Abortion policy reform in : Examining the significance of issue networks during the reform process leading up to the Legislation Act 2020

Emil Schröder

Political Science C (Bachelor Thesis) Department of Government Uppsala University, Spring 2020 Supervisor: Markus Gossas Word count: 13437

Table of contents

1. Introduction 2 1.1 Purpose 3

2. Theoretical framework and previous research 4 2.1. Previous research on abortion policy reform 4 2.1.1. Gender policy in Latin America - Htun’s Sex and the State 4 2.1.2. Further research on issue networks, the Church, and opportunity contexts 6 2.1.3. Strategic framing 7 2.2. Theoretical framework 8 2.2.1. The distinctiveness of gender policy issues 8 2.2.2. Issue networks 9 2.2.3. State institutions 10 2.2.4. Church-state relations 10 2.2.5. The “fit” 11

3. Method 12 3.1. Case selection 12 3.2. Process-tracing 14 3.3. Material 15 3.4. Operationalisation 15

4. Analysis 17 4.1. Historical overview of the in New Zealand 17 4.2. Issue networks 21 4.2.1. Criticism from the UN 21 4.2.2. Reform Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ) 22 4.3. Configuration of state institutions 24 4.3.1. New Zealand’s system of government 24 4.3.2. The reform process 25 4.4. Church-state relations 27 4.5. The fit between issue networks and state institutions 29

5. Conclusion 31

References 33

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1. Introduction The right to safe and legal abortion is considered a human right under numerous international and regional treaties and UN experts and agencies are persistently calling for a global realisation of full reproductive and sexual rights. Yet, in many countries, abortion is still completely prohibited or legal only if it would save the life of the woman (Human Rights Watch 2018). This is particularly true in parts of the world where religious institutions with considerable social and political influence use their power to prevent any liberalisation of abortion. This type of religious influence is a central component of Mala Htun’s research in her book ​Sex and the State ​(2003), where she studies policy processes on gender issues, such as legal abortion, divorce, and family equality in Latin America. Her work cumulates in a theoretical framework that emphasise ​issue networks ​as instrumental to liberal legislative change on these types of gender policy issues. Issue networks are coalitions of professionals such as lawyers, doctors, legislators, and feminist activists that mobilise around the promotion of a specific policy issue. Htun’s framework stresses that the success or failure of issue networks is dependent on the opportunities provided by state institutions, and the current relationship status between the state and dominant religious institutions, particularly the Catholic Church. Her research demonstrated that issue networks could utilise temporal division in Church-state relations to push for liberal gender policy reform. However, the Church would turn out to be particularly resolute in their opposition to the issue of legal abortion and managed to counter attempts at abortion law liberalisation in the Latin American countries included in Htun's research (Htun 2003).

In contrast to Latin America, most ‘Western’ countries provide the legal right to abortion on demand up to a certain amount of weeks into , with only a few exceptions (Center for 2020). Up until 2020 one of those exceptions were New Zealand, where in March 2020 Parliament adopted the ​Abortion Legislation Act, ​thereby decriminalising abortion and permitting the procedure at request with a 20 week gestational limit ( 2020). The fact that abortion was ruled a criminal offense in New Zealand up until as late as 2020 seems surprising considering that New Zealand is a country with a longstanding liberal and democratic tradition, famously becoming the first self-governing country in the world to give all

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women the right to vote in Parliamentary elections in 1893 (Ministry for Culture and Heritage 2018). New Zealand is also a rather secular country, where almost half of the population state that they have no religious affiliation and only about 10% of the total population are of Catholic faith (Stats NZ 2018). This makes New Zealand an interesting case to study, as it is unclear why abortion-rights advocates were unsuccessful in achieving liberal abortion reform at an earlier point, given the seemingly favourable circumstances. This study will therefore apply Htun’s theoretical framework to the policy process leading to the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 to find out if the reform can be explained by causal mechanisms that corresponds with those hypothesised by Htun. The intention of this is to test the analytical usefulness of the theory outside of a Catholic-majority context.

1.1 Purpose The broader purpose of this study is to make an addition to the growing field of research on gender policy reform by looking further into how action taken by issue networks influences the outcome of abortion policy processes. More specifically however, the objective is to examine if Htun’s (2003) theoretical framework on issue networks and their use of opportunity contexts within state institutions to promote liberal gender policy reform, can be used to explain why New Zealand adopted the Abortion Legislation Act 2020. The leading research question is therefore the following:

To which extent were issue networks instrumental to the abortion reform process in New Zealand leading up to the Abortion Legislation Act 2020?

Htun’s theoretical framework was developed in the context of Latin America and other previous studies that have used her framework have also principally focused on cases in either Latin America or other Catholic majority countries where the Catholic Church historically has had a strong influence on state institutions (Htun 2003; Reuterswärd et al. 2011; Fernandez Anderson 2016). This thesis will test the framework in a different context, with liberal abortion legislation being adopted in a country where the Catholic Church is expected to have had significantly less influence on state institutions. Conducting this study therefore provides an opportunity make an inquiry into how having a smaller (yet not fully insignificant) Catholic population affects the

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variable of Htun’s framework pertaining to the Catholic Church’s influence on state institutions (on the issue of abortion policy).

2. Theoretical framework and previous research The following section will begin with a part covering the most relevant research in the field of gender- and specifically abortion policy reform, followed by a rendition of the theoretical framework being used in this study, as presented by Htun in ​Sex and the State ​(2003)​. The framework is then tested by applying it to the case of New Zealand’s recent abortion policy process to determine if the theory can sufficiently explain the adoption of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020.

2.1. Previous research on abortion policy reform

2.1.1. Gender policy in Latin America - Htun’s ​Sex and the State In ​Sex and the State, ​Mala Htun presents her research concerning gender- and family equality policy issues in Latin America. Her research specifically deals with the policy developments on abortion and divorce in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile during the last third of the 20th century. By comparing different examples of gender policy reform and attempts at reform taking place during both military dictatorships and under democratic rule, Htun concludes that the transition from military dictatorships to democracy in these Latin American countries not necessarily led to favorable circumstances for liberal gender policy reform, she argues instead that the success or failure of liberal gender policy reform is determined by how effectively issue networks manage to mobilise and “hook” into the structure of state institutions, and to which extent the Church is able to exercise influence over the state (Htun 2003). Her research found that both Brazil and Argentina legalised divorce, under military dictatorship and post-democratisation respectively, while in Chile divorce remained illegal. However, liberalisation of abortion did not happen in any of the countries included in the study (Htun 2003, 7).

As a means of understanding why laws regulating certain gender issues were liberalised successfully, while abortion was not, Htun emphasises the need to disaggregate gender issues with respect to the nature of the issue at hand. Htun differentiates between ​technical gender issues ​such as women’s

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property- and parental rights, for which, efforts towards liberal change was not met with significant resistance from the Catholic Church, and ​absolutist ​gender issues such as legal divorce and liberalisation of abortion, which were met with serious contention by the Church, as these issues evoke strong “gut responses” and questions of morality. Htun notes that legal abortion is an especially complicated and unique issue in this aspect, even more so than divorce (Htun 2003: 13–14, 168).

