You’ll be pleased to know you’re not about to hear another white middle-aged man pontificate about abortion.  

But I will talk about the effect of the ruling. 

That Christopher Luxon felt compelled to make a public statement on the future of this country’s laws based on a decision in another sovereignty with a completely different system shows the emotion and polarity behind the issue. 

Now, the decision is not a surprise.  Republicans have been working towards this outcome for years and when it comes to Supreme Court judges, we’re talking very long games. 

The Democrats also play the game which is why there was so much pressure on Ruth Bader Ginsburg to resign during Obama’s tenure.  She didn’t, but then died under Trump meaning he had the card to play in the game of “stack the Supreme Court”. 

As an outsider I am always amazed at the political influence in choosing the Supreme Court in the United States.  It flies in the face of the traditional pillars of democracy and society. 

The four pillars are the judiciary, executive, legislative, and media.  To work properly and to hold each other to account, they need to operate separately.  But in allowing the legislative and executive wings to choose the judiciary that kind of all goes out the window, don’t you think? 

Now one of the reasons it resonates in this country is because at the centre of the issue is a state’s power over an individual’s body. 

This has been echoed here recently in our vaccination mandates. 

Over the weekend I hosted an unvaccinated friend of my son’s and eventually the conversation turned to his motives and concerns. It was emotional and compelling and I was left feeling that he feels a second-class citizen in this country 

He asked me, “How can a government tell us we have to have something injected into our bodies”. 

It’s a valid question. My way of reasoning was it was a short term measure to get vax rates up. 

The mandate was necessary to get to a minimum level of immune resilience to the virus. That resilience was needed to minimise transmission times and maximimise survival rates 

To motivate all without a deep-rooted reservation against vaccination.. 

I thought it was going to be a temporary measure. 

Once we reached over 90 per cent vaccination rates I thought that it was mission accomplished and the mandates could ease, which mostly they have. 

Except for health workers. A sector suffering huge work force shortages. 

I find it hard to reconcile the fact that all New Zealanders can enter the country unvaccinated but an unvaccinated doctor can’t work. 

Some may argue it’s the Government’s desire for control. I don’t. 

They’re not that organised. It’s a job that’s fallen through the crack and needs to be addressed today. 

Lives and livelihoods were taken and they need to be returned right now.