Liam redux

Women's abortion rights under attack Emergency protest— as MPs vote on women’s abortion rights

Women’s abortion rights under attack Emergency protest— as MPs vote on women’s abortion rights Tuesday 20 May, 5.30pm Old Palace Yard, outside Parliament — opposite St. Stephen’s Entrance Tube: Westminster Defend 24 Weeks No reduction in abortion time limit On Tuesday 20 May, members of parliament will debate and vote on the  anti-abortion amendments to…

Liam
2–3 minutes

Women’s abortion rights under attack

Emergency protest— as MPs vote on women’s abortion rights

Tuesday 20 May, 5.30pm

Old Palace Yard, outside Parliament — opposite St. Stephen’s Entrance

Tube: Westminster

Defend 24 Weeks
No reduction in abortion time limit

On Tuesday 20 May, members of parliament will debate and vote on the  anti-abortion amendments to the Human Embryology and Fertilisation  Bill. The key amendments aim to lower the time limit for abortion. This  vote is taking place much earlier than expected and with very little  notice. In the limited time available, it is vital that everyone who  supports a woman’s right to choose does everything they can to show  their opposition to any reduction in the time limit. Please attend this  crucial protest — and encourage your trade union, women’s group,  student union or other organisation to send a presence.

If you can’t get to London – find out if Abortion rights is doing
anything in your area before or on the day of the lobby and get
involved.

We say: women must come first

There is no significant scientific or medical support for any  reduction in the time limit. Yet a handful of anti-abortionists are  using downright propaganda and misinformation, hoping to intimidate and  mislead MPs into attacking women’s rights. An overwhelming majority of  the public supports the right to choose: MPs should uphold choice and  vote down amendments by Nadine Dorries and any anti-abortion MPs.

Less than two per cent of abortions take place after 20 weeks. If  successful, a lowering of the abortion time limit would be devastating  for a small number of women in difficult, unforeseeable and individual  circumstances and would encourage further anti-abortion attacks.

 
Contrary to anti-abortion hype, research shows there has been no  increase in survival rates for births under 24 weeks. There is  opposition to any lowering of the time limit from the British Medical  Association, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, British  Association of Perinatal Medicine, Royal College of Nursing, TUC and  national trade unions, the Department of Health and MPs across all  three major parliamentary political parties.

If you haven’t already, now is the time to  write to, email, phone or visit your MP in advance of the vote on 20th  May to urge them to vote against any amendment to lower the abortion  time limit. It is also important to urge them to be in the House of  Commons (unless they are not on the side of a woman’s right to choose)  because May 20th will be a free vote so the main political parties will  not demand people are there.
A model letter and information on how to identify and contact your MP  is available on the campaign website www.abortionrights.org.uk.

If you are not already a member of Abortion Rights then please  sign up now – go to www.abortionrights.org.uk.

26 responses to “Women's abortion rights under attack Emergency protest— as MPs vote on women’s abortion rights”

  1. chjh Avatar
    chjh

    Have you lobbied your MP about this, Liam?

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  2. tonyc Avatar
    tonyc

    Have you tried not trolling blogs, chjh?

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  3. TLC Avatar
    TLC

    chjh

    Would you have asked this question 8 months ago?

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  4. Ray Avatar
    Ray

    The BMA is against lowering the limit below 24 weeks yet the anti-abortionists are claiming that even if only 1% of foetuses survive they should be saved.
    In a way this arguement is a diversion from our pro-choice position which is that women have the right to choose what they do with their bodies. Still, any ammunition against the anti-abortionists is welcome.

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  5. atis mia Avatar
    atis mia

    chjh. I thought there were certain shiboleths that we could do without? Or was that just feminism and lesbain and gay rights? I forget what it was that LG and JR threw overboard. Then there were the attacks on people who claimed that Respect was communalist. I agreed neither with the shibolith approach nor with the communalist attacks. The SWP are now using ‘communalism’ to attack an organisation that is mobilising the poorest section of the working class in this country. Yet the SWP focus on ‘communalism’ and ‘abortion’ as a stick to try and beat it with to shore up the SWP’s eroding base following its catastrophic mayoral vote. Galloway is against abortion as was Eric Heffer and many other catholic left MPs. We disagreed with them then and now but this does not mean we cannot build a left party with them while we have the argument.

