Abortion is not your punchline, DPF

As spotted by Eddie at The Standard, DPF has a breathtakingly satirical edge-of-your-seat parody press release up – stating that the Green Party’s real plan for reducing emissions is forced abortion of two out of three pregnancies.

Fuck you, DPF.

It’s a shit post and a shit analogy and one hell of a dogwhistle.  And on the one hand, it’s so fucking juvenile it should hardly be worth drawing attention to (except as an example of why Kiwiblog is a fucking sewer).

On the other there are aspects of this that fucking infuriate me.

New blog!

ALRANZ now has a blog up at issues.co.nz.  Pro-choice blogging is definitely something we need to see more of in the kiwiblogosphere; even with Right to Zygote Life threatening women’s access to healthcare as we speak, a lot of people just don’t think abortion is an “issue” in NZ.

Cut off my reproductive rights and I’m cutting off yours

What I/S said.

Of course, the easiest way to let the pro-controlling-women’s-bodies crowd know that they are a dying people and we should let them pass would be to just have some clear, concrete legislation that throws out the whole “two certifying consultants” and their little bag of good-enough-reasons situation.  To just give women abortion on demand. To have better, comprehensive sex education so a shitload of unplanned pregnancies don’t happen in the first place.

Hell, then we might not even need to put folate in everyone’s bread! But this is clearly Crazy Talk and I am just a mere woman who cannot be trusted with her own damn body; besides, with a Government that happily aligns itself with the Nonsensical Sentencing Trust we shall probably have to consider ourselves lucky if the High Court simply upholds the status quo.

Dr George Tiller murdered

CNN:

Dr. George Tiller, whose Kansas women’s clinic frequently took center stage in the U.S. debate over abortion, was shot and killed while serving as an usher at his Wichita church Sunday morning, police said.

Dr Tiller had previously survived a shooting in 1993; his clinic was bombed in 1985.

A suspect has been arrested

“Pro-lifers” have been quick to say that this is horrible and honest, they totes just want to use peaceful and legal methods to take away women’s reproductive rights. But you don’t get to label people as murderers, compare their actions to those of the Nazis, wind people up with bullshit images of Butchered Innocent Widdle Baybeeeeeees, and constantly invoke the wrath and judgement of God and then act like this isn’t going to affect people’s views and actions. You don’t get to all-but-say “this guy deserves the death penalty” and then act all quelle surprise when one of YOUR GUYS decides to take matters into his own hands.

Mike Hendricks at kansascity.com puts it well:

And if we’re right about [the motive for Dr Tiller's murder], then we know the identities of his accomplices.

They include everyone who has ever called Tiller’s late-term abortion clinic a murder mill.

Whoever called Tiller “Tiller the Killer.”

Groups that fomented hate toward a man who, rightly or wrongly, believed he was serving a noble purpose by being one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions.

Hate. Not heated opposition. Not strong disagreement.

But blind hatred.

The kind of hate that would prompt some maniac to take a gun into a church and shoot a man to death in front of friends and family.

And that kind of hate sure ain’t pro-life.

The Tenth Down Under Feminists’ Carnival

Holy Christ on a pogo stick have we got a superlative lineup this time around! Let’s get things started on as light a note as possible, with

Things To Leave You Gobsmacked

Because sometimes, after you’ve spent a long evening trying to explain that yes, sexism does exist and yes, feminism is still relevant and no, we don’t live in an egalitarian society, sorry … sometimes, you see stuff like this and just want to scream, COME ON, PEOPLE, IT’S NOT LIKE THE PATRIARCHY’S BEING PARTICULARLY SUBTLE ON THIS ONE.

First up, as seen at The Hand Mirror, Well that’s f*^#ken offensive: US website lets men track women’s periods, Granny Herald says this will save lives. At Hoyden About Town we get Not so wordless Wednesday: two sets of wordhoard-expanding fridge magnets, two different sets of words, who’ll bet me $5 that princess appears on the girls’ one?* And back to The Hand Mirror for Meat heads: Advertisement for steakhouse. Picture of topless woman. Guess which part of her is being covered by raw meat? Fuck Politeness lets us know I don’t believe in any god that wouldn’t strike Nalliah instantly mute for this shit – yes, even in Australia, there’s always fundy bastards ready to blame horrific natural disasters on us evil aborting witches.

Gobsmacking to Groan-Worthy

Of course, it ain’t all just candy and men screaming GET THEE TO A NUNNERY FOUL HARLOT. There’s also the low-level constant grind of sexism that keeps needling at us all every. Single. Day. Of our lives. Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony illustrates this brilliantly in You’re soaking in it.

davyd posts body images over at LJ looking at his own reactions to mannequins in shop windows and what that says about how we internalize messages about size.Cactus Kate has a go in Stroppy Subby about the tendency to call women who dare to voice opinions “stroppy”. 2 B Sophora has yet More inane phone conversations with people who don’t think women can be farmers. WhyI’mbitter says I just wanted a damn cup of coffee – pity she couldn’t get it without some hilarious sexual harassment from the baristas.

