Back on abortion
Had a very useful chat with Abortion Rights campaign co-ordinator Louise Hutchins last week: the time fast approaches for the report stage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill - and for fighting attendant dingbat anti-choice amendments to the Abortion Act.
And there are plenty of them this time round, people - each more patronising to us girls than the last. And what a display they make, too: you rarely see such a memorable range of turds outside of safari.
Floating atop the pile is the legendary Edward Leigh's proposal to implement a compulsory cooling-off period of seven days for women who want abortions - Ed, I guess, having finally bought into the long-held - if unproven, perhaps - pro-life theory that when you shriek a faceful of Jesus at a woman for a calendar week, her maternal instinct replaces all her other ones.
This is not the first time Ed's taken the romantic view of our man Jesus H, of course, or indeed of the miracle of life: in only May this year, Ed was to be found blazing a conservative digital trail on the Cornerstone website (whatever the hell that is), where he described the HFEB as 'yet another affront by the government to the Judaeo-Christian values of this nation,' (I tend to put the 42 days' detention legislation and the Iraq war in that category myself, but we won't carp on that one for now) and went on to tell us that 'science has enabled us to see the child ‘walking in the womb’ at 12 weeks' - perhaps forgetting in his enthusiasm that science hasn't shown us a child walking much before 12 months outside of it...
These pro-life amendments also flag up the notion of counselling women out of their evil propensity to put themselves first and indulge in termination: 'she [a woman wanting an abortion] should have counselling 'from a registered medical practitioner, or health visitor (not Nurse Dorries, we pray) about the respective medical risks of, and about other matters relating to, terminating and carrying a pregnancy to term (those 'other matters' presumably pertaining to eternity among the dammed).
Other highlights include increasing the number of doctors required to approve late abortions and restricting abortion on mental health grounds - I will bleat on no further on the details, but give you the list to read for yourselves.
Suffice to say - as Hutchins rightly does - that the sinister aspect of these amendments is that they would have 'a very restrictive impact that would impact on all women's rights to abortion...' - they're about restricting the grounds for abortion in all cases. Unlike the attempts this year to lower the upper time limit for legal abortion from 24 weeks (a gestation at which very, very few abortions are carried out), the present pro-life amendments would affect every women who sought a termination.
'They are also problematic in terms of the support they could muster,' Hutchins says. 'Some of them are being posed very falsely in terms of equalities... We've got a job of work to do to clarify to MPs just how disinegenuous that agenda is and how damaging it would be to women.'
The other important job of work is selling an amendment to extend the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland - Janine mentioned this recently on LC. Tabled by the cross party group of Diane Abbott, Jacqui Lait, Evan Harris, Katy Clark, this one will show MPs' true inclinations. I have already suggested that Gordon Brown might struggle to reconcile the ambitions of women in Northern Ireland with the priorities of Northern Ireland's very own DUP - Gordon's unlikely saviours on 42 days' detention. 'Well - I only know what you know,' Hutchins smiles when I ask how far Brown is up the creek on this one.
Whatever the case with our Gordon's deals, there isn't much time to move: as I understand it, if criminal justice law is devolved to Northern Ireland, abortion law will devolved as well. Hutchin says that large numbers of women and women's rights activists are inclined to get moving, as a result. Hutchins mentions Alliance for Choice, a grassroots pro choice organisation is on the case here: 'Alliance for Choice is having very well attended meetings,' Hutchins says. 'They have surprised themselves by the support they have been massing. They have got very good signup from trade unions, from women's organisations, rape crises, and women's aid centres. We're also working with fpa in NI - they have done a lot of work to challenge the legal framework there.'
She says Alliance for Choice will speak at next week's Abortion Rights briefing on the HFEB and amendments at parliament. Will catch up with them there.
I'm interested to know, btw, where the Lib Dems sit on these latest Abortion Act amendments: after all, tis in the free vote arena of subjects like abortion rights that we tend to discover who is really liberal and left, and who really isn't.
Etc.
More soon.
