Stroppyblog has an excellent report from this week’s meeting, so I won’t bother to repeat that. Just a few extra notes:
Rare enough, but I found myself applauding the Conservative John Bercow (a joint secretary of the cross-party pro-choice parliamentary group), who said that since the antiabortionists were “determined to shoehorn” their own amendments into the Human Embryology Bill, they had opened the way for liberalising amendments.
Evan Harris, Lib Dem, said that an analysis by the House of Commons library showed that there was a 2-1 pro-choice majority in the Commons, “this is a strongly pro-choice house”.
A speaker from the Fawcett Society said on the 80th and 90th anniversary of the women’s suffrage acts, this was definitely NOT the year to turn back the clock on abortion rights.
The TUC women’s conference for two years in a row has had as a theme “a woman’s right to choose”.
Wendy Savage spoke about later abortions – there are practical and emotional differences, but no moral difference. She spoke about performing a 26 week abortion on an 11-year-old Bengali girl made pregnant by an imam – when she saw the patient before the operation she was colouring-in dolls clothes.
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And coming up, a counter-protest to Anne Widdicombe’s antiabortion efforts, on February 6. One for the diary.
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