Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

This week, I have been mostly disappointed by:

- Labour's disgraceful refusal to debate the Abortion Act amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

Buttholes.

Wrote a piece here on Liberal Conspiracy expressing that disappointment in advance.

Anyway -collecting more stuff atm. Back soon.

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), and describing 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.

Evening all:

Tremendous to see our comrades in the Green party embracing the notion of extending abortion rights to Northern Ireland
when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill comes round for its third reading.

The part I'm really looking forward to, though, is watching our comrades in the Labour party try to reconcile any push for
Northern Ireland abortion rights with the undoubtedly high expectations of their new and highly reactionary pals in the Democratic Unionist party. Can't WAIT to see the great Harriet Harman - the Uk's very own self-proclaimed champion of women's rights - pull that one out of her butt. What a result that'll be for perversion.

ABORTION...

There's more...

crossposted at liberalconspiracy.org.

I feel the need to rant (in a gracious way) about the liberal Abortion Act amendments that have been tabled for the fast-approaching report stage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. My male chum Unity has already reported on the time-limit amendment tabled (again) by the one and only Mad Nads Dorries: I wanted to write a bit about the sensible contributions.

Tabled by Evan Harris, Chris McCafferty and Frank Dobson, the two liberal amendments would improve the Abortion Act by - to put it simply - making access to legal abortion easier than it is. The proposals are to get rid of the present requirement for two doctors to approve a request for an abortion, and to make it legal for nurses to perform the procedure.

The case for liberalising abortion law in these ways is as strong as it is encouraging. Abortion Rights has a good paper on the topic which I was reading up until a few minutes ago when their site fell off the face of the earth. Will link to the paper when I find it again.

They'll be voting to keep the 24-time limit for abortion this week: here's Labour MP Emily Thornberry on the Labour party and the pro-choice lobby's chances:

Leading Labour pro-choice MP Emily Thornberry is youngish (47), new to the national scene (first elected to parliament in 2005), able to talk a blue streak (she was a criminal lawyer), charismatic, and - at first interview, anyway - refreshingly disinterested in caution.

Truly disinterested, even: she says and does - apparently - anything. She freely describes some Labour colleagues as Neanderthals. She says that others hold views that she thought died with the 1950s. She takes a worthy - if unusual - pleasure in winding up the myriad police that patrol the Houses of Parliament. Giggling like a fruitcake, she marches us past security and up to the HoP's terraces (possibly the terraces that Plane Stupid comandeered for their Heathrow-runway protest a month or two back?) and lets us photograph her there, even though the coppers on the terraces twitch when they see the camera and call in a couple of reinforcements.

Excellent piece by Cath on Comment is Free taking Mad Nads Dorries to bits... Nads is round the twist all right. Time for her to push off.

While you're enjoying that, which you will, check out our new campaigning website coalitionforchoice. This is a campaigning pro-choice liberal left website and a great example, if we say so ourselves, of why the web IS SO GREAT. Coming together to take down god-botherers and tories - doesn't get much better than that... truly is bloody great...

PLUS:

Abortion Rights has called an emergency protest for Tuesday 20 May at 5.30pm.

MPs will debate and vote on the anti-abortion amendments to the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill that day - the key amendments being the ones that aim to lower the time limit for abortion. We've written about these moronic proposals plenty.

This vote is taking place a lot earlier than expected and with very little notice.

What a pack of showers.

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.

Police permission has been granted for the Abortion Rights protest at Parliament this coming week. It's shaping up as a memorable event. Details for the protest are:

Assemble outside Central Hall Westminster
Wednesday 6 February, 6.30pm
Nearest tube: Westminster.

You can find full details for the protest and a flyer to download at the Abortion Rights website.

There's been heated debate over at liberalconspiracy.org this week about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, the Christian right's attempts to amend the Abortion Act through this bill, the rights of lesbian couples to conceive using IVF, and the language some of us use to describe Christians.

Many interesting perspectives, although mine's the best.

Crawled out of bed at about lunchtime today.

Wasn't expecting Jesus H Christ to play much of a role in the rest of the day, but find he has Come, anyway.

Gordon Brown's cabinet, as most of you will probably know, contains a number of career Jesus freaks - Ruth Kelly and Des Browne are the main offenders, and there are a couple of others whose names and point in life escape me for the moment... anyway, Ruthie and her fellow holy-rollers want Gordon to make it right for Catholics in parliament who are planning to vote against aspects of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is dear to our hearts here, not least because we're trying to stop followers of the Lord amend the Abortion Act through it. Now Ruthie and pals are taking issue with the aspect of the bill that will allow children to be born by IVF without a father's involvement - ie, that will permit lesbians to produce a child, indoctrinate it in their strange and hairy ways, bring it up without a father, and turn it into a Gay.