Worrying development here

[JesusFightClub]

Yesterday antiabortionists Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child held a demo in our city centre. This has not been seen before. I think they are becoming emboldened by developments in the US, which worries me.

We counterprotested on the other side of the street. I made the numbers 50/70. To them. I couldn't stay long because I had another demo I had to be on, but there were other disturbing developments.

One, if any of us crossed the street to speak to SPUC, the police said we were at risk of arrest. Two, we saw the police shaking hands with the SPUC. Three, the SPUC had tiny foetus models they were giving away and the signs were calculated to be as emotional as possible.

This is the first time I have seen this and I do not like it. Between that, the fash and the Palestine situation, as well as the fact we're in dispute, I am busy. But although we knew the SPUC were encouraged by US developments, to this extent?

[constantgardener]

This is not good. I am worried about this becoming a big issue here, particularly with a right-wing government in office. I have to hope that in general we don't have as much religious fundamentalism and people in Britain do tend to be a bit more level-headed about this issue.

[Effie]

I'm so glad that ain't my country... :shock: Still the development over there worries me a lot. I want women - everywhere, to have the same rights as I do here in north Europe. We are moving forward here. You are moving backwards. It's disturbing - to say the least.

[JesusFightClub]

Exactly Effie and constantgardener, this is very concerning. Normally here there's a streak of antiabortion feeling but it is not mainstream (indeed even while I was there we got a lot of people in cars honking their horns and doing the thumbs up to us and waving). We had I think five demos on in the city so people were spread thin, otherwise I reckon we would have easily outnumbered SPUC. But it does not bode well.

They dressed in dark colours and held black signs with white writing. A few of them bowed their heads like in sorrow, and some like praying.

[Peas n carrots]

I dunno, I just don't see the sheer amount of religious craziness in the UK as I do here in the US. I just got back from a 2 week stint there yesterday, and I can count on one hand the number of churches in DH's hometown...and there are at least twice as many in the town of 6000 people I grew up in. At that, from what I understand the Church of England and Church of Scotland parishes are literally, dying out. I know Glasgow is a bigger, more diverse city and has a history of religious in-fighting, but it's not really the same as what is going on over here.

I think you are right the pro-lifers have probably gained some courage to speak out, and there will always be the uber religious. But personally, I don't think you have much to worry about ;-)

[alaeangelorum]

Yesterday antiabortionists Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child held a demo in our city centre. This has not been seen before. I think they are becoming emboldened by developments in the US, which worries me.

We counterprotested on the other side of the street. I made the numbers 50/70. To them. I couldn't stay long because I had another demo I had to be on, but there were other disturbing developments.

One, if any of us crossed the street to speak to SPUC, the police said we were at risk of arrest. Two, we saw the police shaking hands with the SPUC. Three, the SPUC had tiny foetus models they were giving away and the signs were calculated to be as emotional as possible.

This is the first time I have seen this and I do not like it. Between that, the fash and the Palestine situation, as well as the fact we're in dispute, I am busy. But although we knew the SPUC were encouraged by US developments, to this extent?

I'm sure SPUC have done demos before. Also your wording makes it sound like you think they should ordinarily be too frightened to go out and protest. Emotional signs and foetus models are hardly illegal. I don't know about the whole you being arrested if you talked to them part but for all you know they told SPUC that as well. They have a right to protest just as much as you do.

[samurai_sarah]

(snip) Two, we saw the police shaking hands with the SPUC. Three, the SPUC had tiny foetus models they were giving away and the signs were calculated to be as emotional as possible.

This is the first time I have seen this and I do not like it. Between that, the fash and the Palestine situation, as well as the fact we're in dispute, I am busy. But although we knew the SPUC were encouraged by US developments, to this extent?

What the...?!? This is disgusting of the police. Even more than usual. And who can I write a very, very cross letter about this?

But: Thank you for being there to protest those anti-choice tossers!!!

I wish I had known about this, so I could have stood against them too (has poster, will travel). No woman should be denied a safe abortion, if she wants one. No child should be unwanted!

[Deleted03]

Canada will be voting on establishing a committee to determine if science progressed enough to determine if a foetus is alive or not. As of now the legislation says a human being is one that is born alive from his mother.

This is the last episode in the constant trying by Stephen Harper to put the debate back on the table while claiming he's not debating the issue again. I think the NPD showed its true value when it said it would not be a free vote of its members (Party leaders can have a strong discipline party and ask a particular vote on issues at the risk of excluding some dissenting members) Both Liberal and Conservative Parties made no such claims. Because it is a "moral" issue they will leave the vote free.

[saraelise]

When I was visiting Ireland there was a huge anti-abortion protest because of a proposed law that I'm not sure even passed. It was such a shock to see something like that irl. I'm glad it never happens in Denmark, but if it did, I'd protest them too.

[Peas n carrots]

When I was visiting Ireland there was a huge anti-abortion protest because of a proposed law that I'm not sure even passed. It was such a shock to see something like that irl. I'm glad it never happens in Denmark, but if it did, I'd protest them too.

What was the age of the average protester? I think the Catholic Church has all but died in the younger generations.

I want to say that abortion is still illegal in Ireland. However, divorce and contraception have only become legal within the past 20 years there. Old habits die hard I suppose.

[Sola]

Yesterday antiabortionists Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child held a demo in our city centre. This has not been seen before. I think they are becoming emboldened by developments in the US, which worries me.

We counterprotested on the other side of the street. I made the numbers 50/70. To them. I couldn't stay long because I had another demo I had to be on, but there were other disturbing developments.