NZ: Pay Equity

This has been a big issue on the Kiwifemiblogosphere, after it was reported that our shiny new Government had cancelled a series of inquiries into why women social workers were getting paid less than the men.  Anita at Kiwipolitico gives us Women are paying for bankers’ excesses; Julie at The Hand Mirror is maintaining Because we’re worth it: Pay Equity Hub, a great round-up of links and info on the issue, and don’t miss their Pay Equity Faxathon on March 6th!

The Pay Equity issue couldn’t be topical at a more serendipitous time, what with it coinciding nicely with the NACT Government’s “do-fest”:

NZ: The Jobs Summit

Which obviously has no place in this carnival, because women and women’s groups weren’t exactly high on the invite list.  Even the mainstream media noticed, which has to tell you something: it rates a mention at the top of Tracy Watkins‘ Stuff blog.  The Hand Mirror posted a Quick hit: Diversity deficit at the Jobs Summit; and No Right Turn notes A picture is worth a thousand words.

Crime and the Invisible Victim

Maia has a fantastic post at Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty about Othering rapists, in the wake of Wellington’s “Safe in the City” campaign and a blisteringly denial-filled comments thread at Kiwipolitico. Labellementeuse responds to Maia on her Livejournal. Elsewoman posts at her Scoop digs about The Invisible Victim in the David Dougherty case from the 90s.

Lita at Bits on the side covers the Willie Jackson v Tony Veitch showdown:

The real victim in this (remember: it ain’t poor, career-limited, shattered, mentally unstable Tony) seems to be the only one with the class to refrain from commenting publicly.

And at The Hand Mirror, Anna says Words fail me:

The sex workers which immigration officials were investigating during this disastrous raid were suspected human trafficking victims. It takes a stunning bit of pig-headedness to see flouted immigration laws, not the racialised degradation and enslavement of women, as the key injustice in this situation.

The Home Front

In a strange land continues to work through the dilemma of Miss Ten’s desire for a cellphone in Sorting the numbers (and raising feminists). Spilt Milk considers the gendering of “emotionwork” in This woman’s work. Sorrow at Sills Bend looks at ‘Average’ wedding expenses. Weddings are getting ri-damn-diculously expensive these days, aren’t they? And at The Hand Mirror, Bowled over for a maiden ponders the eternal Surname Changing Issue.

Healthcare, Healthism, and Reproduction

In a classic case of “keep women panicked that they’re doing things wrong and their babies will die”, Hoyden About Town reports Bad science on booze in pregnancy: Women infantilised with absolutist messages. Also at the Hoydens About Town, What the media isn’t asking about that private hospital birth study (or, Bayes’ Theorem for Dummies) and Maternity Services Review: Medicare payments to OBs up from $77m to $211m since 2004.

Maternal mortality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women runs two to five times the mortality for white women in Australia, and infant mortality is doubled to tripled. Yet this large-scale national disaster doesn’t get anywhere near the mainstream media time that the AMA’s posturing about turf wars gets.

Jo Tamar at Wallaby writes about Yoga – inappropriate touching and healthism, with a follow-up on Whingeing as a feminist act. Go Jo! SAHM Feminist tells us I did it… made a complaint to the DHB about her treatment for an ectopic pregnancy. PodBlack Cat posts about Loretta Marron, Health Hero, On Australia’s A Current Affair. Inspiring (yet scary) stuff!

Media Madness

WhyI’mbitter covers yet another trigger-hitting PSA about drinking which totally doesn’t imply drunk chicks deserve what they get. Honest it doesn’t. Hoyden About Town covers the “If only”? New child abuse campaign, with it’s … fairly problematic tagline. Great discussion in the comments, too!

Literary Pursuits

Harvest Bird is just awesome (I need a wider vocabulary) with her poem Innumerable soft, flat shoes. Jo Tamar asks, What makes a story feminist? Chally at Zero at the Bone posts Octavia E. Butler died three years ago today.

Bits and Bobs

All those posts that refused to fit nicely into my sorting scheme! *shakes fist at the Universe*

Robyn of Robyn’s Secret Passage rediscovers knitting and Outdoor Knit in The needles and the damage undone. Fuck Politeness is brilliantly scathing in How *sad* for Elizabeth Farrelly (cos we all know Mardi Gras should be about HER).

Direct quote:

And the question? The question is this. What happens when being GLBTQ is no longer queer at all? What happens when gay goes straight?

Well I don’t know. Why don’t you ask that when gay and lesbian folk don’t get bashed or killed for not being straight? Why don’t you ask that again when transgendered persons don’t run such an extraordinarily high risk of being raped or killed? When jokes about ‘which bathroom’ stop sounding hilarious to heteronormative fuckwits?