Further emphasis is directed towards the concept of “elite” issue networks​, ​which are constellations of highly specialised professionals such as lawyers, feminist activists, journalists, doctors and reformist politicians, who mobilise and lobby policy makers with the goal of promoting a specific policy issue. Htun argues that the success of issue networks is dependent on how well they are able to “hook” into state institutions, meaning that varying circumstances1 within state institutions may, or may not, offer a window of opportunity for reform to take place (Htun 2003, 14–21). One exemplification of this is that the decision-making process that was established under conservative military dictatorships in Argentina, Brazil and Chile between the late 1960’s and late 1980’s, would be characterised by special commissions of legal experts that proposed legal changes to each of the countries civil, commercial, and criminal laws with little interference from the military regimes. This created a window of opportunity for issue networks to promote their agenda through lawyers and legal experts inspired by modern and liberal ideas (Htun 2003, 5, 68). Htun’s research also emphasise that during times when the Church-state relationship has been strong, traditional Catholic ethics (preaching male authority, the indissolubleness of marriage, and the crime of abortion etc.) tends to succeed as governments are unwilling to lose an influential ally. However, if relations between Church and state weakens or breaks down, favourable circumstances for issue networks promoting liberal policy change arise (Htun 2003, 22–24).

Htun’s research in ​Sex and the State ​cumulates in a theoretical framework on gender policy reform, which will employed in the analysis of this study.

1 Circumstances​ may be affected by factors such as the existing mode of governance in a country, or the representative ​ division of parties within a parliament. Htun particularly discusses the circumstantial differences between military- and democratic governments in Latin America.

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2.1.2. Further research on issue networks, the Church, and opportunity contexts

The framework provided by Htun in ​Sex and the State ​has been referenced and applied by a variety of researchers studying gender policy reform (Reuterswärd et al. 2011; Lopreite 2014; Kulczycki 2014; Waylen 2007; Fernandez Anderson 2016). In contrast to my study, these studies tend to focus on Catholic majority countries, particularly Latin American countries.

Reuterswärd et al (2011) applies Htun’s (2003) theoretical framework in their comparative study of two abortion policy processes in Latin America during 2006. Their research examines why abortion law was liberalised in Colombia under centre-right rule, while in socialist Nicaragua, abortion was completely banned by an unanimous vote, removing previous exceptions to the abortion ban. They analyse the central actors, their strategies, and like Htun they emphasise the importance of opportunity contexts2 (Reuterswärd et al. 2011).

Reuterswärd et al. concludes that the findings of their study generally corresponds well with Htun’s hypothesis, which emphasises the importance of the “fit” between issue networks and state institutions: in Colombia issue networks successfully managed to “hook” into state institutions, prompting liberal abortion reform, whereas in Nicaragua a strong relationship between the Church and the state, created unfavourable circumstances for the women’s movement to resist the abortion ban proposal. The authors does nonetheless point out a few limitations of Htun’s framework. Their first concern being that Htun does not stress the importance of timing enough. Their findings showed that presidential elections provided a critical opportunity window reform, and they emphasise that the timing of national political events should be considered when analysing opportunity contexts. Their second concern with Htun’s theory is that their findings in the case of Colombia’s reform process suggested the need for further emphasis on the significance of the judiciary branch in gender policy processes (ibid.).3

2 The use of “opportunity contexts” is akin to Htun’s concept of the ​ ​“fit” between issue networks and state institutions. 3 Reuterswärd et al. acknowledges that the judiciary branch is a part of ‘state institutions’, but contends that Htun does not pay enough attention to it (Reuterswärd et al. 2011).

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2.1.3. Strategic framing

In previous literature on gender policy reform, authors have frequently highlighted the strategic use ​framing in the discourse on abortion as essential to understand the outcome of policy processes (Heumann 2007; Kane 2008; Reuterswärd et al. 2011; Kulczycki 2014; Lopreite 2014; Bergqvist et al. 2015).

Actors can strategically use framing to alter the way an issue is viewed and discussed within both and state institutions, as a means of gaining further support to their cause. The issue of abortion policy might for example be framed by those promoting liberal reform through the use of a certain set of arguments, while those advocating for stricter laws on abortion would argue about different aspects of the issue altogether. Benford & Snow (2000) writes that framing “denotes an active processual phenomenon that implies agency and contention at the level of reality construction”, meaning that framing is an evolving process of collective action, which is taken with the intention of facilitating the agency of social movement organisations or other groups advocating for something. Frames may be used within discourse to instill meaning into issues, concepts or occurrences, and with that, influencing perceptions of reality, which in turn guides action (Benford & Snow 2000, 614).

Groups advocating against the liberalisation of abortion laws tend to frame the issue as a question of ethics, morality or religious doctrine. As seen in many of the studies on gender policy reform in Latin America, this type of issue framing is typically promoted by the Catholic Church (Htun 2003; Reuterswärd et al. 2011; Kane 2008; Heumann 2007). Issue networks and women’s rights movements have instead tended to use two different frameworks on the issue of abortion. The first frame emphasising abortion as a medical issue within the context of reproductive health. Studies from cases in Latin America have shown that this can be done by evoking arguments from international law (Reuterswärd et al. 2011; Kane 2008). Abortion has also often been framed by proponents of liberal abortion policy through the ‘pro-choice’ position, maintaining abortion as a question of women’s right to bodily integrity and freedom of choice (Sambaraju et al. 2017).

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2.2. Theoretical framework

2.2.1. The distinctiveness of gender policy issues

The first piece in the theoretical framework provided by Htun (2003) has to do with the nature of the gender issue in question. As mentioned previously in this paper, Htun stresses the importance of disaggregating gender issues when analysing gender policy processes. She asserts that the distinctive aspects of different types of issues impacts how they are processed politically and which actors get involved in policy debate, and adds that properties associated with different gender issues strongly correspond with how they are framed (Htun 2003, 4–5).

As some issues are connected with stronger emotions and controversy, they tend to spark policy debates driven by clashing worldviews and ethical convictions. Htun’s research demonstrated that these issues tended to be those threatening the status of Catholic values in Latin America, thus efforts at liberalising these issues prompted opposition from actors within the Church. Htun notes that this was typically the case with reform proposals suggesting the liberalisation of divorce or elective abortion. These type of gender issues are categorised by Htun as ​absolutist ​issues. Other gender issues are instead categorised by Htun as technical ​issues. These issues are generally not as controversial, less likely to incite resistance from the Church, and tend to be processed through deliberation between legal experts. Examples of technical gender issues are equal property rights for women and conditional therapeutic . (Htun 2003, 4–5, 12–14).

Htun & Weldon (2010) further expands the framework on the disaggregation of gender issues by introducing a more nuanced typology of gender equality policies. This typology consists of two distinctive binary categorical variables, with the first one being gender status policies vs. class-based policies. Gender status policies are defined as those that address injustices and harm affecting ​all women, regardless of other social positions. Class-based policies are instead directed at addressing inequalities among women, aiming to correct the injustices that mainly affect women of lesser wealth. The other binary variables are “doctrinal” policies vs. “non-doctrinal” policies. This axis corresponds with the categories presented previously by Htun (2003), as “doctrinal” policies are defined as those that provoke conflict between proponents of liberal gender policy and advocates

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of religious doctrine or cultural tradition. The authors argue that policy outcomes are better understood through disaggregating issues in accordance with their typology, as the different categories “reveal the different dynamics at work” depending on the issue in question (Htun & Weldon 2010). As noted by Htun (2003), disaggregating issues in this way reduces the scope when applying causal theories, which enhances the explanatory capacity of the theory (Htun 2003, 14).

