Nicked wholesale from James Nicoll:
Dr. Henry Morgentaler, famous women’s rights activist, to be named to Order of Canada.
Further comments are unnecessary.
Abortion
A victory for rationality?
This week the UK parliament discussed the embryology bill. Brought in by the government to update the existing law on this subject, some twenty years old and becoming obsolete due to further scientific progress, it was intended to regulate several new grey areas opened up by this progress, but was hijacked by the religious anti-abortion right to reopen debate about the abortion limit of twentyfour weeks. Given a free vote on the subject (i.e. not bound to party policy on this vote) the members of parliament fortunately rejected all proposals to bring the abortion limit down from 24 to 12, 16, 20 or 22 weeks, and rejected it with fairly big margins too. A reason to celebrate?
Perhaps, but the simple fact that the anti-abortion fanatics were able to mount such a campaign in the first place is worrying. And even the most radical proposal still got 71 votes in favour. It’s evidence of the existence of a sophisticated and dedicated anti-abortion campaign in British politics, something previously only seen across the ocean. That a sizeable minority of people dislikes abortion isn’t new, but abortion as a key issue is, as is its embrace by the Tories. the campaign was spearheaded by Nadine Dorries and supported by Ravey Wavey Davey Cameron. It shows how slight ideological differences have become between the Tories and their Nu Labour mirror images that such a relatively minor issue should emerge as a rallying point. another lesson from America: when economic issues are off the table, socalled lifestyle and moral issues become the battlefield.
As worrying as the fact that anti-abortion is now a viable cause in British politics, is the way in which this campaign has been run on “little more than tawdry emotional blackmail, smears and downright demonstrable lies” as Justin put it. That despite this the anti-abortion proposals were rejected and the governmental proposals to strip out the need for inferitility clinics to consider the need for a father figure for couples undergoing IVF treatment, as well as to allow “animal-human hybrid”embryos to be created for research purposes were accepted is heartening. Personally I am somewhat disappointed “saviour siblings” –“babies born because they are a tissue match for a sick older brother or sister with a genetic condition” as the BBC puts it— were disallowed, but than this is a much more complicated issue than the other three.
You Shall Know Them By The Company They Keep
[UPDATE: Ann Winterton’s bill was defeated yesterday, but there’s two more coming right along behind. This is not over by a long chalk.]
The Catholic church in Britain, buoyed up by the rise of the religio-fascist Pope Ratzo, the presence of some prominent Catholics in the UK giovernment and the huge influx of Catholic migrants, is getting way too big for its boots: it’s threatening, the 70 Catholic MP’s who don’t toe the church’s anti-abortion line with excommunication (though they insist not, that’s effectively what it is) and worse, should they even so much as abstain from voting on new legislation tightening abortion rules. Catholic MPs include Ruth Kelly, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, and John Reid, the Home Secretary. The head of LifeLeague, James Dyson, said the pressure group would “out” Catholic MPs who took communion and abstained on abortion measures.Aiding them in this profoundly undemocratic exercise are some of the most rabid rightwing nutjobs British politics can produce.
The leader of Scotland’s Roman Catholics yesterday questioned whether politicians who backed abortion should remain full members of the church, and also compared Scotland’s abortion rate to “two Dunblane massacres a day”. In a sermon marking the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act, Cardinal Keith O’Brien attacked both the practice of abortion and pro-choice members of the Scottish parliament.
[…]
“I think it’s far beyond time that the present Abortion Act of 40 years ago was re-examined,” he said. “We are killing, in our country, the equivalent of a classroom of kids every single day. Can you imagine that? Two Dunblane massacres a day in our country going on and on. And when’s it going to stop?”
The Dunblane reference was just gratuitously unpleasant and ill behoved a cleric – but it proves that this is about poitics and power, not conscience. That a priest would commit such an offence to common decency as to use a tragedy and parents’ grief to make a political point says he is a political, not a spiritual man. But then the anti-abortion movement has never been spiritual or about the sanctity of life but about the subjugation of women – and that goes double for the Catholic church.
British Catholics are in an invidious position. Allegiance to the Pope is required for Catholics as a matter of doctrine and this allegiance extends to the Vatican, it’s cardinals and all of their doctrinal instructions. Those instructions are infallible as they come from God directly, Catholics are told: the church’s position is that temporal powers are are strictly limited by God and God’s instructions trump the state’s. The Pope speaks directly to God, ergo the Pope’s instructions trump the state’s because abortion is considered a spiritual, not a temporal matter.
However, I suspect that should anyone else from any other religion give their primary allegiance to another city-state and its leader ahead of their own nation and compatriots they’d be called traitors, with prominent Catholics like Ruth Kelly in the forefront of the name-calling, especially so if they were Moslem.
