From every crisis there are consequences. And in the US last week the consequences came home to roost for the Republicans. The über-hyped “red wave” turned into a washout — thanks, I am certain, to women.
That failure can be traced to the overturning of Roe v Wade in June. For those unfamiliar, that was a ruling that recognised a constitutional right for women to have access to abortions. Instead, this summer a Supreme Court ruling gave power back to individual states to decide access to abortion.
Many of these states are held by anti-choice Republicans so they started passing primitive legislation. That limited women’s access to abortions, while other Republicans made threats about the morning-after pill.
But there were consequences to such anti-women positions: many of these people were shown the door by voters last week. There is real hope that the forces that are anti-choice are being pushed back.
As great as this is for our sisters in the US, it should also be a wake-up call for us in the UK. Many of us here have a false sense of security over our rights and access to an abortion. You would be shocked at how many MPs in Parliament and how many of the jokers going into the House of Lords want to limit women’s access to basic healthcare — for this is what abortions are.
Abortions are and remain a criminal offence in the UK under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The Abortion Act 1967 just provides a legal defence for doctors to perform abortions.
So when you access abortion in the UK you are actually committing an offence. But when you are booked in you are asked to pick one of the “legal” defences for you to have an abortion.
I mean, imagine being asked to give the reason why you need healthcare over it being something given with no such prying questions because it is a private and personal matter?
As a pro-choice feminist I have for years fought anti-choice men and women but I never thought those people would be in the Government or the Opposition.
But during the summer, when Parliament had a vote on whether to keep the right for women to have medical abortions at home, so many MPs proved how anti-choice they were.
Our last PM (Liz Truss, for those who can’t keep up) was even silent about Roe v Wade when she was in charge of the women and equalities brief. Our political parties have been dodging taking a stand on abortions because they call it a vote of “conscience”.
This is ridiculous. They don’t seem to have an attack of conscience on things like free school meals or war but over women’s bodies they do. I am beyond livid thinking about how little control women have over our bodies in this country.
Will one of our political parties be bold enough to take a straightforward and brave stand on abortion? We cannot be complacent, because complacency kills.
I know Matt Hancock and he is being unfairly treated
As much as I think Matt Hancock should never have gone to the jungle in the first place, I’m more and more convinced that the hate he’s getting is wrong-headed. People are blaming him for all the Covid deaths and making outlandish comparisons that it would be inappropriate even to repeat.
You don’t have to like Hancock but he fought to get millions vaccinated and still fights Covid misinformation. I know how hard lockdown was but he’s not the one we should be targeting.
When I worked with him on tackling FGM he was there at every meeting. His commitment to women and women’s health mean we now have an NHS that for the first time is actually addressing issues women have suffered in silence. The way he’s been, frankly, bullied should remind us: we ought to be kinder to people, especially those about whom we have one-sided pictures.
