Pro-choice Protest!
Friday 30th March, 7pm, Bedford Square, WC1
Anti-choice group ‘40 Days for Life’ are staging a 40 day protest outside the Bpas clinic on Bedford Square.
They have been approaching women entering the clinic, handing out grossly inaccurate material and filming clients and staff. Their presence is distressing and intimidating.
On Friday 30th March they will be joined by Bishop Alan Hopes for an evening prayer vigil at the clinic.
Pro-choice supporters will be staging a peaceful counter-protest to express our opposition to the group’s tactics and to stand up for our right to safe, legal abortion. Join us!
7pm, Bedford Square, WC1 (Tottenham Court Road tube)
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/GD8x1c
Twitter: @BloomsburyPCA
Charities are attacking the government’s decision to effectively change the definition of domestic violence
Half of all women who are victims of domestic violence will no longer qualify for legal aid under government proposals, leaving hundreds of thousands at greater risk of abuse, according to charities.
Ben Jamal, chief executive of the charity Domestic Violence Intervention Project, said analysis of their case files indicated that 50% of women victims would lose out.
Despite David Cameron’s identification of the issue as a priority, experts say the government’s proposed legal reforms run contrary to its pledges to tackle domestic violence. The Home Office action plan to end violence against women promises to “provide adequate support where violence does occur” and “take action to reduce the risk to women and girls who are victims.”.
Three million women a year experience violence in Britain, a significant proportion of them domestic abuse, according to the government. Yet a coalition of specialists and women’s rights groups say that proposals in the legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders bill, which has a third reading in the Commons this week, will seriously undermine its strategy on reducing violence against women.
Emma Scott, of campaign group Rights of Women, said the planned reforms to save £350m a year in legal aid would have a “devastating and disproportionate impact” on women. She added: “In his press conference announcing the legal aid bill David Cameron said that he wanted families to feel safe in their own homes, yet it will leave many at greater risk of violence and abuse, trapped in violent and abusive relationships and at greater risk of post separation violence.”
“The reforms demonstrate a total lack of awareness and understanding of the dynamics and nature of domestic violence and the experiences of women affected by it.”
Officially the government’s position is that legal aid will be available to victims of domestic violence. But groups point to the government’s decision to effectively change the definition of domestic violence by upping the type of evidence required to substantiate allegations, making it harder to qualify for legal representation.
Under the proposals “only women who can prove a high risk of violence” such as having secured a conviction against their perpetrator or have been referred for a risk assessment will be eligible for legal aid.
“They will put legal aid for family cases out of scope for the majority of women who have experienced violence and abuse,” said Scott.
Jamal added: “Officially the government says one thing, but in reality they have drawn down the definition so narrowly that significant numbers of women are no longer eligible.”Experts argue that other evidence including GP records, 999 call outs, social services and information from housing agencies should also be allowed.
Jamal also warned that alleged perpetrators will lose legal aid, raising the possibility that victims of domestic violence abuse will be cross-examined in court by their alleged attackers.
This makes me so angry I can’t even handle it.
Laurie Penny: The anti-choice minority are being allowed to dictate policy
The battle for abortion rights in Britain has begun in earnest. This week, the small, vocal, venal group of Christian conservative lobbyists working in Westminster to roll back women’s right to reproductive choice has won a victory. The Department of Health has confirmed that abortion clinics will no longer be allowed to offer counselling to women presenting with crisis pregnancies, who may instead have to go to biased religious counsellors if they wish to receive advice and information on abortion. This has been done without any debate, circumventing the parliamentary process ahead of next week’s discussions on this and other anti-choice amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill.
The majority of British people - 76 per cent - are pro-choice. It is the anti-choice minority, however, who are being permitted to write and dictate policy specifically designed to prevent abortions from happening. Nadine Dorries MP, every Christian lobbyist’s favourite Tory, who is spearheading the anti-choice campaign in parliament on behalf of groups like Care UK, tried to claim on Sky News that the new rules were not designed to reduce the number of abortions, despite having proudly declared elsewhere that the changes would mean “60,000” fewer pregnancies terminated. She then admitted that:
“It’s quite probable that those who are having doubts will accept that offer [of ‘independent’ counselling’] and as a result of that we may see less women going through abortion and coming out the other side traumatised, and less abortions, and that may be a consequence, and that can only be a good thing.”
There is, of course, no evidence that any of these changes to the abortion rules are necessary, wanted or based on actual medical science. British Medical Association member and former Liberal Democrat shadow health secretary Dr Evan Harris told Sky News:
“As far as I’m aware, despite there being many many abortions every year, there’s not been a single complaint that someone has been misinformed by the current professional counselling that exists.”