New NZ MP Jacinda Ardern talks about being a Parliamentary noob at The Hand Mirror in Guest post: New school. At Puzzlement, Mary Gardiner talks On girl stuff, about women, women’s work, and the Free Software community. Stargazer at The Hand Mirror posts about water & tears after watching the film water.

That’s all for this edition, folks! Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Down Under Feminists’ Carnival using our carnival submission form. The next host is Why I’m Bitter, cheers!

1. Keep writing!
2. Think about hosting the Carnival yourself!
3. ????
4. Profit!

And just to prove that I have had far too much time on my hands these past few days, witness! The Ultimate DUFC Contributors’ List, featuring all of YOU awesome people who have been featured in our faaaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic carnivals past! Let’s see how big that puppy can get!

*Yeah, um, I wouldn’t take that bet either

Shorter Garth George: I’m a retrograde misogynist

Oh, Garth George. Words cannot express how much I thoroughly renounce you and all your works. This time? You’ve outdone yourself.

Abortion at the heart of all abuse

We have brought it on ourselves. We have bowed to the blandishments of liberalism, immorality, materialism and hedonism and have set aside most of the moral and legalw strictures which for centuries formed the mortar which held societies together and kept them from self-destruction.

For nearly 50 years, we have presided over the gradual unravelling of the fabric of our nation through the breakdown of the traditional family unit upon which community cohesion has always depended.

You heard it here first, folks: domestic violence never occurred before filthy feminism and its horrific notion that women are people too. Men rape women because they feel threatened, poor things. We should just chillax and accept our natural place in the kitchen and bedroom, pampering those fragile male egos and popping out sproggen.

It’s the standard pompous windbag act from there on in, with no surprises for anyone who’s so much as glanced over one of George’s wankfests before.

But I cannot resist quoting the pièce de résistance at the end:

You can call me a sexist until you run out of breath, but I believe that God left creating woman until last because he wanted to make sure he got it right. The result was the creation of the most perfect and wonderful creature in the world.

GARTH GEORGE LOVES WOMEN! GARTH LOVES THEM MORE THAN YOU DO, STUPID FEMINISTS WITH YOUR STUPID “EQUALITY”! YOU’RE ONLY UPSET AND STRESSED AND ANGRY AT PATRIARCHAL INSTITUTIONS BECAUSE YOU’RE UPPITY BITCHES WHO WON’T STAY IN THE ROLES GOD GAVE YOU!

It is so hard, being an old privileged white man, and it’s your fault, because you sassy females have just turned the placid, happy, Shangri-fucking-La of Western society upside down. And that’s why children get beaten to death. All because you slappers dare to think, to write, to blog, to march, to lobby, to marry and have children at the time of your own choosing or not at all.

I hope you’re ashamed of yourselves, and will appear suitably repentant at our next Premarital Snogging and Foetus Barbeque.

And now, some Yes Minister.

What she said

Great guest post by Anita over at No Right Turn.

Last year in Parliament two failed amendments were attempted trying to replace the government’s status quo nominees with anti-abortion ones. One attempted replacement was a doctor who has worked for an anti-abortion counselling service. The amendment was put forward by Peter Brown (NZ First) and supported by all the NZ First MPs who voted and 21 of the 36 National MPs who voted. His supporters included John Key, Bill English, Tony Ryall and Judith Collins — the four hoping to be Prime Minister, Deputy PM, and Ministers for Health and Social Development. The second attempted replacement put forward by Gordon Copeland gained similar levels of support.

Go. Read.

ETA: Also, this post at In A Strange Land.

The rubbish in question being this nonsense from Noelle McCarthy, who has tossed her pretty head and decided that because she gets to make choices for herself, because she is independent, then clearly, there’s no need for feminism anymore. Feminism is past its use-by date, and no woman of any sense calls herself feminist anymore, and certainly there’s no sisterhood amongst women anymore.

Quick, someone inform the Down Under Feminists’ Carnival.

And this post at Questioning Transphobia:

But this “gender is not real” thing is almost always used to ONLY illuminate the falseness of trans genders. And considering the notion that we are “really” a man or woman despite appearances tends to feed into transphobic discourse, legislation and eventually violence, I think it is worthy of refuting those non-trans normative biases and presumptions.

We can has abortion on demand?

Update: and now this has hit the blogosphere in force, there’s also a round-up of posts at The Hand Mirror, in addition to what I’ve garnered at the end of this post.

…

Via PublicAddress, I learn of a High Court review, instigated by Right to Zygote Life NZ, of the workings of our Abortion Supervisory Committee.

And it’s kind of, do-I-laugh-or-do-I-cry:

In a review of the workings of the Abortion Supervisory Committee, initiated by Right To Life New Zealand, Justice Forrest Miller said there was a reason to doubt the lawfulness of many abortions.

Here’s the deal in the liberal hippie communist paradise of the South Pacific, bastion of human rights and progressive thinking (see also Women’s Suffrage, Abyssinia, nukes, Georgina Beyer):