The typology put forward by Htun & Weldon (2010) is to my assessment a more nuanced and refined rendition of the original typology from the framework in ​Sex and the State ​(Htun 2003), and I will therefore use it in place of the original categories of ​technical ​vs. ​absolutist ​issues. This study conducts an analysis of a policy process regarding the ​legality ​of abortion, which is an issue categorised as a ​gender-status policy issue, as it is an issue affecting women as a group, and simultaneously a ​doctrinal ​policy issue, since it challenges religious doctrine (Htun & Weldon 2010). The preconditions for the policy process examined in this study therefore needs to be understood in the context of it being an issue concerned with the bodily autonomy of all women, and as a controversial issue provoking opposition by proponents of religious doctrine and codified tradition.

2.2.2. Issue networks

As discussed above, Htun’s (2003) framework emphasises issue networks as key actors in the realisation of liberal gender policy change. These networks are defined as “elite” coalitions of lawyers, legislators, medical professionals, feminist activists, and state officials, who, “inspired by ideas of modernity, equality, and liberty; changes in other countries; and international treaties” operates in the interest of bringing about policy change (Htun 2003, 5). Issue networks can be influenced by or develop out of social movements, but they are also distinct from social movements as a “social movement” implicates a much broader meaning. Social movements refer to “sequences of collective action among social actors seeking a variety of goals” (Htun 2003, 15), these goals can be instrumental, like policy reform; normative, as in the desire to shape societal values; or defensive, with intention of stopping encroachment from corporations or governments. The mobilisation of issue networks occurs instead around a ​specific policy issue, and lobbies for reform by bringing the policy issue to the public agenda, spreading information and mobilising public opinion. They are therefore linked together in these networks, not because of a collective

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identity, such as shared values or ideology (even though members can share these identities), but rather by a shared interest in a certain policy issue (ibid.).

2.2.3. State institutions

Htun notes that a key feature of the institutionalist perspective on politics is that the “configuration of governing institutions and political party systems shapes the relationships among political actors and the possibility for policy change” (Htun 2003, 17). With respect to the theoretical framework, this means that the variables within state institutions are decisive to the success or failure of issue networks.

Htun’s research (2003) covers policy developments in Latin America from the 1960’s to the 1990’s, therefore particular emphasis is put on how the differences between the institutional features of military dictatorship regimes and and those of democratic regimes, affect the opportunity context for issue networks. I have chosen to focus on the institutional of democratic governance, since this study is limited to the analysis of policy reform in a democracy.

Key institutional features of democratic governance include variables such as electoral rules, legislative procedures, party systems, majority or proportional rule, and so forth (Htun 2003, 20). Furthermore, the separation of power between the executive-, legislative-, and judiciary branches of government are also important factors to take into account (Htun 2003, 174). This was particularly acknowledged by Reuterswärd et al. (2011) who recognised that the abortion reform in Colombia was made possible in part due to the independence of the Constitutional Court. Another key insight from their article is the importance of timing with respect to political events such as general elections. Their research demonstrated that policy proposals might be adopted by a legislative majority if public opinion has been mobilised in agreement with it, in close proximity to an upcoming election (Reuterswärd et al. 2011).

2.2.4. Church-state relations

The significance of the Catholic Church as an opposing force to policy issues such as legal abortion has been stressed by a number of authors (Htun 2003; Kane 2008; Kulczycki 2014; Reuterswärd et al. 2011). In Htun’s (2003) framework the relations between the Church and state is considered

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one of the most critical variables affecting the “fit” between issue networks and state institutions (Htun 2003, 22–23). Htun’s research demonstrated that the Catholic Church typically is able to exercise a considerable amount of political influence in countries with Catholic majorities (due to the Church’s strong social control within the religious population), and will choose to do so when their religious doctrine is being challenged by attempts at liberalising laws governing family life and intimate relations (Htun 2003, 174). The Church’s opposition to liberal gender policy reform was strongest during periods of cooperation between the Church and the state, particularly in times when the state has been dependent on the Church as an ally to retain political power. In contrast, when cracks emerge in the relationship Church and state there opens up a window opportunity for issue networks to promote liberal gender policies (Htun 2003, 5–6, 22–24).

With respect to my analysis of New Zealand’s recent abortion policy reform, the emphasis in the previous literature on the Catholic Church being the primary antagonist of liberal abortion reform raises the question of whether the Catholic Church has had any considerable influence on politics in New Zealand despite the relatively minor Catholic population. This is one aspect of the “Church-state relations”-variable from the framework that is addressed in the analysis.

2.2.5. The “fit”

The theoretical framework stresses issue networks as being the central agents of liberal gender policy reform, but merely the mobilisation of these types of issue networks is not enough to produce policy change. The success of policy reform depends on whether issue networks manage to “hook” into state institutions (Htun 2003, 17). Or as expressed by Skocpol: Degrees of success in achieving political goals - including the enactment of social legislation depend on the relative opportunities that existing political institutions offer to the group of movement in question (and simultaneously deny its opponents and competitors) (1992, 54).

To summarise, the variables of the framework discussed above collectively determine the “fit”, or the opportunity context, between issue networks and state institutions. The analysis therefore focuses on the years preceding New Zealand’s adoption of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020, exploring any mobilisation of issue networks, the features of state institutions, and the relation

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between the Church and the state. The intention is to reveal if the interplay of these factors adequately explains why abortion was decriminalised at this particular point in time.

Figure 1. T​ he fit between issue networks and the state. (​ Htun 2003, 24).

3. Method This part of the thesis will begin with a section arguing the choice of case, followed by a discussion on the choice of method, including a summary of how process-tracing is employed. The subsequent sections include a discussion on the research material and an operationalisation of the variables in the theoretical framework.

3.1. Case selection

Htun does acknowledge that her framework is particularly applicable to countries with hegemonic religious institutions that have experienced major political transitions, but maintains that her theory can apply to other countries as well (Htun 2003, 175). Studying the abortion law reform in

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New Zealand therefore offers a possibility to test if her theory is analytically useful outside of that specific context. Since Htun emphasises that the strength of the relationship between the Church and the state is critical to the outcome of abortion policy processes, and suggests that if Church-state relations weaken it could open up a window of opportunity for issue networks to promote liberal gender policy, this study will explore the possibility of something corresponding to this prompted the decriminalisation of (Htun, 2003: 24–25). The analysis also delves into whether the Catholic Church previously was able to offer effective opposition to reform despite the relatively small Catholic population of New Zealand, or if there were other factors all together that kept abortion reform from happening earlier.

