[00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome along to another episode of the Dispatchers. My name is Brendan Malone. It is great to be back with you again. And in today's episode we're going to be talking about the abortion dystopia that Jacinda Ardern has left in her wake.
[00:00:17] Hi, my name is Brendan Malone and you're listening to the Dispatchers, the podcast that strives to cut through all the noise in order to challenge the popular narratives of the day with some good old fashioned contrarian thinking. You might not always agree, but at least you'll be taking a deeper look at the world around you.
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[email protected] leftfootmedia. The link is in today's show Notes. Alrighty. So today's topic of conversation is Ardern's abortion dystopia and I'm going to be speaking specifically in light of the just published on Tuesday of this week Ministry of Health report which details the latest annual data about the state of abortion in New Zealand. The report itself is grim reading. There are some truly shocking outcomes. Things have got worse in New Zealand, decidedly worse since the passing of the Extreme Abortion legislation Act in 2020. This was Jacinda Ardern's personal pet project during her time in politics. In fact, sadly, it was one of the few things that you could say she actually did successfully. She managed to achieve during her time in office. And the fact that she achieved this means that the outcome for our nation is absolutely horrific. And this is something that she was committing herself to before she had even become Prime Minister. Right back in 2017, she was speaking openly and publicly about the fact that she wanted to change New Zealand's abortion laws. And she did exactly that when she got into power. The end result of this personal political project of hers was the Extreme Abortion Legislation Act. And what that means in practice is that New Zealand now has a law where abortion on demand for any reason up to 20 weeks is legally allowed. And after 20 weeks, as long as you can find an abortionist who is willing to carry out the abortion. You can abort a child for any reason right up to and even during birth if you want to. That is how loosely this act is worded. It is a very extreme piece of legislation and it's put together in a very cunningly Orwellian way. The tail end of the legislation which deals with the post 20 week abortion component of the law is crafted in such a way as to dishonestly give the impression that there are some sort of restrictions and extra hurdles that you have to go through after 20 weeks. But in actual fact, when you look at what exactly is said the letter of the law as it's written, it's pretty clear that in actual fact the only restriction is whether or not the abortionist would be willing to carry out the actual. So if a single abortionist is willing to do it, then that abortion can go ahead. It is just that simple. What little rights unborn children had under New Zealand law prior to the passing of this extreme piece of legislation, they were all stripped out of the law. They have zero rights now. They are treated as little more than an object, a piece of property which others can dispose of at there. Well now one thing I think it's also important to note here and I am pre recording this on Wednesday and So this is 24 hours after this report has been published and I did a double check this morning and there is still no media coverage that I can see in the mainstream media about this report. Now this should be contrasted with the absolute and constant fawning that we had from the mainstream media about the Abortion Legislation act itself just a couple of years ago when that was passed back in 2020 and the lead up to that and how the media went out of its way to promote and often quite dishonestly, the nature of that law. They were talking about it regularly. There was constant media coverage. But now here we are several years later and we have a Ministry of Health report which which details the truly disastrous outcomes from this legislation. And what do we get so far? We get crickets. I expect that there could well be some media coverage in the coming days. And I fully expect that that media coverage will not actually present an honest account of what's actually going on here. Instead, I suspect that there will be a typically jaundiced and pro abortion spin that is put on the contents of this report. So why am I calling this an abortion dystopia? Well, let me share with you the key hallmarks of this abortion dystopia. As they are revealed in this brand new report. What the report shows us first of all is that there has been a 14.9% increase in abortions last year. And that's on top of a 6.8% increase from the previous year. So last year, which was an increase in and of itself, we had 14,164 abortions. So that's. Sorry, in last year's report, the brand new report just a couple of days ago, so Tuesday of this week, it's now up to 16,277 abortions in New Zealand. So that's a 14.9% increase from where we were this time last year when the report was published. The abortion ratio, which is the number of abortions per 1000 known pregnancies, is now at 221 abortions per one pregnancies.