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  6. chjh Avatar
    chjh

    am – George Galloway’s previous position was that he would support the 1967 staus quo, neither voting for further restrictions nor for any improvements to abortion access (which was better than the position of several Campign Groups MPs, by the way). My understanding is that he no longer holds this position – I would be happy to be proved wrong about that.

    tlc – Yes. Oh, and 8 months ago Liam would have been one of the first people to criticise Galloway for his position on abortion

    I wasn’t the first person to reply to this post, as it happens Why was the original reply to this post, reproducing a letter from the East London Advertiser deleted? It asked a perfectly valid question, which was in no way abusive, offensive or insulting. Unlike this, for instance, http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/whose-lecherous-ramblings-are-these/

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  7. atis mia Avatar
    atis mia

    chjh – if he no longer holds that position – and i have no idea abouth that – then it does not alter the substance of my original comment. Using the smear of ‘communalism’ and the stick of ‘abortion’ to attack is opportunism by the SWP of the grossest sort. There are no shiboliths from a marxist perspective but there can clearly be an ‘opportunism’ to shore up a crumbling organisation that has just been smashed in a mayoral poll. Let’s have the discusiion about abortion – on which i am sure we would agree- but not an opportunistic one please.

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  8. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    chjh – there’s another bit to the comments policy about unattributable identities and e mail addresses. People from a range of political backgrounds comment here. Ray, Jason, redbedhead leave no doubt about their geographical location or their political sympathies and that’s not a problem. What is tedious and dishonest is people who leave comments and pretend to be random passers by when in reality they are politically active but say neither who they are nor what current they support.

    If the person who had posted the ELA article had shown a bit more gumption, used a consistent internet identity, made clear their own politics and given a political argument it would still be up. This site has been targetted in a fairly crude but systematic way in the last couple of weeks and I’ll continue to be firm with the gutless and dishonest.

    As for GG – there is a three page article in our magazine at the moment giving our views on the fertility issue. Respect’s policy is clear and if he breaches it in public I assume there will be an open discussion. Some of us have a fairly good track record in trying to discuss political differences in the open.

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  9. Ray Avatar
    Ray

    atis mia, do you believe that we should cover up Galloways position on abortion or the embryology issue? Not that the SWP has pursued this line of enquiry so accusing them of attacking Galloway over this is unfair. You seem to be perpetuating the anti-SWP feud because as you must know the majority of the pre-split Respect CC (including Galloway) agreed with German about the left having shibboleths (a favorite saying of a sect or political group.)

    The issue about whether Renewal is pandering to communalism is debateable but it’s significant that Renewal has only developed in two small areas of the country each with a high muslim population. The development of muslim support for the left is a positive thing but unless Renewal expands its periphery and draws in non-muslim workers then there will be a limit to how far it will grow. Certain practices in the Respect campaigns in TH and Birmingham pandered to communalism and it was right for socialists in the same organisation to address this issue at the time.

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  10. atis mia Avatar
    atis mia

    I think we should have a discussion about it , that is all, full stop. I support the right of women to control their own bodies and will argue for that position. Others will have another view. It was the same in the Labour party and it will be the same in Respect.

    You may think building a party in areas where the population is the poorest in the country and subject to racism (e.g. people regarding everyone who is a muslim being an homogenous ‘community’) as dodgy in some way, but many of us are quite proud of it. Just as the left built solidarity with people who had the Jewish faith in the East End we are doing the same now. It is inevitable that a party will develop in an uneven manner; my guess is that if the working class we have supporting Respect were white and protestant then the debate would not focus on a so-called ‘community’ or ‘their’ religion because there would be no ‘they’ as they would automatically be regarded as ‘we’.

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  11. Ray Avatar
    Ray

    “I think we should have a discussion about it , that is all, full stop. I support the right of women to control their own bodies and will argue for that position. Others will have another view. It was the same in the Labour party and it will be the same in Respect.”