New Zealand’s abortion reform also makes an interesting case to study on its own. Up until as recently as March of 2020, when the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 was enacted and abortion was removed from the , New Zealand stood out among most comparable Western democracies as having an unusually conservative legislation regulating the access to abortion - particularly when looking at other Non-Catholic majority countries. The legal grounds for abortion under New Zealand’s former laws were essentially limited to cases where the woman’s mental or physical health was endangered. Most notably, the legal framework did not provide grounds for legal abortion due to socio-economic reasons or in cases where the woman had been raped. The Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977 also mandated that abortions had to be authorised by two certified medical consultants who were to make sure that abortions were carried out lawfully. In reality however, the consultants would interpret these laws more liberally than intended by lawmakers, seeing that around 99% of abortions were authorised, out of which nearly 98% were granted under the ‘danger to mental health’ exception, thereby essentially providing “de facto” abortion on demand in New Zealand to anyone presenting themselves as mentally unfit or unwell (McCulloch & Weatherall 2017; Right to Life New Zealand Inc. v The Abortion Supervisory Committee 2012). McCulloch (2013) acknowledges that the de facto availability could potentially have been hampering to the mobilisation of the abortion-rights movement, as the status-quo may have created a complacency among the mainstream political parties that did not feel pressed to deal with the divisive issue.

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3.2. Process-tracing

This study employs process-tracing as a method for testing the theoretical framework by Htun (2003) on the policy process leading to the Abortion Legislation Act in New Zealand. This method is designed to link causation to an outcome by tracing and validating the causal mechanisms within a case study (Beach 2017). Beach (2017) argues that the strength of process tracing as an analytical tool is that it “enables strong causal inferences to be made about how causal processes work in real-world cases based on studying within-case mechanistic evidence”. The objective of theory-testing process-tracing studies such as this one is to apply a theory from the existing literature on a different case to see if there is empirical evidence indicating that each of the hypothesised causal mechanisms were present within the case, thus enabling inferences to be made about whether the mechanism functioned as predicted and if the mechanism was even present at all (Beach & Brun Pedersen 2013, 3).

The use of process-tracing in this study is suitable as it is already known that the outcome of the dependent variable is the adoption of the Abortion Legislation Act. This means that we can apply the theoretical framework to empirical events through an operationalisation of indicators, and then trace the steps within the policy process to find if the causal mechanisms behind the outcome corresponds with the hypothesised causal mechanisms in the theoretical framework (Beach & Brun Pedersen 2013, 16).

It should be noted that process-tracing is not without its flaws. One issue lies in its inability to isolate one hypothesised variable from other variables. Since there are likely many different variables that could have affected the outcome, we cannot be certain (using this method) if one has been more influential than the other (Beach & Brun Pedersen 2013, 3) Another similar problem with process-tracing is that even if explicit evidence is found of the causal mechanism working as hypothesised, the method does not provide any counterfactual evidence demonstrating that the final outcome would ​definitely not have happened if it was not for the hypothesised mechanism in question (Teorell & Svensson 2007, 261).

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3.3. Material

The research material used for the analysis of this study is a variety of policy documents, parliamentary reports, judicial documents, and general information from New Zealand’s state institutions; documents, publications, and statements from the issue networks and other non-governmental organisations; and news articles covering the policy process in New Zealand. The material has generally been published between 2012–2020 and covers events that were identified as relevant to the policy process. In addition to the analysis of the policy process, an introductory historical overview of the debate on abortion in New Zealand prior to 2012 is provided. The historical overview provides context to the policy process in the analysis, summarising the developments between the 1960’s to 2010’s. The historical overview is based primarily on information from the book ​Fighting to Choose ​by Alison McCulloch (2013) and two additional articles (Cook 2018; McCulloch & Weatherall 2017).

Much of the analysis is based on news articles from prominent New Zealand news media. They collectively provide an account of the political developments during the policy process, often with direct statements of motive from relevant political actors which can strengthen the indication of cause and effect between the studied variables and the outcome. Additionally, since the theory applied in the analysis is centred around issue networks much of the material used naturally comes from documents and media releases from the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ), as it is the only issue network relevant to this case.

3.4. Operationalisation

As the theoretical framework will be guiding the analysis of this study, an operationalisation of the conceptualised variables from the framework will be needed to couple them with corresponding the empirical observations. The purpose of this is to adapt a theoretical construct into something that can be ‘seen’ within empirical reality (Jonker & Pennink 2010). An operationalisation of the theoretical concepts should therefore provide indicators of intervening causal mechanisms that could link the independent variables from the framework (X) to the dependent variable, the policy outcome (Y) (Beach & Brun Pedersen 2013, 29–30).

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The framework provided by Htun (2003) is quite easily operationalised, as the features of its variables are thoroughly articulated. The indicators that need to be considered are those that would affect the “fit” between issue networks and state institutions, which requires the examination of activities employed by issue networks to promote abortion policy reform, the specific leverages given to issue networks by state institution, the circumstances affecting the relations between the state and the Church (or Church affiliated anti-abortion groups). The following operationalisation will hence be guiding the analysis:

● Issue networks​: To what degree issue networks have managed to mobilise, raise awareness, influence politicians and public opinion in favour of liberal reform, and how they have utilised framing and other strategies. ● State institutions:​ How the existing features of state institutions have given leverage to issue networks ability to generate policy change. This includes the consideration of aspects such as the separation of power between the branches of government, timing of political events, party systems, and so forth. ● Church-state relations​: How Church-state relations have developed prior to and during the reform process. To which degree have Church-affiliated anti-abortion groups been able mobilise and influence the policy process. ● The fit​: This comes down to the interaction of the independent variables above. If Htun’s hypothesis would turn out to correspond well the empirical observations, that would suggest that the adoption of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 was enabled due issue networks mobilising and successfully “hooking” into state institutions within a favourable opportunity context. If the hypothesis does not correspond well with the empirical observations it would suggest that the reform was enabled primarily due to factors not within scope of the framework.

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4. Analysis

4.1. Historical overview of the abortion debate in New Zealand In the 1960’s, attitudes surrounding sex, birth-control, and motherhood had started to change among many in New Zealand, including within the medical profession. This resulted in abortions becoming slightly more accessible, with both lawfully authorised and clandestine abortion rates rising. In 1969 and 1970 court cases in led to liberalised laws on abortion, which prompted some New Zealand women to make the journey there to have abortions. Aware of these developments, anti-abortion activists started to organise. However, with the emergence of Second-wave feminism, so did the pro-choice movement (Cook 2018a; McCulloch 2013). During the 1970’s this would escalate to a period in the abortion debate in New Zealand characterised by some as “the abortion wars” (McCulloch 2013)​ .

In 1970 the most renowned of anti-abortion lobbying groups in New Zealand was formed, the Society for Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC). SPUC was closely tied to the Catholic Church, with a majority of funding coming from the Church and a majority of members being Catholic. The organisation would have a large impact o the abortion debate and came to define the stance of religious-based morality in the country (McCulloch & Weatherall 2017). Regarding the different Christian Churches in New Zealand, only the Catholic Church would be persistent in its opposition to liberal abortion, while the stances of other Churches have shifted over time (Cook 2018a; McCulloch 2013).

As for the pro-choice movement it primarily involved two different organisations. Firstly, the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ), also formed in 1970, which sought abortion reform primarily on the grounds of wanting abortion to be treated as a health care issue, making them the moderate actor on the pro-choice side. The other major pro-choice organisation was the Women’s National Abortion Action Campaign (WONAAC), which took a more staunch feminist, “right to choose” approach, calling for a repeal of all laws restricting abortion (McCulloch & Weatherall 2017). Another important organisation was the Family Planning Association (NZFPA). It was started as a part of a campaign providing contraception and

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education to married people in the 1930’s, but by the 1970’s the organisation had expanded to help unmarried people as well and had by then opened up branches and clinics nationwide, which provided infrastructure that would be imperative to New Zealand’s de facto abortion on demand (ibid.).

