From The Times, women being murdered in China to be “ghost brides” for dead peasant men.

The men preyed on the superstitions of ill-educated farmers eager to ensure that a dead son was happy in the afterlife. It is not uncommon in rural parts of China for a family to seek out the body of a woman who has died to be buried alongside their son after the performance of a marriage ceremony for the deceased pair.

I’ve never been a great believer in claims about the “good old days”, and romantic visions of peasants as close to the land. This sort of thing only helps to confirm that view.

Over on the Guardian’s Comment is Free I had a little promo for the Blogging for Choice day – and got off surprisingly lightly from the commenters – perhaps because there’s such a flood of Davos stuff.

But I do think it is worth saying that such events do have an impact in countering the well-funded and organiser anti-abortion campaigners.

It seems as a cost-cutting measure, some NHS trusts are making women wait up to seven weeks for an abortion.

Which means, of course, they’ll often go beyond the point where it can be carried out by hormone treatment, and will require surgical intervention, which is, no doubt, more costly…. great decision by the administrators, and a lot of unnecessary strain on the patients.

The Department of Health wants 70% of all terminations to be carried out under 10 weeks gestation. According to its latest figures – from 2005 – the majority of abortions did take place within this time limit.
But the data revealed large regional discrepancies, with the worst performing PCTs carrying out only just over a third of terminations within 10 weeks.

Definitely not an area where you want a postcode lottery.

It is sad that I have to post this on Blog for Choice day – so I should add that we should also celebrate that most women, most of the time in England, Scotland and Wales DO have reasonable access to abortion. (Northern Ireland is another story.)

What we have to do is make sure that access improves – by removing the two-doctor rule. It should, under normal circumstances, be the decision of a woman alone, helped by a nurse, with doctors involved only when medically necessary.