[00:06:45] Last year that was sitting at 193 per 1000. To give you some context, it has been 24 years since it was this high in New Zealand. The last time it got to this level was right back in the year 2000 where we had 220 abortions per 1000 known pregnancies. This year it is 221 abortions per 1000 known pregnancies. What this means is that over 22% of pregnancies are now ending in abortion in New Zealand. It's almost 1 in 4 pregnancies now. Last year it was about 18.5%. So about 1 in 5 or just below 1 in 5 pregnancies. There has been an almost 4% increase in the number of abortions per known pregnancies in this country. There is now an average of 45 children killed in the womb every single day of the year in this country. What's even worse is that when you look at the abortion figures from 2020, just prior to the passing of the Abortion Legislation act, to this latest report, abortion has now increased by almost 23% since the passing of the Abortion Legislation Act. What's even more shocking is that the number of late term abortions, this is abortions that happen at 20 weeks and beyond, has increased massively. In 2021, there were 104 late term abortions.
[00:08:37] Last year, according to this latest report, there were 174 late term abortions. That equals a 67% increase in the last couple of years in late term abortion here in New Zealand. The report also reveals that the abortion workforce in New Zealand has increased by another 11% last year. This is coming on the back of the previous year's increase.
[00:09:09] The last report that we had showed us that the abortion workforce in 2022 was increased by almost 115%.
[00:09:24] It went from 162 to 348 personnel. Now, as of this latest report, it's at 387 personnel. What this means is that this is a 139% increase in the abortion workforce since 2021. And it's not just personnel. All of the associated resourcing costs as well have increased. And it is us, the taxpayer, who are funding this. We are taking personnel out of other areas of actual genuine healthcare, and we are massively increasing spending on the killing of unborn children when it comes to the cost of personnel and the cost of resourcing and everything else associated with that. So we are taking personnel from actual areas where we need them and other areas of healthcare where they could be saving lives. And we are increasing the amount of taxpayer funding that is being spent on this. Another shocking revelation in this report, which is just nonchalantly stated, is that 60.7, so that's almost 61% of people are now using abortion as contraception. 60.7% of women in this latest report who had abortions were not using any contraception when they had sex. They got pregnant and they used abortion as their primary contraceptive. Obviously, it's not a contraceptive. It doesn't prevent pregnancy. It deliberately ends an innocent human life. And although the report makes no mention of this fact, what this clearly exposes is the abject and total failure of contraceptive based sex education in this country. Because remember, the whole point of that taxpayer funded dalliance was that this was going to produce a whole new generation of sexually responsible people. And that these sexually responsible citizens who were engaging in all sorts of hedonism as they so desired, would also be people who would be using contraceptives and they would be protecting themselves from disease, quote, unquote. And there would also be these other effects like they wouldn't be getting pregnant and the abortion rights rate would be better as a result. And all the rest of the promises that were made and what you have now is a situation where 60.7% of the people who had abortions last year were having sex with zero contraception. And then when the natural outcome of sexual intercourse happened, pregnancy, which is actually a good thing, and it is exactly how this is supposed to work. It's not an accident and it's not a disaster if you engage in the most effective act for making a brand new, totally dependent and totally vulnerable human being and you create a brand new, totally dependent, totally vulnerable human being. Congratulations, that's exactly how this should work. And you had 60.7% of people engaging in this act without contraception. They then find themselves pregnant and so they use abortion as their contraceptive to solve that problem, quote unquote. And another shocking revelation that is rather nonchalantly revealed in this report is the fact that adverse effects on women who have abortions have increased majorly.
[00:12:57] So every abortion obviously is an adverse effect for the unborn child. In almost all cases, they don't survive. That is the worst outcome of all that could happen to a human being. Their life is deliberately ended. But the claim that is often sold to us by pro abortion choice activists and pro abortion lobbyists is that this is actually something that's good for women, it's safe, and that it's in their best interests. So it's sold to women as this good thing. But in actual fact, what this year's report reveals is that even if you're someone who doesn't really have any concern about the rights or the protections for unborn children in New Zealand, this report also reveals that you should be concerned too, because it's showing a growing and very serious problem with adverse outcomes for women who have abortions.
[00:13:58] Last year in this latest report, it reveals that 2.2% of all abortions, that's 358 abortions, caused adverse effects for the woman who had the abortion.
