07 February 2008

Pro-Choice Protest In Coventry - 13 February

Next Wednesday, at 645pm, outside Coventry Cathedral, Abortion Rights have called a peaceful pro-choice protest against a speaking tour by Anne Widdicombe, Lord David Alton, and others.

Anti-abortion activists are attempting to use the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to attack the current time limit (24 weeks) and grounds for legal abortion.

Anti-abortionists are fundamentally anti-woman. Their goal is to control women and women's sexuality. They argue for cooling off periods, but when you think about, that's like saying women make abortion decisions lightly, and implicitly says that women can’t be trusted to make such a fundamental decision about their lives. If women are deprived of any way to control when (access to birth control; comprehensive sex education), or if they get pregnant, they revert back to chattel and the property of men.

An opinion poll commissioned by Abortion Rights in October 2007 to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act showed 83 per cent support a woman’s right to make her own abortion decision. This finding is in line with previous polls over a number of years.

If anything, 40 years on:

Current unfair barriers to accessing abortion should be ended. Specifically that doctors’ effective right of veto of over women’s abortion decision should be ended and that abortion should be allowed in more settings and by trained nurses to end delays.

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