In her Guardian article last week – Feminists shouldn’t try to stifle debate about abortion – Deborah Orr wrote:
“I’m struggling to understand quite why it is so terrible that the anti-abortion charity, Life, has been invited to join a government- advisory sexual health forum…
…Life will never win the argument, because it is anti-choice. Logic is on the pro-choice side, let alone practicality.”
To which I responded in the comments:
“I think you’re being incredibly naive here Deborah. What you’re basically saying is that pro-choicers have nothing to fear because we’re obviously right. And yet look at the situation in America, where Christian anti-choice groups like Life have been able to exert influence on policy makers. Abortion is effectively banned now in many US states, and some are even moving towards a position of banning all abortion, under any circumstances, including aborting pregnancies that are the result of rape or that constitute a threat to the health or life of the woman.
That’s what happens when complacency is allowed to set in, when those of us on the ‘right side’ so to speak, arrogantly assume that our unassailable logic is always bound to win through.
And that’s why Life, and other anti-woman, anti-choice groups must be fought at every turn.”
And as if on cue, here’s a piece from today’s paper – Anti-abortion groups raise stakes by deploying US tactics on UK streets:
“A sleepy sidestreet near the centre of Maidstone may seem an unlikely frontline in the conflict that has bubbled away, usually with relative calm, since Britain legalised abortion in 1967.
But on a recent weekday afternoon in Kent’s county town, a group of a dozen anti-abortion protesters, led by a veteran of the movement in the US, began their latest “prayer vigil” directly across the road from a Marie Stopes clinic.
Over the course of two hours, members of the group intercepted young women approaching the clinic from either end of the street to hand them literature and engage in conversation, while the protesters themselves became the target of shouts of “disgusting” and “shame” from angry passersby.
The protesters hail from the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants anti-abortion group and are led by Monsignor Philip Reilly, who has travelled from the US to meet British supporters.
Pro-choice groups say the Maidstone protest reflects an apparent ratcheting up of the activities of the more active elements in the anti-abortion movement, typically involving individuals with experience of the polarised world of America’s “culture wars”.
As well as Marie Stopes clinics around the UK, targets have included branches of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and the sexual health charity Brook.”
It’s precisely because of these groups and their tactics that we cannot afford to get complacent about abortion rights in this country. We cannot assume that just because, in Orr’s words, “logic is on the pro-choice side” we are always going to win the argument. These US style anti-abortion groups are now over here, and they’re getting themselves organised: it’s time we did the same.
Here’s what the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants say on their website:
“We are committed to maintaining a peaceful and prayerful presence outside the abortion clinics where our brothers and sisters are put to death.”
“Our aim is to bring Christ’s peace to these places of death”
And here’s what the poisonous Abort67 (part of The Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform UK – I’m not linking) say on theirs:
“Pro abortion groups and individuals have cleverly deceived society by saying that they are pro choice. Pro choice about what? They are only pro choice if that choice is killing a human being.
Listen to them howling about girls in schools being given teaching on abstinence. Their ranting is akin to the ad hominem attacks of the playground, but this isn’t surprising when the facts are always stacked against them.
We stand outside abortion clinics offering help to women who are considering abortions and we regularly see young girls being dragged in to the clinic by parents or boyfriends. We hear women say “I have no choice but to abort, I don’t want to but I can’t see any way out!” How can Abortion Rights, BPAS and Marie Stopes claim to be there for the best interest of the woman? How can they say they are pro-choice when all they offer is killing the sons and daughters of these vulnerable people?
Abortion Rights are determined for your children to be sexually active and then encourage them to kill your grandchildren. Abort67 is on your case Abortion Rights. You have deceived the UK for too long and we will be revealing the ugly truth you are so desperate to hide.”
Seriously, these are the people we are up against; this is what they genuinely believe! And yet if Deborah Orr and others had their way we’d be sat in a circle holding hands with them or something.
Well I’m sure I’m not alone in saying: not a bloody chance!
Interestingly, in the appeal they make for donations on their site, Abort67 claim: “We don’t have the luxury of money from the government or pro-abortion donors. The other side is swimming in money.” But as the Guardian piece points out, when Andy Stephenson of Abort67 and other activists were arrested last year, their case was supported by the Christian Legal Centre (yep, surprise surprise, it’s Dorries’ big buddy Andrea Minichiello Williams again), who certainly aren’t short of a bob or two. Meanwhile, the “prayer vigils” are endorsed by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, who under their company name SPUC Pro-Life Limited turned over a pretty tidy sum themselves last year.
