Published: July 8th 2011 - at 10:00 am

Important pro-choice demo tomorrow


by Sunny Hundal    

Given the government’s recent appointment of the fundamentalist organisation ‘Life’ to their sexual health forum at the expense of the British pregnancy Advisory Service, a group of activists are organising a demo tomorrow.

The protest in front of the Houses of Parliament will also be the start of a longer campaign to fight back at the government’s creeping assault on reproductive rights and secular spaces in public life.

Activist Adele Jones, who organised the protest, writes:

It has been argued that the appointment of one anti-abortion group will not make a difference to policy – I argue that this is a symbol of a further attack on women’s rights by a government that has shown itself to be retrogressive and misogynistic.

We need to stand up and tell them to keep their hands off our bodies, to protest for the right to carry on deciding what happens to our bodies.

Jess McCabe from The F Word adds:

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 information about 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.

The event is organised by Swansea Feminist Network, and has already attracted support from hundreds of people, including Abortion Rights supporters.

Speakers will include:
Diane Abbott MP
Kat Banyard, UK Feminista
Jenny Jones, Green Party
Darinka Aleksic from Abortion Rights

and more.

Join us on 9th July, from 1:3pm – 4:30pm
Old Palace Yard, Parliament Square, London
#prochoicedemo2011 on Twitter.


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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments


1. Matthew

So adding people who disagree with abortion to a panel counts as an attack on women’s rights? Surely stopping people who disagree with you from expressing their opinion is fascism?

2. HarpyMarx

Pix from yesterday’s pro-choice rally in London

http://harpymarx.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/defend-a-womans-right-to-choose/

3. Chaise Guevara

@ 1

“So adding people who disagree with abortion to a panel counts as an attack on women’s rights?”

Apparently. I think the so-called “creeping assault” on abortion rights currently exists only in the minds of the people objecting to it. If the government actually starts trying to restrict abortion rights, we need to know about it. In the meantime, the people kicking off about the government seeking a range of opinions, on the basis that listening to anyone other than them constitutes misogyny, don’t seem to be the good guys.

4. Jim

Harpymax @ 2

Good to see Diane Abott there, but shame on the rest of the Labour Party who, yet again, failed to defend rights. Too much like having an opinion on something I suppose.

5. Cylux

@1 Aye you would be right if anyone actually was stopping anyone from expressing themselves.

6. Chaise Guevara

@ 5 Cylux

“Aye you would be right if anyone actually was stopping anyone from expressing themselves.”

You’re right, they’re not doing that. But they do seem to be demanding that the government ignore the voices of everyone who disagrees with them, which is at least in the same ballpark. I mean, by all means demand that the government follows your principles, but if you have to back that up by attacking the government for even LISTENING to the other side, you’ve gone horribly wrong somewhere.

7. Pete Lee

@ 1 ”So adding people who disagree with abortion to a panel counts as an attack on women’s rights? Surely stopping people who disagree with you from expressing their opinion is fascism”

NO

Pro choice orgs are just that – choice. You don’t have to have an abortion if you don’t want to. Life always tries to stop a women having an abortion- that’s why they shouldn’t be on any panel. They want to deny choice.

Typical Tories mind you – they don’t care about children once they are born.

8. Chaise Guevara

@ 7

“Life always tries to stop a women having an abortion- that’s why they shouldn’t be on any panel. They want to deny choice.”

Ah – you’re so pro-choice that you’ve already been kind enough to make all the choices for us, I see. The Hypocrite of the Year Award is on its way to you in the post…


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  38. Abortion advice: long on abstinence, short on evidence | Liberal Conspiracy

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