Harris, who campaigns for evidence-based provision of abortion services, pointed out that the new arrangements to strip abortion providers of their counselling role will delay the abortion process and may prevent many thousands of women from receiving any counselling at all. “I wonder why it is that an avowed anti-abortion campaigner should want to change arrangements that are currently working well when there’s no evidence of harm, ” he said.
Just as there is no research showing that the abortion process is any more “traumatising” for a woman than, say, being forced to carry a pregnancy to term against her will, there is absolutely no evidence of women complaining en masse about being “rushed through” the abortion process. There is far more evidence, in fact, of the distressing effects of existing delays in the service, of the “postcode lottery” of abortion provision in the UK, of the indignity of a system which requires two doctors’ signatures for a procedure to take place, and where GPs are permitted to refuse to refer a woman for abortion services without handing her case on to another doctor.
There is ample evidence, moreover, that the supposedly “independent” counselling services to whom provision of pre-abortion counselling will now be handed are distributing misinformation, anti-choice propaganda and lies to vulnerable women. A recent investigation by campaign group Education For Choice found religious counselling centres telling women that having an abortion was “taking an innocent life” and would cause lifelong guilt and shame, breast cancer and infertility.
According to the Guardian report on the survey, at one Christian counselling centre, Life in Covent Garden: “…the undercover researcher was given a leaflet entitled Abortions - How they’re Done, which said incorrectly that 85% of abortions are carried out using vacuum aspiration. It stated that “the unborn child is sucked down the tube” and that “the woman should wear some protection. She has to dispose of the corpse [in the case of chemically induced abortion].
“The counsellor was said to have focused on mental health issues that she associated with abortion, telling the researcher she was of a good age to have a child, showing her baby clothes and using terms such as “baby” and “grandchild” when referring to the pregnancy.”
In America, a remarkably similar strategy to restrict abortion access via the back door has been in place for some years, with cuts in federal funding for abortion clinics forcing women to seek help from publicly-funded Christian anti-choice groups masquerading as “objective” crisis pregnancy centres. “As one arm of the anti-choice movement tries to eviscerate [Planned Parenthood], another is helping boost a version that offers severely limited services stacked with an anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-sex, aggressively Christian worldview,” writes Tana Ganeva at Alternet. “But that’s not the only boost they’re getting from states. Recently South Dakota legislators passed a bill that would have forced women not only to wait 72 hours before getting an abortion, but to pay a visit to an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centre as well [for counselling].” Sound familiar?
The coming changes to abortion provision in Britain are being phrased as a caring move, offering women a “right to know”, protecting them from the profit motive in the provision of abortion services (it should be noted that the profit motive is not considered a potential cause of harm or conflict of interest in the provision of other public health services, which may be opened up to competition from the private sector as part of the same bill). It has nothing to do with caring, and everything to do with prejudice.
If we truly believe that women are free human beings whose right to decide what happens to their own bodies is more important than individual superstitions about the spiritual status of the foetus, we need to oppose these changes. If we truly believe that nobody should be bullied or forced into carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term, it is vital that the changes be seen for what they are.
They are a biased and badly-evidenced pander to the anti-choice, anti-sex, anti-woman moral agenda of the Christian conservative lobby which, far from giving anyone more ‘rights’, will damage women’s ability to make informed decisions about their health choices and delay the already distressingly drawn-out process of accessing pregnancy termination services in the UK. And this is just the opening sally in the coming attack on British women’s right to choose.
To make your voice heard on this issue, please join Abortion Rights’ campaign, and email your MP to make sure he or she knows why the changes to abortion counselling are damaging and unecessary. It takes two minutes. Thank you.
Caitlin’s poem from Slutwalk. More footage hopefully to come!
Pro-choice
Protest!
Saturday 9th July,
from 1.30pm, Westminster
It’s time for the UK’s pro‐choice majority to make its voice heard and protest against government moves to restrict access to abortion:
* New anti‐choice counselling requirements
* LIFE advising the government on abortion policy
* Dorries’ girls only abstinence‐based sex ed bill
* Cuts to services, rising waiting times for abortion…
It’s time to say NO!
Saturday 9th July, from 1.30pm
Old Palace Yard, opposite Parliament
Nearest tube: Westminster
Email: swanseafeministnetwork@gmail.com
Facebook: Pro‐Choice Demo
Pro‐choice and angry? Join us!
…after crunching a fair amount of data, it became perfectly apparent that the ‘hot statistic’ of the moment, which suggests that a woman is raped in the UK every ten minutes, is not only wrong but significantly underestimates the actual scale of the problem (rape), which is all just a little embarrassing when the source of that statistic turns out to be the Department of Health.
An article written last year by the Ministry of Truth, clarifying UK rape statistics.