And talking of money, Life aren’t exactly skint either:
The Guardian article also mentions a group known as Bound4Life UK, “which has imported from the US the tactic of “silent sieges” with activists standing outside abortion clinics with their mouths covered in red tape on which the word “life” is written.” In fact there are a number of branches of Bound4Life in the UK now, including Bound4Life London which is headed by Rebekah Lodos, and is part of the International House of Prayer in London; Bound4Life Tamworth, and Bound4Life Portsmouth.
And let’s not forget that as well as Life representatives now sitting on the government’s sexual health forum, there are also Care interns working closely with House of Commons MPs, and getting themselves elected to Parliament.
So, as I said in the title, abortion rights in this country are now under siege, and they’re under siege from extremely well funded, well organised Christian Right organisations. We may well be able to say now, as Darinka Aleksic of Abortion Rights does in the Guardian piece “We need to keep it in perspective because, in comparison with the US where there is a massive amount of harassment and threats to abortion providers, our situation is much better and we can be grateful”, but if these people have their way, I’m afraid we won’t be able to say that for much longer.
It’s time for some kind of fightback.
Too Much To Say For Myself 
I would like to point out that your use of ‘right’ is a misnomer. Right indicates there is an obligation of someone else. If someone has an abortion ‘right’ that means someone is obligated to be aborted and someone is obligated to give an abortion.
Neither is true.
I am, Gentlewoman,
Your obedient Servant,
Chris IV
We are trying to fightback! Sign our petition against the inclusion of LIFE in the government sexual health advisory panel: http://tinyurl.com/3sdgrwn
~Cat @feministletters
http://feministletters.wordpress.com
Well said. Life also say that condoms don’t protect ppl from stds, they have no place on the sexual health forum. We have to fight this creep towards stealing our bodily autonomy.
In Maidstone, police arrived to tell the group to remain on the other side of the street from the clinic. While two of the protesters engaged in an animated conversation with the officers, denying they were obstructing or harassing clients, a car with two women who had left the clinic accelerated at high speed and veered precariously close to the protest before driving on.
Oh right – if it is suspected you are possibly going to hold a peaceful republican protest a MILE from the royal wedding you can be pre emptively arrested and slung into jail, but the police are only prepared to use the public order act to tell these scumbags to move across the road – still in clear sight of the clinic? Why didn’t they tell them to move round the corner – perfectly within police powers in the act? The pro forced pregnancy lot could still exercise their legal right to protest, but without the risk of breaching the peace or harassing anyone.
There is also the protection from harassment act –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jun/01/liberty-central-protection-harassment
Which means that any repeated conduct causing alarm or distress can be a criminal offence. Marie Stopes need to keep calling the police every time these clowns appear, and demand that they DO something. They are perfectly entitled to protest against abortion, they’re not entitled to harass people. So they should go and do it in the town centre, or outside a church or wherever.
Chris whatevs.
I’d like to point out that you’re talking bollocks. Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. The woman who is pregnant is therefore the person who has/experiences the abortion (because abortion can also include spontaneous termination of a pregnancy aka miscarriage)
I dunno if you’re anti abortion yourself, but if you are I strongly support your right not to have one.
Spot on.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think that in an ideal world women should have abortions. But that’s in an ideal world where women don’t get raped or abused and they only get pregnant when they want to. It isn’t an ideal world, so abortion is better than making women give birth to a child they don’t want- regardless of why they don’t want it.
I don’t understand anti-abortion campaigners who think it’s ok to abort in the case of rape, though. Their focus is the “innocent child” and that child remains “innocent” regardless of how he was conceived. Therefore the logical position should be a complete ban on abortion. Completely crackers, I agree, but at least the ones who want a complete ban are being consistent.
Agreed, we cannot get complacent. The UK is following the US trend.
The mind boggles when reading that financial statement – what a pack of liars to say they are “poorly funded”. The average rape/DV services centre would love to have that sort of money.
As a pro abortion rights activist in the US who is watching with utter dismay and the so-called Christians take down women and women’s right, I say amen sister, and the sooner you begin to educate for abortion rights the better.
Well said.
Don’t follow America’s example on this! We have some of the highest rates of infant mortality, teen pregnancy, STDs, child abuse and violence against women in the world. The same people who preach against a woman’s right to not carry an unwanted baby are the same people who rail against women who have children they cannot afford to feed. They will say that it is wrong to abort a baby but they have no problem watching that baby die from lack of health care and poverty. They are pro-life untill someone wants to feed hungry kids or protest youth being sent to die in war, then they are social darwinists who do not care. Stand strong!
