The discussion was wide-ranging, with some excellent speaking from Diane Abbott MP, Abortion Rights and Education for Choice. One of the topics I raised and I’d like to explore further is the ethical – and political – case for women’s access to abortion.

There was a strong current in the room advocating for taking a scientific, public health approach to abortion rights. They recommended making informed, fact-based interventions to the debates on abstinence education, for example. And some people highlighted how effective this can be, especially where anti-abortion lobbyists are making spurrious ‘pseudo-scientific’ claims and considering how the mainstream majority already believes in the women’s right to choose.

However, some people also made a lot of the fact that anti-abortion lobbyists are operating from a position of ideology, rather than science. While this may be true, I don’t agree that ideology, per se, is a bad thing. Feminism is an ideology. I kind of like it. Moreover science can be marshalled in defence of all kinds of ideologies – including ones I don’t agree with.

Science is a tool, and it is not apolitical. Scientists can be political actors, with agendas. The idea that science is the opposite of ideology is not born out by how science is produced, how evidence is gathered, what conclusions we come to through ‘facts’. Enter climate change debates!

Meanwhile, I do not want to lose the ethical, political, and also ideological at times, case for abortion rights and reproductive justice. Women have the right to own and control what happens to their bodies. These rights are enshrined in laws and human rights principles that the UK has signed up to. And all women are entitled to them.

For example, regardless of whether ‘life’ is viable at 20 weeks or not (it’s not), women should still be able to legally, safely, affordably access abortion. We should also be able to access abortions after 24 weeks. And we really should be able to access abortions regardless of where in the UK we are located – the restrictions in Northern Ireland are unaceptable. Full stop.

Certainly I understand the benefits of pragmatism and advocating ‘evidence-based policy-making’, as well as why we should equip ourselves and others, including our politicians, with the facts on abortion as we move into this next phase of pro-choice campaigning. Myth-busting and real stories from women who’ve actually had abortions are essential to resist anti-women movements and illustrate how appropriate a pro-choice position is for a fair and humane society.

But let’s also remember that our work is political: our rights to our bodies is a contested ideological terrain. Let’s not be so keen to leave this arena lest we suddenly find ourselves out of the conversation altogether.

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cross-posted from The F Word

In my friend’s view, challenging Muslims, and Muslim men in particular, about domestic violence in such an open space, where non-Muslims are present, is problematic because of the current socio-political climate within the country, including widespread Islamophobia. She felt that a public naming of the problem would be hijacked by those with a racist agenda to further demonize Muslims in the eyes of the UK public, for instance by accusing Muslims of having barbaric cultures.

While I don’t disagree that this hijacking is likely, I remain unconvinced that this is sufficient justification for not being vocal about violence against Muslim women in a relevant forum such as a meeting with the police on ‘community safety’ for one key reason: I believe advocating silence makes one complicit in the stigmatization of the victims. This stigmatization, in turn, is closely related to ideas about honour and shame that undermine women’s rights.

It is extremely difficult for most women to report violence because the stigma of being a victim of gender-based violence makes them feel ashamed. In some instances, this shame is actually encouraged, as many examples of so-called honour killings have demonstrated.

What is important to note about honour killings, or indeed other crimes against women and girls in the name of honour is the way that women are being framed as property where their bodies and behaviour have worth for others. This worth, which can increase or decrease, is about a woman’s role as the embodiment of a man or a family’s, or even a community’s, honour through symbolic representation.

I believe that the reluctance to expose violence against women within one’s racial or religious community is related to these concepts of honour and shame. I think for some people there is shame that the violence is happening to begin with. For others, there is a sense of shame about how ‘the community’ will look in the eyes of outside observers if and when this violence was to come to light.

A community’s honour, in terms of its ability to present itself as culturally righteous, is threatened by the evidence of its failure to protect its women from abuse by its own members. The solution proposed is to encourage community members, including women survivors who would benefit from being able to speak out about the problem and hearing that they are not alone, not to expose the violence at all.

In allowing the abuse of women to be treated as a political football, where women’s rights to bodily integrity and justice are trumped by so-called community interests, the message is sent out that the worth of women to the community is in terms of their value as symbols and not for themselves.

There is not doubt that the evidence of domestic violence within the Muslim community in the UK could be used for malicious intent by racist people. But why should Muslim women’s interests, namely their rights to live free from violence, be sacrificed as a defence?

Why should not the perpetrators be required to sacrifice something for providing the fuel for racists in the first place?

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This post was originally published as part of the 16 Days blog (25 Nov – 10 Dec 2007), part of the 5050 initiative on openDemocracy.

I’m a little bit tired of spending so much of my time defending the most basic principles of what I stand for. It serves to distract. What I need is a safer space where I don’t lose so much energy justifying why social and environmental justice are worth spending a lot of society’s money on.

What I want is a space where these ideas are a given and the debate is about how best to actualize them. Where a frank discussion about the nature of power and who gains and who loses by not changing things is as necessary as air. I want to be challenged to be the most radical humanitarian in the room. Instead of rolling around in a fog that dangerously confuses the over-policing of some with ‘freedom’ and where indifference is rewarded. I want to be inspired by the good and the great to imagine what is possible – in that place where all life prospers.

I want to have conversations with people that are constructive, compassionate and rigorous. Conversations that are both logical and passionate, because they are focussed on how best to make the world a better place so that no one is left behind.

I want to learn from anyone or any movement that has something useful to share on this. This includes single-issue based campaigns though they are none of them sufficient on their own. It is in the spaces between them, where there are links that connect them, that I would like to spend some time building a movement.