1) The British Medical Association today voted in support of retaining the current 24-week time limit on abortion, agreeing that there is no scientific justification for cutting it to 20 weeks.
2) I can’t find the full press release yet, but Yahoo and Nadine Dorries (I’m not linking) say the Department of Health has this evening issued a statement confirming that it will consider changing the existing legislation to prevent organisations who perform abortions from offering counselling:
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “The Department of Health wants women who are thinking about having an abortion to be able to have independent counselling.“However, we do not believe it is necessary to set out this requirement in primary legislation as the necessary legal mechanisms already exist to enable this. We are inviting interested parties to meet with the public health minister, Anne Milton, and Department of Health officials to discuss the matter.”That this “independent” counselling may fall to the likes of LIFE, who oppose abortion on principle in all circumstances is really frightening. Counsellors who are fundamentally opposed to abortion - and this includes in cases of rape and incest - cannot possibly put the wishes and needs of their client first. That’s before we get into the misinformation these kind of organisations give out about abortion’s effects on women. Their main aim is to end abortion, NOT to support women’s choices. Persuading women to make the choice they think is right is NOT counselling.
And pro-choice arguments aside, the potential for such a change to be pushed through without a vote is horribly undemocratic.
You can contact public health minister Anne Milton at anne.milton.mp@parliament.uk.
(Source: petitefeministe)
![PRO-CHOICE DEMO, LONDON, 9TH JULY
[Text taken from AbortionRights.org.uk:]
In the last few months there have been a stream of anti-choice measures coming out of Westminster, aimed at rolling back our right to safe, legal abortion.
From amendments to the Health and Social Care bill imposing new counselling requirements for women seeking abortions, to the appointment of anti-choice group LIFE to the government’s sexual health advisory panel, to cuts in contraception, sexual health and teen pregnancy services and increasing waiting times for abortion as the NHS comes under increasing financial strain.
We have seen Nadine Dorries and other anti-choice advocates take to the airwaves to push the (mistaken) notion that women are being denied informationabout the mental and physical side-effects of abortion, and, of course, to plug their now-notorious bid to introduce girls-only abstinence-based sex education.
So if you’re a pro-choice supporter and you’re angry at these attempts to restrict our rights then join the protest!Organised by Swansea Feminist Network, the demo has already attracted support from hundreds of people and we’re urging all Abortion Rights supporters to get involved too. We’re hoping for a great turn out and are lining up some great speakers.Show your support on Facebook, or you can email Swansea Feminist Network for more info or drop us a line here at Abortion Rights.
We’ll be kicking off at 1.30pm on Saturday 9th July at Old Palace Yard, Westminster SW1P 3JY – opposite the public entrance to the Houses of Parliament. Nearest tube station: Westminster. Here’s a map.
So join us there and raise your voice for choice!
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnejvzj1VL1qcokqjo1_400.jpg)
PRO-CHOICE DEMO, LONDON, 9TH JULY
[Text taken from AbortionRights.org.uk:]
In the last few months there have been a stream of anti-choice measures coming out of Westminster, aimed at rolling back our right to safe, legal abortion.
From amendments to the Health and Social Care bill imposing new counselling requirements for women seeking abortions, to the appointment of anti-choice group LIFE to the government’s sexual health advisory panel, to cuts in contraception, sexual health and teen pregnancy services and increasing waiting times for abortion as the NHS comes under increasing financial strain.
We have seen Nadine Dorries and other anti-choice advocates take to the airwaves to push the (mistaken) notion that women are being denied informationabout the mental and physical side-effects of abortion, and, of course, to plug their now-notorious bid to introduce girls-only abstinence-based sex education.
So if you’re a pro-choice supporter and you’re angry at these attempts to restrict our rights then join the protest!Organised by Swansea Feminist Network, the demo has already attracted support from hundreds of people and we’re urging all Abortion Rights supporters to get involved too. We’re hoping for a great turn out and are lining up some great speakers.Show your support on Facebook, or you can email Swansea Feminist Network for more info or drop us a line here at Abortion Rights.
We’ll be kicking off at 1.30pm on Saturday 9th July at Old Palace Yard, Westminster SW1P 3JY – opposite the public entrance to the Houses of Parliament. Nearest tube station: Westminster. Here’s a map.
So join us there and raise your voice for choice!
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!
We very much agree with the values that the Slut Walk is trying to bring. If you have any photos (it’d be better if they’re out and about in London too) then we’d love for you to submit them.
Thanks,
From today, changes to the UK Immigration Rules, will make migrant victims of domestic violence more vulnerable to abuse. The changes mean that legal protection for migrant victims of domestic violence will no longer apply to applicants who have unspent criminal convictions.
Click through to read more.
