The abortion fight returns
10:20 pm - June 30th 2008
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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 start a little something on the sensible contributions.
Tabled by Evan Harris, Chris McCafferty and Frank Dobson, the two liberal amendments would improve the Abortion Act by – rightly – 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.
Access is the chief issue: abortion may be legal – and entirely acceptable, as far as the great majority of the British public is concerned – but getting one can be a bigger challenge than a lot of women need. I read – I think on Abortion Rights – that more than 20% of women who want an abortion in their second trimester have to wait longer than three weeks to get it. Last year’s much-quoted parliament’s Science and Technology Committee reported that women who wanted abortions faced unnecessary delays getting them, not least because of that requirement for two doctors’ signatures. There’s absolutely no reason for this to be the case. There’s no reason not to improve law.
There’s also the issue of extending the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland, which would be an humane advance if ever there was one (feel free to go off in the comments if you think this should be one for the Northern Ireland assembly).
The extraordinary truth is that most women in Northern Ireland must still leave the country if they want a legal abortion. The ones who can’t afford to do that take the usual desperate action, with the usual desperate results. Deaths from unsafe abortion practices in Northern Ireland have been reported – a fact that intelligent men and women ought to take as a personal insult. After all – if you believe in women, you surely believe in their right to life, at the very least. You understand that legal abortion is civilised and sane.
Etc. This is starting to take off, so there will be more to come from myself and others. Meanwhile, if you want to help us girls/feminists/female persons, you’ll find model letters supporting the liberal amendments at Abortion Rights which you can start firing at your MPs. And link to us! And blog the topic! Etc.
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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
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Story Filed Under: Blog ,Equality ,Feminism
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Reader comments
Might I just say that France is supposed to be an ex-Catholic country (unlike Northern Ireland) and a secular, egalitarian republic blah blah blah… but of course the reality doesn’t quite match that, and thus women from France come here to get abortions too! So it’s not just our immediate-immediate neighbours benefitting from our humanitarian abortion laws.
Although this will sound a bit horrible, I agree with getting nurses to perform the procedure – for a strange reason. A biologist friend revealed to me that doctors performing abortions are often so severely traumatised that it’s (unsurprisingly) not something that is popular, or long-followed by medical professionals. Higher numbers of people performing abortions hopefully means less repeated strain on the same few people, as well greater access to abortion for those who need it.
Well blogged, let’s hope this gets through!
“A biologist friend revealed to me that doctors performing abortions are often so severely traumatised that it’s (unsurprisingly) not something that is popular, or long-followed by medical professionals.”
That’s more about pro-life propaganda than truth, though. The pro-lifers take the true point that performing late-term abortions, although necessary, is traumatic; but they obscure the fact that the vast majority of abortions take place early on and are either medical or minor surgical procedures that aren’t particularly problematic for those involved.
(well, not problematic unless those involved get subsequently guilt-tripped and accused of terrible crimes by pro-lifers, of course…)
True – thank you for explaining that.
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Abortion: whose debate? « Feminist Philosophers
[...] to start something up with the amendments to the abortion act on the table and up for debate (see here for more details), and writes, addressing feminist [...]
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