and prison system profiteers[.]’ Do you not see that one person’s expert is another person’s moron/racist/profiteer. Does Margaret Sanger’s support of eugenics and racism at the time she started Planned Parenthood and advocated abortion make Sanger a moron/racist or, because she agreed with one’s opinion on abortion, an expert? And one need not look far to find plenty of profiteering among the lauded ‘scientists and doctors’ Una would appoint to run policy. Churchill’s line about democracy wins again; warts and all, it is superior to government-by-unelected-expert. And the prohibition of any religiously-informed opinion from influence on public policy is both an unachievable and totalitarian quest. As for John Stewart, entertainers who mock one side or the other can be really funny, and I certainly have no objection to linking to them. But it is not rational argument, and repeatedly invoking it as if it were indicates some weakness or at least shallowness in one’s position. From Prof. Heller’s last posting, I understand there are some who believe minors should be actively encouraged to engage in sexual intercourse so long as they use protective measures.… Read more »
After reading your response, Diplomatic Gunboat, I have completely changed my mind.
Everything should be put up to a popular vote: fiscal and monetary policy, public health policy, aviation safety standards, the regulation of food and drugs, urban planning…
I mean, really, who are so-called “experts” to tell the public what to do!?
While I recognize that Una was being sarcastic, I thought it worth noting that with the exception of monetary policy, all the other policies she mentioned are, in fact, decided by the people (through voting for people who support the policies they prefer). In a sense, people vote for the “experts” they want to see running things, with elections as contents between “experts.” (Maybe not the politicians themselves, but their advisers at least).
That should be “contests” not “contents”.
It’s a shame that DG doesn’t bother to actually read the arguments that he criticizes. Of course, I said nothing about “actively encouraging” minors to have sex — and indeed, I mentioned the importance of pointing out to them the dangers that sex involves. And I suppose what I said could be interpreted to condone sex tourism in New Zealand — assuming that those under 18 can afford to travel here on their own, as I also clearly said that minors have the right to have sex with people “their own age.” But why let what I actually wrote get in the way of a good inflammatory argument? The carelessness is shocking — and makes John Stewart look like Socrates by comparison.
Prof. Heller:
I took your comment to be actively encouraging at least some underage sexual activity (with protective measures and education of dangers). I think that is a fair reading of your comment. I even linked to an article about a recent study tending to support your position, if that is your position. (The study was no doubt conducted by one of Una’s experts, but I do not question that it is a data point.) I did not take you to be advocating NZ as sex tourism destination and I do not believe my comment suggested this of you. But I do think this is a potential consequence of such active encouragement, however unintended. Relevant to the democracy discussion, I suggested that a minority of New Zealanders would (a) similarly actively encourage underage sexual activity (though I would be interested to see the numbers, I could be wrong) or (b) view that potential consequence favorably.
I think I was fair. I enjoy a good debate and discussion, and fairness is important to that.
Una: [Smiley face.] Actually, you might like the results if we put defense budgets up to popular vote.