@polly:
I’m not sure what talking bollocks means, but I’ll assume it is a term of endearment. Yes, a woman experiences an abortion, we can agree on that. And, the unborn child also experiences an abortion as well as the mother and doctor.
Although a miscarriage is termed ‘abortion’ it is not the same as medical abortion as the intent of the procedure is much different than a miscarriage. In a miscarriage there is no intent of terminating the unborn child, but is by nature. There is a distinction.
Chris IV
Well, if abortion is going to be difficult to obtain – then maybe women need to think about giving up intercourse and concentrate on female orientated sexual pleasures that does not risk pregnancy
Sounds good to me.
Why is there even a debate about this? Abortion should be freely available to all women throughout the world. End of.
David. If I was a member of a class of people, in this case it’s a sex class, who systemically raped and forced pregnancies onto the people they purport to adore, I’d be marching with other members of my class to register to everyone my disapproval. Do it.
No Chris the unborn ‘child’ aka foetus, does not ‘experience an abortion’. because the foetus isn’t pregnant. What the pro forced pregnancy lot don’t seem to be willing to acknowledge is that said foetus is dependent on being inside a woman’s body for its continued existence. And that woman has every right to not be pregnant if she wishes – because it’s her body. As I say, if you, or anyone else is against abortion, nobody is forcing you to have one.
In actual fact, abortion (statistically speaking) is a safer medical process than giving birth.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8349898/Abortion-is-safer-than-having-a-baby-doctors-say.html
David: absolutely, being in favour of abortion only in cases of rape is the most ludicrous stance ever. Abortion is either wrong or it isn’t. If it is wrong, then it isn’t justified even if the pregnant woman’s life is in danger. If it isn’t wrong, then anyone who is pregnant and doesn’t want to be has the right to abortion. (There’s also the little matter of how you prove someone has been raped. )
And we need to get rid of the “pro life” tag. They’re not pro life (since giving birth is statistically more likely to kill you than abortion), they’re pro forced pregancy. But since that’s a bit of a mouthful, how about ‘bodysnatchers’?
The “pro-life” contingent must never be allowed to get a toe hold. They are all about control over women and that control is not restricted to abortion. They have deep pockets and effective propaganda. Pro-choice cannot become complacent to the threat that the “pro-life” poses to women’s rights.
A view from Canada
Take it from a USian, you need to nip this in the bud, because this is where it leads:
http://tfninsider.org/2011/05/29/of-course-its-a-war-on-birth-control/
‘bodysnatchers’, ha ha! I love it, Polly! I’ve been looking for a pithy name for them, since ‘pro forced pregnancy ghouls’ is a bit of a mouthful and can be misheard.
@polly: “I dunno if you’re anti abortion yourself, but if you are I strongly support your right not to have one.”
Well said! If you’re opposed to abortion, don’t have an abortion. Otherwise, mind your own effing business. Anything else is just another (in this case rather successful) attempt to try to make women’s bodies into public property.
I don’t think that in an ideal world women should have abortions. But that’s in an ideal world
Actually in *my* ideal world we wouldn’t even be having this discussion becasue it would be taken for granted that women were the sole owners and arbiters regarding their own bodies. Men would not even presume to be having a say.
Your “ideal” is clearly woman as things for men to use and control, only in a slightly more civilised fashion than those other backward types. It’s still misogynistic.
Long term, it’s a moot point. Feminism has, at least for white, educated, women, won.
Darwinism will decide the rest.
There is no such thing as even a biologically sustainable feminist culture, much less a thriving one, based on resulting fertility rates (anything below HLDI of 2.1 eventually leads to extinction)
I say: have at it. Open up the abortion clinics and let nature take it’s course — this will all flush out in a few generations, because the womb is not only a gateway to tomorrow, but also a filter 🙂
“That which is about to fall deserves a push” 😀
Then “the hand that rocks the cradle” — will rule the world 🙂
Which is precisely why England is in such a terrible mess. I am a catholic who was brought up and went to a County Primary School in the UK where prayers and hymms were sung at morning assembly and grace was said before meals. I wonder if this still happens in non-religious schools. Do any of my countrymen and women know who God is. No wonder the morals are out of control no-one has a moral compass anymore. Thank you Jesus for LIFE – and all they stand for. Choice? What choice for the poor mite slaughtered in the womb.
I love England but I am saddened by her moral decline.