Abortion

This is cross-posted at liberalconspiracy.org:

An abortion rights update for you all:

Tis the 1967 Abortion Act's enactment birthday this week, people, and our friends over at Abortion Rights are suggesting a number of activities (no off-colour comments, please) to mark this major occasion.

One excellent way to observe the anniversary yourself is to send a stiff letter to your MP, telling them to vote against any anti-abortion amendments to the Abortion Act that conservative political opportunists try to sneak onto the agenda as the now-famous Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill progresses through parliament this spring.

Here and over at LC, we've argued - correctly - that the HFEB has absolutely nothing to do with abortion law (it's about regulating the sciences of fertilisation and embryology, and - that's it. The End).

Alas, the pro-life loonies keep refusing to make the leap.

This is cross-posted at liberalconspiracy.org. 

Another majestically irritating contribution from pro-life sympathisers today: Dave Cameron, who should know better, tells us that he likes the idea of cutting the time limit for abortion from 24 weeks as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill progresses through the House.

A few thoughts:

I wonder if I can stand much more of this tripe from these persons. We're not even talking the real world here - just Nadine Dorries and Ann Widdecombe and other leading lights in Dave's menopausal mafia claiming - I think my notes are correct - to have seen pictures of foetuses walking/dancing/voting conservative at 24 weeks' gestation, and being moved observe that we should save babies of this age simply because we can.

I've never quite got my head around this aspect of the pro-life argument, but let's give it another whirl: as far as I can gather, they're trying to imply that because we're at a point in medical history where doctors are able to save babies born at 24 weeks, aborting other babies at 24 weeks is giving the big finger to human technical advance.

Big fortnight ahead for us girls of the pro-abortion, anti-Jesus Christ/God/Allah/Mohamed persuasion.

Abortion Rights is holding a lobby at parliament this week on Wednesday. You can read more about this (when, where, why, etc) here.

Then on Friday 25 January, Feminist Fightback will picket the Christian Medical Fellowship at 4pm, (6 Marshalea Road, SE1 1HL, London). The CMF is lobbying the government very hard over the bill, and needs a bit of hard lobbying itself as a result.

As has been discussed on this site, a great many of us are very concerned that the anti-abortion/happy clappers lobby is using the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill as an opportunity to table amendments that threaten the Abortion Act. 

They are especially keen to reduce the legal time limit for abortion from 24 to 20 - or even 18 - weeks of pregnancy.

Thing is - does anyone really want these changes, apart from conservative political opportunists?

Very keen for this to be the year when those who fancy themselves as the natural heirs to the moral majority realise that they're actually the moral minority. Falwell is dead, you nitwits...

But let's not be childish for an entire post for once... on Wednesday 16 January 2008, we of the pro-choice majority will be attending a public meeting at the Houses of Parliament where the campaign to continue defend the Abortion Act and a woman's right to decide will continue at pace.

Pro-abortionists like ourselves are extremely concerned that anti-abortionists (or, perhaps we should say, politicians looking to cash in on voters' purported fervour for legislation with a nice righteous/misogynist twist) are using the government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to restrict the Abortion Act.

Baroness Masham has tabled an amendment to restrict abortion. Other MPs may try to lower the legal abortion time limit, as Nadine Dorries has tried on several occasions (and failed and failed again, btw, but, you know - never say die).

And here is the charming Baroness Paisley spritzing the masses with exactly the sort of berserk blast that puts the topic so completely beyond any place where rational intercourse might live:

"...Northern Ireland will not be bullied by political activists whose ideas and actions have brought about the massacre of more than seven million innocent unborn children in the years that this (Abortion) Act has been in operation on the mainland...

Had an abortion?

Like the idea of being able to get one if you need one?

Fight the pro-life religious loonies and add your name to the pro-choice majority.

Am continuing the pro-abortion rights debate over at the New Statesman at the moment - ie, having another go at that naughty Nadine Dorries' plans to try and cut the time limit for abortion.

Nadine, you are bad.

Photos from the pro-choice rally in London, Saturday 3 March 2007.

Keep your rosaries off our ovaries... liked that slogan a lot. Just say no to sex with pro-lifers was another goodie.

You'll find photos from last night's pro-choice rally in London here. The interviews we did will follow shortly.

Amusing point for now - a number of people we talked to at the rally said they'd emailed Tory MP Nadine Dorries to ask questions about the Termination of Pregnancy Bill she plans to table in Parliament on 23 March 2007, and that she hadn't responded to them, either. (She has been ignoring us, as readers of this site will know).

Which is very bad manners. An MP must to respond to members of the public, even if that response is Get Bent.

Time to make a Freedom of Information request asking for all emails Nadine has received and ignored on this most important topic. After all, she started it by trying to table these opportunistic bills in the first place. The least she can do is explain why.

Hey - maybe she can't.

And so nearly THREE WEEKS have passed since we wrote to Tory MP Nadine Dorries at her parliament.uk email address and asked her to explain why she plans to table another Termination of Pregnancy Bill.

We wrote Nadine a very civilised letter on this topic, if we say so ourselves.

Have we had a civilised response?

Have we had any response at all?

We have not.

We have been ignored.

Well - we were directed by somebody other than Nadine to a little comments page on Nadine's site. She rants on about this site on that page for a bit. She also took the opportunity presented by the recent saving of a baby at 22 weeks' gestation to rattle on about God and Stevie Wonder (Nadine is - meaning no disrepect - no great ambassador for subtlety) and the joys of a pro-life perspective. No mention, alas, of providing decent wages or benefits for the women she wants to force to give birth.

Ah well.

It is beginning to occur to us that Nadine isn't one of your big strategic thinkers. We're starting to suspect that the reason she hasn't responded to our concerns is that she can't.

Am having a good debate on the pros and cons of abortion at the moment with the guys over at Harry's Place.