Forced sterilization or forced abortions - what exactly does Paula Bennett want to do to women now?

The right wing have a torrid fetish for the sex lives of poor people and beneficiaries. Paula Bennett seems to spend all day long fantasizing about how she can meddle in the sex lives of those less fortunate than her. It's reminiscent of how the SIS would spy on the sex lives of Green Party members because apparently who Keith Locke was getting it on with was a national bloody security interest.

What I love is that for a public who reared up on their hind legs and bleated Nanny State at the closing of a legal loop hole that was allowing basher parents to get away with assault by claiming 'discipline', we don't seem to have much to say on the long term contraception methods aimed at those promiscuous women who seem to hold the myopic focus of the right.

It seems it's only 'nanny state' when what the state is proposing is directed at us, if it's aimed at someone else, it's legitimate social policy. How contemptuous of us.

So now as National start to melt down from the weight of their unpopular neo liberal agenda to flog off our assets and cripple public education, out comes Paula just in time for a new round of savage bennie bashing that will hopefully rally the rednecks back to the cause.

How contemptuous of her.

Bennett's new attack is to have the State decide which woman can give birth and which ones can't. Note the existing laws allow for the State to intervene and remove a child if the State sees evidence of abuse, but these powers go well beyond that, Paula wants to pass law that will see the State decide the woman is guilty of pre-crimes and simply ban them from being allowed to have children altogether.

Would there need to be a Non-breeder tax code

So what is Paula seriously suggesting here? Forced sterilization? Forced abortions or taking the child seconds after the birth?

How the bloody hell is something this draconian about to enter NZ Parliament?

How does one respond to such outright fascism?

First, women don't 'breed for business' - as the academic research shows, women with limited choices take the only ones available and self affirming. You want women in poverty to breed less? Give theme some bloody options that go beyond the deprivation they've been forced to live in.

Second, let's be clear, this has nothing to do with protecting children or women. Putting legislation as controversial as the State deciding if a woman will commit a pre-crime and can't have a child, goes well beyond what the current law allows and it is nothing more insidious than political class baiting at a time when the Government is under pressure. It is divisive and fascist and has no place in our political culture.

Third, There were 148 removals of children from mothers within days of birth last year due to risks and evidence surfacing through the appropriate channels that led the State to intervene, those safeguards are working most of the time, but to use the exceptions to the rules that do get through as justification to remove a women's ability to have children for ever is a draconian move too far and a power we never want to give to the State.

This new move by Bennett to allow the State to have the power to decide if a women can no longer have children is nothing more than a divisive attempt to curry favor with an electorate rapidly getting sick of National. It's as cynical as Muldoon was when he split the country over the Springbok tour and twice as evil. Doubt me? Where did Paula decide to float this gem of policy? None other than Michael Laws talk hate radio show, the most reactionary conservative tub thumper in the country.

Paula Bennett isn't doing this to save the kiddies, she's doing out to blow the redneck dog whistle and save her job.

Disgusting.

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