Ardern Invokes Benazir Bhutto
Jacinda Ardern may view herself as a sort of spiritual successor to the great Benazir Bhutto, but where it matters most they are polls apart.
Earlier this week, Jacinda Ardern opened her speech at Harvard University by directly comparing herself to former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. A clear impression was given that Ardern wanted the audience to view her as some sort of spiritual successor to the great Benazir Bhutto. Then, just moments later, Ardern proudly trumpeted NZ’s extreme Abortion Legislation Act 2020 as one of her crowning policy glories.
Here’s the thing though, this puts Ardern at complete odds with Benazir Bhutto, who was strongly outspoken in her opposition to abortion. In 1994 Bhutto sparked international headlines with her unflinching opposition to pro-abortion ideology during her speech at the UN’s third global conference on population and development.
At that event she declared that:
"Regrettably, this conference's document contains serious flaws striking at the heart of a great many cultural values in the North and in the South. Islam lays a good deal of stress on the sanctity of life. The holy book tells us, 'Kill not your children on a plea of want. We provide sustenance.”
She also said that the conference’s plan of action was trying to "impose adultery, sex education ...and abortion" on all nations.
Then, just one year later, at the Forth World Conference on Women she condemned the practice of sex-selective abortion, stating:
“Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) emphatically condemned and put an end to the practice of female infanticide in pre-Islamic Arabia. The Holy Quran reads: ‘When news is brought to one of them, of the birth of a female (child), his face darkens and he is filled with inward grief what shame does he hide himself from his people because of the bad news he has had. Shall he retain it on sufferance and contempt, or bury it in the dust. Ah! what an evil choice they decide on.’
(Surah Al-Nahl, Ayat-57, 58, 59).
Ladies and gentlemen! How true these words ring even today… How tragic it is that the pre-Islamic practice of female infanticide still haunts a world we regard as modern and civilized. Girl children are often abandoned or aborted.”
Jacinda Ardern, on the other hand, voted against a proposed amendment (Supplementary Order Paper: 478) that would have made it an offence in the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 to abort an unborn child based solely on grounds of sex selection here in New Zealand.
There may be similarities between Ms. Ardern and the great Benazir Bhutto (both are female Prime Ministers, both had children while in office), but where it matters most - their response to the greatest injustice of our age (in sheer volume of human victims) - they are polar opposites, and Ardern has worked directly against the good, true and beautiful legacy of Benazir Bhutto.