The abortion debate in New Zealand seriously escalated in 1974 when the country’s first abortion clinic opened up, which provided abortions to women with referrals from their doctor. The opening of the clinic would cause an uproar among conservatives in New Zealand, intensifying the public debate on both sides. The result of the heated debate on abortion was a surge of abortion law bills considered by Parliament between the years between the years of 1974 and 1983 (Cook 2018b). However, the only significant bill that passed was the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977. The act was based on a report from a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion. McCulloch & Weatherall maintains that the report was “unsympathetic to expressions of sexuality outside a traditional Western and Christian nuclear family structure, lamenting a decline in church attendance” (2017, 95). They argue that the report was conservative in its assumptions and recommendations, and that the language and tone in the report indicated a stance based on conservative and religious moral arguments (McCulloch & Weatherall 2017). The adoption of the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977 would lead to the formation of the The Abortion Supervisory Committee, which were assigned the mission of certifying medical consultants and to license abortion clinics (Cook 2018b).

After the intense debate of the 1970’s and 1980’s, the pro-choice movement in New Zealand ran out of steam. Following this, WONAAC shut down their activity, leaving ALRANZ as the only significant abortion-rights lobbying group remaining in New Zealand (McCulloch & Weatherall 2017).

The abortion debate in the late 1990’s and 2000’s would be characterised by a rise of anti-abortion activism, with a number of new organisations opposing abortion was founded in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. The leading anti-abortion lobby group in New Zealand, SPUC, ousted their Christchurch branch from the organisation due to conflicts on lobbying strategy between the national leadership and the spokesperson of the branch. The Christchurch branch wanted to push

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for new anti-abortion legislation, but the national organisation wanted to wait for a “strong pro-life government”. After the split SPUC continued their operation under the name , but it would be the Christchurch branch, which was re-established as Right to Life New Zealand, that became the louder and more radical voice against abortion in the country (Cook 2018c; McCulloch 2013). The anti-abortion lobbying groups tended to be closely connected the Catholic Church, and while they had very limited electoral success, they were in general much more well-financed than pro-choice groups, which enabled the persistent campaigning of the anti-abortion groups (McCulloch 2013).

In one of the most notable anti-abortion campaigns during the last decades, Ken Orr, the spokesperson for Right to Life, initiated a court action against the Abortion Supervisory Committee in 2005, setting off a seven year long court case. In the case, Orr claimed that the Abortion Supervisory Committee was failing to fulfil its duties, maintaining that the Committee did not ensure that fetuses received protection in accordance with the law, that they had failed to hold the certifying medical consultants accountable for the lawfulness of many of the authorised abortions, and in essence permitting de facto abortion on demand to go on in New Zealand. The claims against the Abortion Supervisory Committee were to some degree supported in a ruling from 2008, where the judge stated that there “was reason to doubt the lawfulness of many abortions authorised by certifying consultants. Indeed, the Committee itself has stated that the law is being used more liberally then Parliament intended” (Right to Life New Zealand Inc. v The Abortion Supervisory Committee 2008). The case would eventually end in 2012 with a victory for the abortion-rights movement, as Right to Life had lost the argument on whether the fetus had a right to life under the law, and with the court ruling that the Abortion Supervisory Committee did not have any authority to make any inquiries of investigation regarding decisions made by certified consultants (Cook 2018c; McCulloch 2013; Right to Life New Zealand Inc. v The Abortion Supervisory Committee 2012).

Before the abortion reform bill that was introduced in 2019, the last attempt at abortion reform in New Zealand was a bill was introduced by Labour Party MP in 2010, who proposed a decriminalisation of abortion. The bill would be killed within days of its introduction after a multitude of objections had been made public by anti-abortion lobbying groups and a

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number of conservative newspapers. Meanwhile Labour and the Green Party (ostensibly the most liberal party in Parliament), had remained silent on the bill, with its only support coming from abortion-rights advocates in ALRANZ and a student activist group called Action for Abortion Rights (which have since then gone into hiatus). Chadwick would lament the weakened state of New Zealand’s abortion-rights movement, saying that she believed that no government would strive for new legislation without the Law Commission drawing up recommendations on a new abortion law. The abortion-rights movement in New Zealand would remain mostly passive during the early 2010’s. Not even ALRANZ’s moderate approach to abortion reform seemed (at the time) to gain any noticeable support within the mainstream parties (McCulloch 2013).

Things started to change in the latter half of the 2010’s when abortion-rights advocates really started to push for reform. Most notably the ALRANZ took aim at the decriminalisation of abortion arguing that abortion was a health issue rather than a criminal one, and that the laws were hypocritical and demeaning to women who were compelled to lie about their mental health status to gain access to abortions (Cook 2018c; Leslie 2010; The Guardian 2018). In september of 2017 during a party leaders debate for the upcoming general elections, Labour Party leader came out in full support of liberal abortion reform, arguing that women needs to be able to make their own decisions on the matter, effectively gaining the approval of ALRANZ. The incumbent Prime Minister and leader for the National Party, , did not support changing the abortion laws, insisting that they were working fine (The Guardian 2017a; ALRANZ 2017c). The Labour Party would go on to be successful in the 2017 election and were able to form a new government with Ardern serving as Prime Minister. In February 2018 the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, requested the New Zealand Law Commission for their advice on a new abortion law. After the Law Commission had reported back to the Minister of Justice the Abortion Legislation Bill was introduced to Parliament in August 2019. On 18 March following the third and final Parliament reading of the bill on, it was passed with a majority of 68 to 51, thereby enacting the first substantial change to abortion laws in New Zealand for 43 years,4 effectively decriminalising abortion and giving women the right to abortions at their request up to 20 weeks into pregnancy (The Guardian 2020; Law Commision 2019).

4 The only exceptions being minor amendments to the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977 and other lesser pieces of legislation such as the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, that allowed for conscientious objection to abortion from medical practitioners (McCulloch 2013).

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4.2. Issue networks This part of the analysis will cover the activities of issue networks during the abortion reform process in New Zealand. However, the first section below attends to the concerns raised about New Zealand’s abortions laws coming from UN Agencies. They do not constitute issue networks in Htun’s (2003) definition, but it is likely, in the context of the studied policy process, that criticism from an organisation like the UN had an impact on later developments.

The analysis of issue networks in this study is limited to the relevant actors and activities that reasonably could have had a significant impact on the policy outcome. This has been deduced to developments taking place during the 2010’s and will therefore primarily concern the activity of ALRANZ, as they have been the only abortion-rights lobbying network in New Zealand during this time that would fit Htun’s definition of an issue network being a coalition around a certain policy issue (Htun 2003; McCulloch & Weatherall 2017).

4.2.1. Criticism from the UN

In 2012 New Zealand’s abortion laws were criticised by the Monitoring Committee to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (UN CEDAW), in their concluding observations on New Zealand's Seventh Periodic Report to UN CEDAW.5 The Committee noted with concern that women who needed abortions in New Zealand were dependent on a “benevolent interpretation of the law which nullifies their autonomy” (UN CEDAW 2012). The report recommended that New Zealand should review their abortion law and practice in a way that made the law less ambiguous, and so that it ensured women’s right to choose. The incumbent centre-right government led by the National Party stated at the time that they did not intend to address the concerns from the UN, insisting that the issue of abortion was too divisive (McCulloch & Weatherall 2017; UN CEDAW 2014).