    Respects official position is that it’s a womans right to choose. Perhaps that’s changed in Renewal but I doubt it. Regardless of what Respect MP’s and councillors believe in their personal lives they have to uphold this policy. This is not open to debate. It’s the same principle we apply to the issue of Islamophobia and gay rights.

    “You may think building a party in areas where the population is the poorest in the country and subject to racism (e.g. people regarding everyone who is a muslim being an homogenous ‘community’ as dodgy in some way, but many of us are quite proud of it.”

    That’s your misinterpretation of my opinion. As an SWP member among many who put an awful lot of hard work building Respect I think your comment is quite arrogant.

    You fail to mention that there is a class difference between the Muslim business person and Muslim workers. Their interests and aspirations do not necessarily coincide. So you’re the one lumping Muslims together into one homogenous community.

    You claim that if our orientation was towards the white working class then there would be no critical analysis of our intervention. When Searchlight resorted to Islamophobia to break white voters from the BNP we were very critical of this. In fact, the SWP has been at the forefront of fighting against Islamophobia.

    If you want to rewrite history in an attempt to score points against the SWP you’re onto a loser I’m afraid.

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  12. jim Avatar
    jim

    COMMENT DELETED – No Jim. I’m deleting, and will continue to delete, anything that resembles anonymous, gutless, apolitical trolling.

    People who follow the comments policy and are willing to say what their politics are can express themselves freely. Most currents on the left find that pretty easy to understand. One or two struggle with the concept and use all sorts of pitiful subterfuges to divert a discussion. If you can’t cope with the rules here it takes less than five minutes to set up your own site. LIAM

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  13. Jason Avatar
    Jason

    I can’t quite remmber what Jim whoever he may be said so not sure if this is entirely fair- from my memory he seemd to be pro abortion

    but anyway I think perhaps as well as the parliamentary lobby and MP writing letters to MPs we need to make sure that Abortion Rights speakers are an integral part of the trade union movement

    to demand by direct action women’s right to abortion on demand wahtever the law says

    and mass campaigns to demand a woman’;s right to choose

    this was a major step forward that transformed many women’s lives but forty years later not only has there not been an extension to abortion rights there’s an attempt to restrict it further

    We should also link it to demands for better sex education, free contraception available on request annoynymously etc in youth centres, schools etc, so that women becoming pregnant is thier choice as much as possible. However, whatever the circumstances it is her body and her right to do as she wishes on demand.

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  14. martin ohr Avatar
    martin ohr

    LIam: “As for GG – there is a three page article in our magazine at the moment giving our views on the fertility issue. Respect’s policy is clear and if he breaches it in public I assume there will be an open discussion. Some of us have a fairly good track record in trying to discuss political differences in the open.”

    Liam, you know perfectly well that this is just hot air:-Chances are that Galloway won’t be in the chamber to vote during any of the divisions. He certainly won’t be voting in line with Respect Renewal policy whatever happens, but you and your comrades will do nothing about it, to pretend otherwise is completely dishonest.

    If the ISG wasn’t completely spineless and opportunistic you’d be using the editorship of the respect paper to call your mp to account, or at the very least opening up a debate in the paper on whether galloway should be mandated to vote through the party policy.

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  15. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    Jason – your approach is an indication of what I mean. You state your case, intervene in a constructive way and leave no doubt about your political affiliation. What’s been happening in recent days is a small number of people leaving comments with a view to starting a bun fight but concealing their political identities. That’s what I won’t permit .

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  16. atis mia Avatar
    atis mia

    “That’s your misinterpretation of my opinion. As an SWP member among many who put an awful lot of hard work building Respect I think your comment is quite arrogant.”

    I do not dount for one second that you and many other SWP members worked very hard on building Respect. The issue was not with that but with how the issue fo ‘communalism’ was raised when the division happened. It seemed very unprincipled to me and to many others. In the end the SWP leadership just wantde to build the SWP and not Respect which was a problem of leadership not of the SWP members.

    “You fail to mention that there is a class difference between the Muslim business person and Muslim workers. Their interests and aspirations do not necessarily coincide. So you’re the one lumping Muslims together into one homogenous community.”

