ANALYSIS: What a bloody mess.
The combat over contraceptives and the battle to claim the moral high ground has instead seen both major parties form a Gileadean circle of shame.
The votes of women in the centre are a demographic parties have identified as key to winning this year’s election. Both parties will roll out bribes while firing shots at the other to inflict mistrust. And that’s why a hit hurts so much.
Removing the $5 co-payment on prescriptions was a political play laden with landmines which Labour’s been waiting for Christopher Luxon to explode. Contraceptives was always going to blow up.
Luxon should have come to the battle prepared and with armour.
But Labour’s hyperbolic response - and The Handmaid's Tale tweets (which backhandedly imply they’ve been governing the dystopian Gilead in which the novel is set for the last six years) - inflicted friendly fire damage.
Labour minister Andrew Little even claimed National wanted “to stop access to contraception”. This is patently incorrect.
Labour used contraception as a political scaremongering weapon.
"This is about a Government that has got down into the gutter and is getting into completely ridiculous, baseless attacks," hit back Nicola Willis who tidied up National’s position.
Willis fired back with such conviction and horror that her opponents were being misleading - almost as if her own party wasn’t running a tax calculator which misleadingly includes taxes Labour has ruled out.
Neither party is riding the high horse.
After Labour moved to make prescriptions free, discussions in social circles have been about how it’ll be a relief to see the back of the $5 reminder that having a uterus can be unfair.
Having to go to the doctor is enough of a hassle without the $5 slap in the face at the pharmacy counter to remind you that contraception and reproductive rights are just inherently imbalanced. Depending on your script or your condition it can vary how often you’re confronted with that injustice.
For some - especially the young who are just being introduced to the overwhelming world of pills - the cost is a real barrier, for others it is just a real bugbear that women bear the financial and social responsibility for contraception.
Contraception is also often not just about preventing procreation, but a need to manage painful, emotional and debilitating periods. It can be a medical need.
Luxon should have been aware of the strong feelings about this when Newshub asked if National would also create a carve out for contraception to keep it free if they’re elected.
He is awkward on women’s issues. After confirming he personally believes abortion is tantamount to murder he has been caught without the right words and forced to explain himself too many times.
In the wake of Jacinda Ardern’s resignation this year and concern about the level of vitriol and sexism she face, Luxon was forced to backtrack after initially saying he wasn’t sure whether women faced more abuse in politics.
And last year after Roe v Wade was overturned in the US, Luxon was silent while one of his MPs celebrated on Facebook saying “Today is a good day”.
Luxon needed three attempts - after saying it was “not a New Zealand issue” - at acknowledging how distressing America’s wholesale scaling back of abortion rights was for women.
Labour knows Luxon has a women weakness and seeks to exploit it at every opportunity - to sometimes a scaremongering end.
Whilst Luxon fumbled, Grant Robertson used abortion to score political points.
Despite Luxon repeatedly and emphatically ruling out any change to abortion access or funding, Robertson reveled in telling New Zealanders they couldn’t trust National on abortion. Robertson himself politicising the distress women were experiencing.
And again we’ve seen Labour take it too far to cause as much damage as possible - using women’s reproductive rights as a political weapon.
Hopefully this mess results in both parties coming to the table with policies to improve, strengthen and destigmatize contraception.
Blessed be that which prevents the fruit and praise be the politician which doesn’t use reproductive rights as a political football.
Amelia Wade is a Newshub senior political reporter.
