Sitting on abortion in Labour
12:26 pm - May 15th 2008
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A quick interview with pro-choice MP Katy Clark on gearing up for next week’s vote on the existing abortion time limit of 24 weeks:
Remember this, says Katy Clark: the abortion debate we’re having should not be about the 24-week time limit for the legal right for abortion. The issue is purely and simply one of a woman’s right to choose – whether the state should make it lawful for a woman to terminate a pregnancy. The End, in many ways.
Except that it’s not the end, of course: there are only a few days left before MPs take a vote on proposals to amend the Abortion Act via the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, and Clark is certainly one that feels that a woman’s right to choose a legal abortion is ‘under a very real threat.’
She is certainly concerned about the junk science being witlessly peddled by the likes of Queen Halfwit Nadine Dorries, but she is perhaps more concerned about those MPs who sit somewhere in the middle, do not hold hardline views either way on abortion, and may still be persuaded to vote in unhelpful ways. That’s where the danger probably lies, as attendees of this year’s earlier Abortion Rights’ lobbies are only too aware.
As Clark rightly pointed out at one of those lobbies, parliament is made up largely of men. Those men need to know that women won’t tolerate negative equity when it comes to abortion rights. ‘We must build such a campaign [that] the men who are going to vote on whether we have the right to make a choice have no choice but to accept that we need real rights…’ After all, as Clark says now: ‘we [already] know which way pro-lifers will vote.’
She isn’t especially minded to say how Labour MPs are likely to vote, though, which doesn’t inspire confidence, altogether: ‘It’s a free vote… Labour MPs have traditionally been pro-choice,’ is as far as Clark will go on that topic. I push her a bit further on it, because I think we need to know how things are going on the left.
Clark says that she has spoke to ‘dozens of MPs’ on the subject, but that she will not speculate on Labour’s general mood or inclination on the topic of time limit. ‘I won’t go down that path,’ she says firmly. This isn’t the best thing I’ve heard, to be honest – is this just clever political reticence, or does it mean that Gordon Brown is still permitting his limping troops to dither?
Suffice to say, Clark says, that the anti-abortion lobby has played a dirty game by trying to amend the Abortion Act via the HFEB, and by trying to argue that the 24-week time limit for abortion and foetal viablity are somehow related in the modern age. As we are all well aware, the anti-abortion lobby does women a great disservice by arguing ‘that the science [saving babies born at 24 weeks or earlier] has changed… despite the view that has been given by all the medical authorities. The whole debate has become about viability.’
Clark is right, but only partly so, I think. To my mind, the debate, when it comes down to it, is about Labour MPs having the bottle to vote in favour of liberal abortion law and against any attempts to amend the law as we have it. That is their natural territory and they still have the numbers to hold it. Gordon needs to grab his men by the balls in the manly way that he did when chasing the Labour party leadership.
In my humble opinion.
Write to your MP about defending a woman’s right to choose, and do it now if you can, because it sounds from the above like a few of them are still not quite sure which way is up.
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Kate Belgrave is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. She is a New Zealander who moved to the UK eight years ago. She was a columnist and journalist at the New Zealand Herald and is now a web editor. She writes on issues like public sector cuts, workplace disputes and related topics. She is also interested in abortion rights, and finding fault with religion. Also at: Hangbitching.com and @hangbitch
· Other posts by Kate Belgrave
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Reader comments
“or does it mean that Gordon Brown is still permitting his limping troops to dither?”
I wouldn’t have thought it possible but finally we have a criticism of Gordon Brown that I feel the need to defend him against. He isn’t permitting anything – except a free vote. Conventional on these issues as it should be. Surely you can’t think it would be desirable for abortion to be a politically partisan issue in the way it has been in the United States?
Shuggy – interesting point, but yes, what I am essentially saying is that the government can instruct its MPs how to vote, even on a free vote.
I had a long interview with Emily Thornberry yesterday where we discussed exactly that. I’ll publish that article and audio in the next few days: suffice to say that she acknowledged that it was possible for government to send a firm message down the line re: the ‘right’ way to vote on a free vote on abortion amendments, and that it would not be out of place for the Labour party to do that, given that it was traditionally liberal on abortion law anyway, but that that wouldn’t happen in this instance.
Would that then make Gordon a crazed dictator? Possibly, but there are times when there’s justification in strong leadership, and this is one of those times. A strong party line in this instance is about making sure the troops are organised and in a position to stand up to the religious right/conservative political opportunists. As Thornberry said to me yesterday, there are a lot of Labour MPs who are still dithering on the 24 week time limit. Gordon is in a position to help them focus. And why not? Everyone else is lobbying the ditherers.
It is my view that Gordon Brown could make known – very firmly – that there is a Labour party line on amending abortion and that his MPs are expected to toe it, free vote or no.
I think ‘dither’ is an entirely appropriate word when it comes to our Gordon. Brown has already compromised on free votes on various aspects of the HFEB in response to pressure applied by Catholic members of his cabinet. I did not see that as an instance of strong leadership. As for partisan politics – well, can of worms and all that: where would you draw the line between firm leadership and a strong party line on the ‘right’ liberal issues, and letting the god-squad run riot?
This is not meant necessarily to be another hatchet job on the Labour party, just by the way. I think several Labour MPs like Thornberry and Clark have been excellent. Clark did dither when I asked her where the party was heading on this one, though, and I don’t see why the liberal left shouldn’t ask what it’s doing to protect a woman’s right to choose and whether Labour MPs think their comrades are going to do the right thing by us chicks. I do think Gordie boy could crack the whip.
If only I ruled the world…
Etc
‘This is not meant necessarily to be another hatchet job on the Labour party, just by the way.’
Strike that. What am I saying. Of course the above post is another hatchet job on the Labour party – or on the government, I should say.
Ha ha, I like the line “Labour has been traditionally liberal on abortion law,” it’s just that they are traditionally conservative on enforcing their liberalism!
Means, ends etc etc.
‘traditionally conservative on enforcing their liberalism’
has taken me a while to get my tiny mind around it, but I think I like that line!
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