    You have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The key point i was making was that there is no homogeneity. Those who have Islam as a religion may be divided on class questions ( as well as gender issues and sexuality). In fact what is required is a profound class differentiation – but this is not something that can be simply demanded, it has to be articulated. The anti-war mpvement was cross class, it will take time to express the latent class conflict but it will come.

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  17. Kalpina Avatar
    Kalpina

    COMMENT DELETED. LIAM.

    Martin expressed his views robustly in an earlier comment on this subject. To my knowledge I’ve never met him but he uses the same name when he posts anywhere and it’s no secret which tendency he supports so his comments that follow the house rules stay up. It’s that simple. Anonymous gutless trolls are taken off.

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  18. Kevin Ovenden Avatar
    Kevin Ovenden

    If George doesn’t vote for any of the amendments which restrict time limits then it’s very clear what the dyed in the wool sectarians will say. They’ll find some reason to attack him for it

    SWP members who’ve been whipped up over this issue will find themselves in very awkward company – the AWL etc. Those who have genuinely worked to build a coalition around defending and extending a woman’s right to choose will, I’m confident, adopt a different point of view.

    Incidentally – cjhj, you should be absolutely ashamed of the where you have ended up. Just ask yourself, “How did this happen; how did we end up with the reflexes of the sectarians who we used to brush off so confidently?”

    Just take a step back – even for one weekend – and pose that question authentically.l

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  19. chjh Avatar
    chjh

    Kevin – I’m asking a very simple question: will George still vote to keep the 1967 Act status quo (no further restrictions, no further liberalisation)? I’m not getting an answer.

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  20. martin ohr Avatar
    martin ohr

    Kevin,

    If galloway votes in parliament in line with respect policy on abortion then it would indeed be deeply sectarian to criticise him.

    In fact if Galloway votes against the time limiting ammendments then that would be cause for praise. I think from the tone of your post and your carefully chosen words that all that will happen is that he will not vote on this subject at all tomorrow.

    Of course in real sense socially conservative pro-lifers like galloway not turning out to vote will help womens’ rights, but it is not the same as following the respect policy he was elected on.

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  21. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    I’m afraid you’re wrong Kevin. Everyone who has defended a woman’s right to choose knows that GG is no ally.

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  22. Interpreter Avatar
    Interpreter

    If George doesn’t vote for any of the amendments which restrict time limits then it’s very clear what the dyed in the wool sectarians will say. They’ll find some reason to attack him for it

    SWP members who’ve been whipped up over this issue will find themselves in very awkward company – the AWL etc. Those who have genuinely worked to build a coalition around defending and extending a woman’s right to choose will, I’m confident, adopt a different point of view.

    Galloway will avoid the vote.
    Big man.

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  23. martin ohr Avatar
    martin ohr

    it seems very likely that an ammendment to reduce the time limit now has enough support to pass; galloway’s vote could actually be crucial here. Are there any plans for an emergency leadership meeting of respect renewal to discuss how to turn out galloway to vote in support of your policy. Or is respect renewal policy on abortion just hot air?

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  24. Louise Avatar
    Louise

    Well, I hope that Martin is wrong (btw: where did you get that info from about enough support?) and it would be a bloody catastrophe if that happened!!

    My own Tory MP wrote to me my (wrote something on my blog about it as it was a kinda surreal letter…) where she will support 24wks and vote against amendments reducing the time limits.

    But….she is utterly opposed to Clause 54 (reference to “parenting” as opposed to “father”) because “all children need a father figure and a male role model”..

    And obv. with Cameron bigging up trad family values, they will happily continue to discriminate against lesbians and straight single women…

    Hope to see pro-choicers tomorrow evening outside Parliament.

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  25. Louise Avatar
    Louise

    PS: I have no idea why they bloody smiley faces keep appearing as I didn’t put them there. There is a ghost in the machine or something.

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  26. Andy newman Avatar
    Andy newman

    Louise,

    I think it is a quirk of the WordPress editor if you use a closing brackets after any other non-aloha numberic character, it assumes you want to add a smiley.

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