5 The UN CEDAW was ratified by New Zealand in 1985. Governments of member states that have signed the treaty are required to submit periodic reports containing an account of efforts directed towards meeting the obligations of the convention. The CEDAW Monitoring Committee replies concluding observations on the periodic report. The concluding observation serves as way to provide feedback and draw accountability from the government (NCWNZ n.d.).

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Further concern was raised by the UN Human Rights Council during New Zealand’s third Universal Periodic Review, where a number of member states recommended New Zealand to remove abortion from the Crimes Act and to adopt a legal model that took a human-rights based approach on the issue (NZFP 2019).

4.2.2. Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ)

As discussed above, ALRANZ uses a framework around abortion that primarily emphasise abortion as a medical issue and a human right, stating that they believe that all persons have the right to bodily autonomy, moral agency, and medical care. Before the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 they maintained that the law was violating the human rights of those seeking abortions, stating that the legal framework at the time made “a mockery of the ” (ALRANZ 2017a). In 2017 they declared their lobbying objectives as wanting the to commit to abortion law reform to bring the legal framework into compliance with the obligations under the UN CEDAW treaty; for New Zealand to base their abortion legislation of the abortion law model used in Canada; to outlaw the harassment of abortion patients outside of clinics and hospitals; for every person in New Zealand to be given equal access and without cost, any reproductive healthcare they may choose; for healthcare providers that refuse to help patients with abortion care on the grounds of conscious objection to be required to compensate the patient (ibid.).

As a part of an international push towards liberal abortion reform during the 2010’s, the New Zealand abortion-rights movement started pushing for decriminalisation somewhere around the middle of the decade (Cook 2018c). Around 2013-2014 ALRANZ started ramping up their web presence with an increasing number of media releases. This trend would accelerate when in 2015 Terry Bellamak, formerly a tech consultant and executive at Goldman Sachs, took over as president for ALRANZ (ALRANZ 2015). Following 2015, ALRANZ would carry out a number of notable lobbying initiatives. One being them being the commission of a national poll on voters attitudes to abortion. The poll showed that a majority of New Zealand voters supported legal abortion under all the given specific circumstances in the poll, it also found that 73% of Green Party voters, 56% of Labour voters and 48% of undecided voters, supported legal abortion without the woman needing any specific reason as to why. Among National Party voters and voters of the

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populist right-wing party, (NZ First), 45% and 33% respectively supported legal abortion in this circumstance (Abortion Issues Poll 2017). Then Prime Minister Bill English would later comment on the poll, saying that he acknowledged that most people had a different view on the issue than he did (ALRANZ 2017b). Nine months after the poll was released, during the general election campaign, Labour leader Jacinda Ardern pledged that the Labour Party would decriminalise abortion in New Zealand (The Guardian 2017a). Three months later the new Minister of Justice requested the Law Commission to provide advice on alternative approaches to change the legal framework on abortion. The Minister of Justice also requested the Law Commission to seek consultation from health professionals and to provide an opportunity for the public to give their input (Law Commission 2018a). ALRANZ used this opportunity to promote their agenda and made a submission to the Law Commission. In October 2018 ALRANZ issued a complaint to New Zealand’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) together with six women with experiences of discrimination from seeking abortions within the healthcare system in New Zealand, a case that they had been preparing for since 2016. ALRANZ argued that the abortion laws were breaching human rights because women seeking abortions got treated worse than those seeking other forms of medical aid, as no other medical issues required the approval of two consultants to get healthcare. In coherence with the criticism raised by the UN CEDAW Monitoring Committee the complaint framed the abortion law as discriminating of women’s human rights. The case was expected to go before the Human Rights Review Tribunal in due course, but as the Abortion Legislations Act was passed in March 2020, the complaint was withdrawn (ALRANZ 2018; Newsroom 2018). Another significant initiative by ALRANZ under the reform process included an open letter to Parliament urging abortion law reform which was delivered prior to the second reading of the Abortion Legislation Bill. The letter was signed by 35 organisations and over 1500 high-profile individuals, including former Prime Minister and other notable politicians (ALRANZ 2020). Additionally, together with a number of other of organisations supporting abortion reform, ALRANZ also organised marches on Parliament in both 2018 and 2019, which gathered hundreds of protestors ( 2018; 2019).

There were a variety of other Non-Governmental Organisations supporting liberal abortion reform in New Zealand that do not fit neatly within the framework of issue networks, as they do

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not solely operate to promote this specific policy issue. However, their impact on the policy outcome should also be considered. This includes the National Council of Women of New Zealand (NCWNZ), an umbrella organisation of groups working towards gender equality, which already in 2014 sent a remit to the government calling for abortion reform. Other organisations supporting the Abortion Legislation Bill is for example New Zealand Family Planning and Amnesty International New Zealand, which both made submissions to the Law Commission and signed ALRANZ’s open letter to Parliament (Stuff 2020).

Another factor that could have had significant impact on the policy outcome is data from 2017/2018 gathered in the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Survey which showed a 67,5% support for legalising abortion, and data from a 2019 national poll which indicated that 69,9% of New Zealanders believed that abortion should be decriminalised (Newsroom 2019).

4.3. Configuration of state institutions

4.3.1. New Zealand’s system of government

New Zealand is a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy. As the country is a part of the Commonwealth, the current head of state is Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen is represented in New Zealand by the Governor-General who carries out the constitutional and ceremonial roles of the head of state. The Governor-General is appointed by the Queen on advice from the Prime Minister. New Zealand has a separation of power between the legislature (Parliament), the Executive branch (the Government), and the Judiciary (courts and judges). The role of Parliament is to make and update legislation, and to scrutinize the Government; the Government consists of ministers and government departments, their role is to decide policies, propose new laws to Parliament and to administer the law; the role of the Judiciary is to interpret and apply laws. All the branches of government are independent and can not interfere with decisions made by one another. New Zealand Parliament is called the House of Representatives and is made up of 120 seats for the members of Parliament (MPs). A general election is held every three years using a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system, which routinely results in governments being formed either in party coalitions or through confidence and supply agreements. Voters in New Zealand have two votes, a party vote and an electorate vote. There are

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71 electorates and the winner of each electorate gets a seat in Parliament, the remaining 49 seats are filled proportionally from party lists (Ministry of Justice n.d.; New Zealand Government 2020).

For a bill to become law in New Zealand it must first pass several stages to ensure that the bill has been subject to scrutiny and public debate. First a bill gets introduced to Parliament by an MP, making it public. Then the bill goes through a first reading debate, after which the House votes on whether the bill should progress. If the bill is defeated it ends there. When a bill passes the first reading, it is usually referred to a ‘Select Committee’ that considers the bill in detail and invites the public to come with their submissions. Public hearings are then held with with a selection of those who made submissions. After the submissions have been heard the committee considers the issues raised and decide if any changes are to be made to the bill. The committee then hands a report to Parliament containing any suggested amendments. The next stage is the second reading of the bill where a debate is held over the main principles of the bill and the amendments recommended by the Select Committee. Any of the recommended changes that are not supported unanimously by the committee gets voted on by the end of the second reading debate, changes that all committee members have agreed on are automatically included in the bill. A second vote for the bill is then held, if the bill passses it goes through to a debate by a Committee of the Whole House. This debate is less formal than other debates and gives a chance for any MP to propose changes to the bill. The bill is debated at this stage until its final form is agreed on and is then taken to the third and final reading. The third reading holds a debate on the final form of the bill, and ends with a vote where the bill is either rejected or passed. After a bill passes the third reading it is to be signed by the Governor-General, officially making the bill a law, this is called the Royal assent (New Zealand Parliament 2016).