[00:14:13] To give you some context here, that really matters, back in 2021, that was 1.3%. So the number of abortions resulting in adverse outcomes for women has now almost doubled in the last couple of years since the passing of the Abortion Legislation Act. And remember, at the time in Parliament, this was sold as being beneficial for women. It was all about their well being and their safety. Yet despite those claims, the number of adverse outcomes has almost doubled since the passing of this legislation. And it is very clear when you look at the data that both the increase in the number of abortions and this increase in adverse effects for women having abortions is being caused by the massive promotion of the abortion pill here in New Zealand, what is known as an early medical abortion, the use of abortion causing chemicals, a two stage pill process. And in New Zealand now we have a dial a DIY abortion 0800 number hotline that the government has set up and is funding with taxpayer money where you can ring an R800 number and they will send you the abortion pill to your home for you to take and when you look on page 40 of this report at the list of harms, it is very, very clear that this method of abortion is causing this massive increase in harms. To show you what I'm talking about, let me cite for you some actual examples from the chart on page 40 of the latest abortion report. And this chart lists various different types of abortion adverse outcomes that women can experience. And it tells you the different abortion methods, how many of these particular adverse outcomes there were in each case. So, for example, the adverse outcome of retained placenta or products of conception, that's the unborn child they're talking about that they are calling a product there. By the way, that particular adverse outcome last year that happened in 25 cases of surgical abortions.
[00:16:36] Meanwhile, last year that particular adverse outcome happened to 135 women who had early medical abortions. Infections is another type of adverse outcome that happened in three cases of surgical abortion. It happened last year in 67 cases of early medical abortion.
[00:17:04] Pain happened in one surgical abortion. It happened in 15 early medical abortions. Failed abortion happened twice with surgical abortions. It happened nine times with early medical abortions. I could go on, but you get the point. It's pretty clear when you look at the data that this abortion pill has been an absolute disaster. The New Zealand people were lied to repeatedly because at very high levels in this country, the dishonest claim was consistently repeated that early medical abortions are safer. And so it's beneficial for us to have more of them in New Zealand. And so this is why there has been a huge push to promote early medical abortions using this two stage pill process here in our country. But here's the thing. You can go back decades and look at the data that we have about this particular abortion tool and it is very clear that in actual fact, that claim was never true. It was never safer. The data has always consistently shown that surgical abortions were safer for women than early medical abortions are. But despite that fact, the lie was told, it was consistently repeated and the floodgates have been opened now with a mass onslaught of early medical abortions, which obviously are absolutely disastrous for unborn children. But it's also becoming increasingly clear now that they are doing harm to women in this country as well. It is proving that this was always a lie. The data does not deceive. It is very clear when you look and see what is going on here. And tragically, I think it is now only a matter of time before we hear about the death of a woman in New Zealand as a direct result of this particular abortion method. Another astounding revelation contained in this report is that only 15% of the women who had abortions last year had counselling prior to their abortion.
[00:19:28] 85%, according to the official data, are not believed to have had any counselling whatsoever. But it gets worse. Because of that 15% who did have pre abortion counselling, over 80% of that counselling took place at the very abortion facility where the abortion also took place.
[00:19:56] There is zero transparency in such an approach.
[00:20:02] There is zero guarantees that you are getting truly unbiased and non directive counselling in such a scenario. This is not good. Even the fact that this is allowed to happen is clearly an oversight and a disregard for basic best practice standards when it comes to independence in counselling, particularly when you are counselling someone in such a serious matter. Which makes it all the more ironic to read in this report the following statement the Ministry of Health continues to work with providers within its regulatory role to monitor abortion counseling services. Which brings me to the heart of what I want to talk about today, the Orwellian managerial duplicity that is found in the introduction to the latest abortion report.
[00:20:59] This introduction is approximately one page long and I want to read to you now about half of the total introduction. I'm just going to read select paragraphs. I'm not hiding anything from you. You can read it for yourself if you want to to ascertain that fact. But these select paragraphs I felt were worthy of highlighting and they give about half of the total words that are used in the introduction. And more importantly, you will get a clear sense for the tone the way that this particular data contained in this brand new abortion report is being introduced and talked about by the Director General of Health. And I want you, as I read to you now, these words from the introduction to this brand new report to keep in mind all of the disastrous outcomes that have been revealed in the actual data that is contained in this report that I have just talked about over the previous minutes of this podcast. Keep those in mind as you listen to the way in which the very Orwellian and duplicitous way in which the data contained in this report these truly disastrous outcomes are being talked about by this introduction.