The church can obsfuscate about liege lords and loyalty as much as they want, but their own statements of doctrine say it’s so.
This puts many British Catholics in a very delicate and ambiguous position: their loyalty has been constantly historically suspect and this has more than once resulted in bigotry and violence, so much so that the church has had to become an underground, secret, and dare we say it, even a terrorist organisation at times. This state of affairs has formed the basis of much of the long history of anti-Catholic bigotry in England but we had begun to get over it, at least until the ascendance of Ratso to the papal throne and the subsequent empowerment of the worst of the right wing of the church.
The Worst Sin Of All? Hypocrisy.
Zack Drake at Internal Monologue is conflicted about the contempt fhe feels for ‘pro-lifers’ who get abortions:
When pro-lifers get abortions
It is really a sign of my own moral weakness that when I read these stories I feel contempt rather than compassion. These people are obviously suffering a great deal. But their self-centeredness and moral exceptionalism is really quite exasperating. Here are a few doozies, as told by care providers in facilities that do abortions:
“I’ve had several cases over the years in which the anti-abortion patient had rationalized in one way or another that her case was the only exception, but the one that really made an impression was the college senior who was the president of her campus Right-to-Life organization, meaning that she had worked very hard in that organization for several years. As I was completing her procedure, I asked what she planned to do about her high office in the RTL organization. Her response was a wide-eyed, ‘You’re not going to tell them, are you!?’ When assured that I was not, she breathed a sigh of relief, explaining how important that position was to her and how she wouldn’t want this to interfere with it.” (Physician, Texas)
“In 1990, in the Boston area, Operation Rescue and other groups were regularly blockading the clinics, and many of us went every Saturday morning for months to help women and staff get in. As a result, we knew many of the ‘antis’ by face. One morning, a woman who had been a regular ‘sidewalk counselor’ went into the clinic with a young woman who looked like she was 16-17, and obviously her daughter. When the mother came out about an hour later, I had to go up and ask her if her daughter’s situation had caused her to change her mind. ‘I don’t expect you to understand my daughter’s situation!’ she angrily replied. The following Saturday, she was back, pleading with women entering the clinic not to ‘murder their babies.'” (Clinic escort, Massachusetts)
Of course, these are just anecdotes, but the author cites some statistical evidence that there must be a good deal of this kind of thinking going on:
I wouldn’t call the feeling of contempt for such arrant hypocrisy a moral weakness myself: on the contrary, I’d say it’s a sign of moral strength to recognise that hypocrisy for what it is and call it out. If more of us did it there’s be a lot less IOKIYAR about.
As Over There, So Over Here
It’s just so bloody predictable – where the US goes, the UK goes, but 5 years later.
GPs ‘refuse to sign abortion forms’
Press Association
Thursday May 3, 2007 7:08 AMAlmost a quarter of GPs are refusing to sign abortion referral forms, a survey reveals.
According to the poll by the doctors’ newspaper Pulse, nearly one in five GPs do not believe abortion should be legal.
And 55% of the 309 GPs questioned said they wanted the current 24-week limit for abortions to be reduced.
The law in the UK states that two doctors need to sign a form referring a female patient for an abortion, to show that the woman meets the grounds that make abortion legal.
The most common reasons for abortion within 24 weeks relate to the woman’s physical or mental health. But 24% of GPs questioned said they would not sign abortion referral forms and 19% did not believe abortion should be legal.
The findings have provoked concern amongst women’s health experts. Dr Robbie Foy, clinical senior lecturer at Newcastle University, who has conducted research on abortion, said that current access to abortion services are “a lottery for women”.
“We must provide reliable, secure and non-judgmental care. Many women are still not getting this at present and face unacceptable delays which increase the risks of complications as well as causing additional anxiety,” he said. “Any sort of trend towards more doctors refusing to participate in induced abortion will risk marginalising this essential service.”
But Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, a sexual healthcare charity specialising in abortion services, does not believe the survey accurately reflected GPs’ opinions as it polled less than 1% of the UK’s 40,000 GPs.
“Pulse’s findings differ from weighted, representative UK public opinion poll results which have shown majority support for safe, legal
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “If GPs feel their beliefs might affect the treatment, this must be explained to the patient who should be told of their right to see another doctor.”
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2007, All Rights Reserved.
BPAS’ response sounds remarkably like NARAL’s reaction to the US right’s war on women – “Hey, there’s no problem, nothing to see here, move along please”.
South Derbyshire is no South Dakota ; nevertheless, British womens’ right to choose is being sliced away by small increments, and complacency from organisations like BPAS, who should be reminding doctors that it’s not their job to impose their own morality on others, doesn’t help.