4.3.2. The reform process

Some political interest for abortion reform was shown already during the election campaign 2014, when the Green Party endorsed a decriminalisation of abortion (NZ Herald 2014). However, no other parties in Parliament supported such a reform at the time, and the election resulted in the National Party once again being able to form a minority government through confidence and supply agreements with the ACT Party, United Future, and the Māori Party. Following the election, then leader for the National Party, John Key, continued as Prime Minister. Key expressed

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in an interview with the anti-abortion lobbying group Family First that he did not think New Zealand’s abortion laws needed to be liberalised (Family First NZ 2014). In 2016 the Prime Minister post and leadership of the National Party was assumed by Bill English whose stance on abortion was more conservative than Key’s, repeatedly stating that he had no intentions of changing the law (The Guardian 2017a). After retiring from Parliament in 2018, English would later protest together with anti-abortion activists in the “March for Life”-rally, following Labour’s decision to have the abortion laws reviewed by the Law Commission ( 2018).

The Labour Party pledged to decriminalise the abortion law in September 2017. After a successful election they were able to form a new government through a coalition with NZ First and a confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party (The Guardian 2017b). In February 2018 the Minister of Justice asked the Law Commission to review the abortion legislation with view to make it consistent with treating abortion as a medical issue rather than a crime, also requesting the Commission to seek submissions from the public (Law Commission 2018a). The next step in the reform process would be in October 2018 when the Law Commission laid out three alternative models to reforming the law, which included: A) removing the requirement of consultant authorisation and allowing elective abortion at any point; B) removing abortion from the Crimes Act, but keeping the requirement of consultant authorisation; or C) only requiring consultant authorisations after 22 weeks of pregnancy (the government would later adopt Model C) (Law Commision 2018b).

What followed was a long phase of negotiations between Labour and NZ First, as the issue had not been discussed during their coalition talks and as NZ First were hesitant on abortion reform. Two days before the first reading of the bill was scheduled, Deputy Prime Minister and NZ First leader, Winston Peters, unexpectedly announced that NZ First would be demanding a binding referendum on the Abortion Legislation Bill, stating that NZ First always stood for referendums when it came to conscience issues such as abortion. The party later announced that they would support the bill through the first and second readings while pushing for a referendum. Labour was not expecting this move and asserted that they would not support a referendum (NZ Herald 2019).

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The first reading of the bill proceeded on 8 August 2019. Due to the divisive nature of the issue, a conscience vote was held, meaning that MPs could vote individually without having to follow party lines (NZ Herald 2019). At this stage the Abortion Legislation Bill was passed by a wide margin, with 94 voting for and 23 against (Stuff 2019a). The bill was then handed to a Select Committee, which received over 25 000 submissions from a mix of medical experts, abortion-rights advocates (including the ALRANZ president), and anti-abortion groups. 150 of those who made submissions were then invited to hearings with the Committee (Stuff 2019b). In February 2020 the Select Committee delivered their report on the bill which suggested a few minor amendments, most notably a recommendation to lower the limit for which no consultant authorisations were required from 22 to 20 weeks (Abortion Legislation Committee 2020). The bill went on to the second hearing where it passed with 81 votes to 39 (NZ Herald 2020a). Next followed the Committee of the Whole House stage which went on for a week, where some new minor amendments were passed. Additionally, NZ First had their proposal of having the Abortion Legislation Bill be decided by a referendum was rejected by 100 votes to 19 (NZ Herald 2020). On 18 March 2020, after the third and final reading debate the Abortion Legislation Act was adopted, passing with a margin of 68 votes to 51. Notably, as an effect of Parliament voting by a vote of conscience, more than a third of the National’s MPs voted for the bill and about a fifth of Labour MPs voted against it (The Guardian 2020; New Zealand Parliament 2020).

4.4. Church-state relations

McCulloch notes that New Zealand’s “activist anti-abortion movement is essentially a religious one” (2013), pointing to SPUC’s success during 1970’s not having been possible if it was not for the support the group had from the Roman Catholic Church in terms of funding and members. Catholics in New Zealand had historically been stigmatised and discriminated against by Protestants in New Zealand, and even if these attitudes towards Catholics had lessened by the 1970’s it was still enough to keep the anti-abortion movement avoidant of promoting a Catholic front (ibid.). McCulloch further asserts that “On the question of abortion, though, it is undeniable that Roman Catholic doctrine had a disproportionate influence on New Zealand politics and policy, particularly considering the Catholic proportion of the population was only around 15%”6

6 McCulloch is referring to 15% being the estimated Catholic population in the 1970’s. The most recent census show numbers closer to 10%.

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(2013). The influence of Catholics is said to have been particularly noticeable within the Labour Party. The anti-abortion movements institutional support from the Catholic Church also tied it to general traditional values that were supported by conservatives regardless of which church they belonged to. This is indicated by the report from the Royal Commission on Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion from 1977 in which arguments based on church-based morality are used (ibid.).

The Catholic Church continues to dominate the anti-abortion movement in New Zealand in the 21st century as well. Either overtly through explicitly Christian lobby groups such as Family First NZ or through the funding of anti-abortion groups not explicitly Catholic such as Voice for Life and Right to Life (ibid.). But whether the Catholic Church has exercised any significant influence over state institutions in the last decade is not as obvious. One the one hand, even if Church funded anti-abortion lobbying groups increased their activity between the 1990’s and 2010’s it did not result in any meaningful electoral success or legislative change, as demonstrated in the Right to Life v. The Abortion Supervisory Committee court case (Cook 2018c). The number of New Zealanders not affiliated with any religion is also growing, accounting for as much as 48,2% of the population in 2018 (Stats NZ 2018), thereby giving less incentive for elected MPs to push for policy based on religious doctrine. Furthermore, considering that Catholic bishops lobbied the Abortion Legislation Select Committee directly to little effect (NZ Catholic Bishops Conference 2019) and that 91,6% of submissions sent to the Select Committee was actually opposed to reform (Newshub 2020), there is much pointing to the Church having considerably less influence on state institutions in New Zealand today than in the 1970’s.

On the other hand though, Catholic doctrine did have evident influence over state institutions as recently as 2016–2017, when the government was led by Prime Minister Bill English, who is a social conservative and practising Catholic. In fact, during his term as Prime Minister, 7 out of 20 ministers in the cabinet were Catholic (Noted 2017). Considering English’s firm stance against liberal abortion reform and the high representation of Catholics in his government, it would seem very unlikely that any reform would have been possible if English had been able to go on for a second term as Prime Minister after the 2017 election.