[00:22:15] I am pleased to present this 4th Abortion Services AOTRO in New Zealand Annual Report which provides a snapshot of abortion provision for the 2023 calendar year. This report focuses on equity and accessibility of abortion services. The Ministry of Health is determined to ensure every person has access to high quality and timely abortion information and healthcare when and where they need it. As a side note here you will be well aware of the truth that abortion is not healthcare. It's the opposite of healthcare when you are deliberately ending the life of an innocent human being. The findings within this report highlight continued improvements following both the 2020 law reform and the 2022 health reforms. That's right folks, that list of deleterious outcomes that I have just described to you that are contained within the pages of this report in the very introduction to this exact same report, they are being described here as improvements.
[00:23:24] Recommendations from the Royal College of obstetricians and gynaecologists 2022 have emphasised the importance of local and early abortion service provision. A key indicator of this is drive time to in person services. So in other words, how long does it take you to drive to an abortion facility? As a result of continued increases in the abortion workforce in regional facilities in 2023, the drive time has on average decreased. However, longer distance to providers continues to disproportionately impact Mori and those living in rural areas. In other words, here they are angling for more and easier access to abortion for Mori and for people who are living in rural areas. So not only are they not actually even acknowledging the disastrous outcomes contained within the pages of this report, but they clearly appear to want more of the same. People need accurate information to be able to make informed choices in relation to their pregnancy options. The Ministry plays an active role in monitoring disinformation.
[00:24:36] In other words, the Ministry of Health is now watching and ready to censor and control those who don't go along with the pro abortion narrative.
[00:24:48] In July 2024, the ministry released a statement warning against the use of progesterone for abortion reversal, an unsafe and scientifically unsupported practice.
[00:25:02] It is quite something to read a report in which one sentence declares that the Ministry of Health is now actively monitoring disinformation and in the very next sentence they actually present false information they deliver to the public. Misinformation after stating that they are actively monitoring disinformation. Because the use of progesterone for abortion reversal is not unsafe. It's being practiced overseas and has been for quite some number of years. And it is certainly not true at all to claim that it is scientifically unsupported. This is dishonesty. There has not been a high level gold standard scientific study research paper to examine this particular practice. But that's not the same thing as saying that it is scientifically unsupported. Because the obvious question here is who exactly is going to fund this gold standard study. It costs a lot of money to do such things. And I don't imagine that those who are in the business of providing abortions are going to want to pay for such a study, especially after they have publicly declared, without any scientific backing behind themselves whatsoever to justify this position, that this is unsafe. Now remember, they have named here the actual drug that is being used in the abortion reversal. So how this works is it's a two stage pill and if someone takes stage one, the first of the pills and then they change their mind, they can go to a doctor and they can be prescribed progesterone. And that progesterone can have a positive impact on helping them keep their baby. So it reduces the chances that the baby will be lost. Progesterone is what is being used for this purpose. It is absolutely absurd to read a ministry calling itself a Ministry of health stating that progesterone which is considered safe enough to use in other areas of medical practice in New Zealand, including for the prevention of miscarriage. Here they are in a report claiming that that very same drug which is used in lots of other circumstances is now apparently unsafe. Suspiciously, it's only considered unsafe by them in this one particular area of reversing abortions. In 202311 safe areas were established. Safe areas for those who don't know are are 150 meter anti free speech zones that exist around abortion facilities in New Zealand. And if you express even silently a view about abortion, you will be criminalized if you are caught doing that within those quote unquote safe areas. So what we're talking about here is not private property but public spaces where free speech is criminalized. In 202311 safe areas were established with another three added in September 2024. Safe areas ensure the ongoing safety and well being and have a listen to the order here because it's quite important of those providing and accessing abortion services. Now why did I make a point of highlighting the order? The fact that their first point of concern is the safety and wellbeing of those providing abortions and second is those who use the abortion services.
[00:28:46] Well, because when safe areas were sold to the public and there was a very brief political debate about all of this, not a particularly open and transparent one, but when there was a political conversation about this, guess what? This was sold to the public as being in the best interests and the wellbeing of women who have abortions. But here we are. Clearly the priority is not really on those having the abortions. They come Second after those who carry out the abortions, even though, as the New Zealand Law Commission revealed in the official paper, that it was asked to prepare and submit to the New Zealand government before the introduction of the Extreme Abortion Legislation Act 2020, that abortion providers in this country told them that they didn't consider this to be an issue, they did not consider any need for safe areas in New Zealand and despite that fact, our parliament still went ahead and imposed these criminalised free speech zones and public spaces anyway. And this little introduction finishes on the following positive note. While there are areas for improvement, I am heartened by the continuing progress toward equitable and accessible service provision for this important health service. Dr. Diana Safati Director General of Health Not a single acknowledgement of the disastrous outcomes on the back of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 are acknowledged in the introduction to this report. These disastrous outcomes are clear and they're right there in the data, but they're not acknowledged in the introduction. Instead, we are told that the Director General of Health is heartened by what she reads in this data and that it's great to see equitable and accessible service provision for what is now being called an important health service.