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4.5. The fit between issue networks and state institutions

The final part of the analysis is the fit between issue networks and state institutions, from which conclusions can be drawn about how Htun’s (2003) theory corresponds with the abortion law reform in New Zealand. The operationalisation of the theoretical framework poses that the fit between issue networks and state institutions is determined by the activities of issue networks, the relative opportunities provided by state institutions, and the level of influence that the Church (or Church-affiliated groups) has exercised over the state.

One of the central underlying factors that contributed to a favourable opportunity context for liberal abortion reform was the criticism of New Zealand’s former abortion laws raised by the UN CEDAW Monitoring Committee. Even if the government at the time chose not to respond to the concerns, their concerns likely raised new attention to the issue both within political parties (as demonstrated by the Green Party endorsing abortion reform in 2014) and in civil society. The criticism from the Committee was applauded by ALRANZ (ALRANZ 2012), and could conceivably have been invigorating to their operation (and the public opinion on abortion-rights in New Zealand in general), as the organisation started to step up their mobilisation in the following years (Cook 2018c). This demonstrates that pressure from major NGOs like the UN can serve as leverage to issue networks ability to “hook” into state institutions. As for the lobbying initiatives engaged by ALRANZ, there are two that sticks out in particular. The first being the poll commissioned by ALRANZ that indicated that a majority of New Zealanders (and Labour voters) supported a liberal abortion reform. Nine months after the poll result was released the Labour Party pledged to reform the abortion law during the election campaign, which perhaps, in part, could be attributed to the poll, as the data showed clear incentive for a rational political actor to adopt abortion reform as a campaign issue. The other initiative particularly worth noting is their issued complaint to New Zealand’s Human Rights Commission. The complaint framed the abortion laws that were in practice as discriminating of human rights, echoing the concerns raised by the UN. It would be reasonable to infer that the credibility of their complaint was advanced by invoking the same arguments as the UN, adding to already existing pressures on the government. The fact that the case was awaiting legal proceedings in in the Human Rights Review Tribunal as

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the Abortion Legislation Bill was voted on in Parliament surely added weight to the argument for reform.

There was also a largely favourable opportunity context found in the features of state institutions. Similar to what Reuterswärd et al. (2011) found in their research, one of the most critical factors affecting the policy outcome was the timing of the general election in New Zealand 2017. The fact that public opinion had grown in favour of liberal abortion reform combined with the upcoming democratic election made it a rational issue to campaign on for Labour, particularly when the main political opposition, the National Party, had declared that they were opposed to reforming the abortion law. The state also gave leverage to public influence from both sides of the abortion debate at two points during the reform process. Public submissions were considered first when the Law Commission had been given the task of providing policy alternatives, and then again as the Abortion Legislation Bill was handled by the Select Committee. Another critical factor to the policy outcome has to do with the intersection between abortion being a controversial, or ​doctrinal issue as Htun & Weldon (2010) calls it, and New Zealand’s parliamentary voting rules allowing conscientious voting on these types of issues. If all the MPs would have had to vote along majority party lines during its third reading (namely if all parties but National and NZ First voted for reform), the bill would have been dismissed by a vote of 56 to 63 (New Zealand Parliament 2020). It is possible that the poll commissioned by ALRANZ could have been a legitimising factor behind the decision for National Party and NZ First MPs who voted for the bill, as the poll indicated that a considerable amount of their own parties electorate was pro abortion reform.

The final theoretical variable to consider is the relationship between Church and state. It is clear that anti-abortion lobbying efforts from the Church and Church-affiliated groups were unsuccessful at preventing reform, even though the anti-abortion movement managed to mobilise considerable opposition to the Abortion Legislation Act, with as much as 91,6% of submissions to the Select Committee being opposed to reform (Newshub 2020). However, as is evident by the various polls indicating that a relatively broad majority supported the reform, this appears to be the work of a loud minority. Nonetheless, the most significant factor affecting the relationship between the Church and the state is by far the 2017 election result. If the National Party had gotten a stronger election result and thus would have been able to form a new government, Bill

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English would have continued as Prime Minister. And as is evident by his active anti-abortion sentiment, this would have made the probability of liberal reform very unlikely. English may not be directly representative of the Catholic Church, but since he shares the views of the Church it would be consistent to consider him a representative of the Catholic doctrine on the issue of abortion. The shift to a Labour led government could therefore be seen as the Catholic Church losing influence on the state in New Zealand. It should be noted however, that even though the Catholic Church in this sense had exercised a disproportionate level of influence over state institutions in New Zealand (with respect to the size of the Catholic population), this had less to do with the Church being a powerful agent of social control that political parties rely on for support (which was commonly the case in Htun’s and others research on Latin America), and more to do with a temporary incident of an unusually strong Catholic presence in the government.

5. Conclusion

The purpose of this study has been to test Htun’s (2003) theoretical framework concerning the instrumentality of issue networks during gender policy reform, to see whether it can be used to explain the adoption of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 in New Zealand, thereby testing the theory in a new context in a country with a relatively small Catholic population.

All things considered, it is clear that there was a favourable opportunity context for liberal abortion policy reform in New Zealand. An initial factor was the pressure from UN Agencies, which was followed by increased mobilisation of ALRANZ. A poll commissioned by ALRANZ in 2017 then indicated that public opinion was in favour of reform, particularly among Labour and Green Party voters, which coincided well with the timing of the upcoming general election. Labour then ran with abortion reform as a campaign issue. Labour would also use the same framework around their arguments as ALRANZ, emphasising the woman’s right to choose and the need to treat abortion as a health issue. Labour were then able to form a new government thus replacing the old leadership that had been firmly opposed to abortion reform, thereby creating a window of opportunity to push through new abortion legislation. Labour then proceeded to introduce the Abortion Legislation Bill to Parliament where it would go on to pass through all the legislative

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stages, eventually becoming law, with a crucial factor being that Parliament voted by a vote of conscience which enabled MPs to vote against party lines.

With respect to Htun’s theoretical framework, the analysis found that an issue network had indeed mobilised and was able to “hook” into state institutions due to a favourable opportunity context, which in large part had to do with Church doctrine losing influence over the state as Bill English seceded from the Prime Minister post. However, process-tracing does not offer the possibility to isolate the studied variables from other potentially impactful variables that do not fit within the scope of the framework. It is therefore impossible to draw any conclusions about whether the work of ALRANZ was ​decisive ​to New Zealand’s abortion reform. It is quite possible that there were other variables that had more impact to the outcome. Nonetheless, the findings of this study indicate that the lobbying initiatives of ALRANZ, combined with the support for abortion reform from other organisations and networks, are probable to at least have constituted one among other important factors behind the policy outcome. My assessment is therefore that Htun’s theory corresponds ​fairly well with the case of New Zealand’s abortion law reform. To draw stronger conclusions about the the explanatory power of the theory, more precise indicators that explicitly connected the lobbying initiatives of ALRANZ to the policy outcome would have been necessary.

Since this thesis is a single case study its findings cannot be generalised on to other cases as I have not been able to isolate the studied variables from other potentially critical factors at play in the policy process. One way to further the research in the field of abortion policy reform research could therefore be to conduct a comparative case study between the reform in New Zealand and a case in country or state with similar features. This would improve the possibility to draw stronger conclusions about the explanatory power of Htun’s theory outside Catholic majority contexts, and could perhaps also lead to further theory development.

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