[00:30:51] That's right, the deliberate ending of human life is now being described as an important health service. Is it any wonder that outcomes for people who are actually seeking genuine health care in this country are not so good right now? If this is the attitude from the bureaucrats who run the system, There is a whole six pages of this report dedicated to data about drive times to access an abortionist, as you heard mentioned in the introduction to this report. So this is how long does it take someone to drive to an abortion facility?
[00:31:34] Six pages is more than 12% of this 47 page report and it's dedicated to talking about how long it takes someone to drive to get an abortion, as if that is the primary issue we should all be focused on here. Clearly they do not see this and what is contained within this report as a disastrous outcome for New Zealand and therefore there is no plan to deal with it. No one is going to admit that there is a crisis here. They don't want to own what they've done and a big reason for that is that they don't actually believe this to be a deleterious outcome. They clearly want more of the same, which is precisely why I have chosen to describe this state of affairs as an abortion dystopia.
[00:32:29] One final point that I think is worthy of noting before I share some concluding thoughts about where to from here in response to this report is the fact that there is a timing question about the release of this data.
[00:32:45] Normally and in previous years this data has been released earlier.
[00:32:52] So this data would not normally appear in the final days of the working year. And I am highly suspicious about the timing of this report.
[00:33:03] Normally this would appear at least a month earlier than what we are receiving it right now. But the fact that this report, which contains some truly shocking and disastrous reading about the current state of abortion in this country, which has come about clearly as a direct result of the Abortion Legislation act and the initiatives like the 0800 dial, a DIY abortion service that has come on the back of that, the fact that a report which shows such disastrous outcomes is being released in the dying days of the working calendar year would seem to indicate to me, and I could be wrong about this, but I am highly suspicious about the timing of this because I don't see any other reason why there should have been a delay in releasing this report.
[00:33:59] Unless, of course, you were hoping that this report would quietly not be noticed by too many people because they are busy focusing on their other end of year concerns and Christmas, which is now one week away. I can't help but sense that the reason this report was delayed was in the hope that it wouldn't get that much public attention because what it contains is truly shocking. So what are we to do in the face of these abhorrent outcomes revealed by this latest report? Well, Jacinda Ardern has long since abandoned New Zealand. And meanwhile the rest of us, we're left to deal with the carnage that her time in office has wrought upon our country.
[00:34:52] And as I said earlier, ironically, this was one of the things the Abortion Legislation act that she actually managed to achieve. And in doing so, it was yet another aspect of her legacy that was truly disastrous for our country. And as far as I'm concerned, morally speaking, this is the worst aspect of her time in office.
[00:35:18] Because we are talking here about the deliberate killing of innocent human beings, it does not get any more morally grave than that.
[00:35:28] But meanwhile, as I said, we are left to deal with the carnage that has resulted from her time in office.
[00:35:38] But here's the thing. This is our country. And because this is our country, we will keep both hands to the plough and we will continue to move ahead one step at a time until we have ploughed a whole furrow.
[00:35:56] And then we will do this again and again and again until we have ploughed a whole field and then we will keep going until it's two fields, five fields, ten fields, and then we will keep going.
[00:36:17] Because our cause is the cause of goodness and truth.
[00:36:24] Our cause is the moral cause, the advocacy and the defense of the most vulnerable of sacred things, an innocent human being. And in the end, the culture of death doesn't just destroy human persons. It doesn't just destroy things and institutions and social structures and orders. It also consumes itself eventually.
[00:36:58] And so, for the sake of the vulnerable unborn, for the sake of women and couples and families in this nation who are often pressured into abortion, who are often put into circumstances whereby they are never fully offered the truth or other options, we must keep our hands to the player, both hands, and keep moving forward. And we will do that. As Edward Evatt Hale once said, I am only one, but I am one. I can't do everything, but I can do something.
[00:37:42] The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.
[00:37:49] Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. Keep your hand to the player and I'll see you next time on the Dispatchers.