One, if any of us crossed the street to speak to SPUC, the police said we were at risk of arrest. Two, we saw the police shaking hands with the SPUC. Three, the SPUC had tiny foetus models they were giving away and the signs were calculated to be as emotional as possible.

This is the first time I have seen this and I do not like it. Between that, the fash and the Palestine situation, as well as the fact we're in dispute, I am busy. But although we knew the SPUC were encouraged by US developments, to this extent?

It is kicking off over here and it worries me no end.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service have had their website hacked a couple of times over recent weeks. Then there is Nadine Dorris who has had a campaign against abortion rights for a long time. Most of the time she has been written off as a nutjob but over the last week she has come against David Cameron and George Osborne and has been saying what a lot of people here have been thinking - that they are privately educated numpties who have no idea what it is like for ordinary people at the moment. By saying that she has given herself some credibility and that credibility might extend to her anti abortion campaign - yes people are that stupid.

It isn't helping that we do have a conservative government (yes I know it is a coalition but the lib dems are fucking useless) and our 'great' leaders do have links with conservatism in the USA (seek and ye shall find, it's all there, from business links to links to with your right wingers) so the nutjobs are coming out.

We don't have the amount of protests here as in the US, but there is far, far too much right wing propaganda going on here right now and people are falling for it. It is insidious and it is worrying.

[Peas n carrots]

It is kicking off over here and it worries me no end.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service have had their website hacked a couple of times over recent weeks. Then there is Nadine Dorris who has had a campaign against abortion rights for a long time. Most of the time she has been written off as a nutjob but over the last week she has come against David Cameron and George Osborne and has been saying what a lot of people here have been thinking - that they are privately educated numpties who have no idea what it is like for ordinary people at the moment. By saying that she has given herself some credibility and that credibility might extend to her anti abortion campaign - yes people are that stupid.

It isn't helping that we do have a conservative government (yes I know it is a coalition but the lib dems are fucking useless) and our 'great' leaders do have links with conservatism in the USA (seek and ye shall find, it's all there, from business links to links to with your right wingers) so the nutjobs are coming out.

We don't have the amount of protests here as in the US, but there is far, far too much right wing propaganda going on here right now and people are falling for it. It is insidious and it is worrying.

Ha, yes I've heard about that one...the one the husband refers to as the "auld coont." I believe he has his plans laid out for a party after said former PM's death, and I think it is a personal goal in DH's life to shit on said former PM's grave after they die.

You'll always have the BNP nutters and Tory numpties and right wingers who do occasionally say something that makes sense. I'm sure the far right has been emboldened especially with the far right success in the US and Brevik massacres but culturally, the UK is just far more secular. Could it reach a crazy point like the US...perhaps in a few generations. But I see the problem lying more with crazy Nationalist types not liking diversity than with crazy religious types not liking easy access to abortion.

If Jeremy Kyle and the chavettes on the council estates are any indication, it seems that plenty of young women are willing to pump out the babies if only to get benefits! ;)

[JesusFightClub]

I'm sure SPUC have done demos before. Also your wording makes it sound like you think they should ordinarily be too frightened to go out and protest. Emotional signs and foetus models are hardly illegal. I don't know about the whole you being arrested if you talked to them part but for all you know they told SPUC that as well. They have a right to protest just as much as you do.

Let go of the pearls, you'll snap the string.

It's not that I think they should be "too frightened" (do try to control your emotions) but that they are normally too small. The growth in such an organisation is not to be welcomed, and I suspect it's driven by developments in the US. Unsurprisingly, since I oppose their agenda, I am not delighted when they hold demos, any more than it delights me when fascists do.

The police warn us specifically because they see the SPUC as sweet concerned mummies and daddies with adorable weans and us as dangerous horrible anarchos. Have you ever encountered the police on a demo? Or had a dawn raid? If not, you really have no clue.

*sigh* Demo 101.

[fakepigtails73]

Canada will be voting on establishing a committee to determine if science progressed enough to determine if a foetus is alive or not. As of now the legislation says a human being is one that is born alive from his mother.

This is the last episode in the constant trying by Stephen Harper to put the debate back on the table while claiming he's not debating the issue again. I think the NPD showed its true value when it said it would not be a free vote of its members (Party leaders can have a strong discipline party and ask a particular vote on issues at the risk of excluding some dissenting members) Both Liberal and Conservative Parties made no such claims. Because it is a "moral" issue they will leave the vote free.

Harper voted against this. It was a private bill by a conservative backbencher. Any MP of any parties can try to get private bills passed.

Not the biggest Harper fan but he did vote against it and doesn't want to open the abortion debate.

[Athena]

Harper voted against this. It was a private bill by a conservative backbencher. Any MP of any parties can try to get private bills passed.

Not the biggest Harper fan but he did vote against it and doesn't want to open the abortion debate.

I'm also not a fan of Harper but I'm very glad to hear that. My mother voted for the Tories based solely on the abortion issue, believing that they would open it again and eventually outlaw it. My mother and I don't vote the same way. :roll:

It is troubling to hear that extremism is turning its ugly head in the UK. They've always been a beacon of social progression to us here in Canada.

[constantgardener]

Ha, yes I've heard about that one...the one the husband refers to as the "auld coont." I believe he has his plans laid out for a party after said former PM's death, and I think it is a personal goal in DH's life to shit on said former PM's grave after they die.

You'll always have the BNP nutters and Tory numpties and right wingers who do occasionally say something that makes sense. I'm sure the far right has been emboldened especially with the far right success in the US and Brevik massacres but culturally, the UK is just far more secular. Could it reach a crazy point like the US...perhaps in a few generations. But I see the problem lying more with crazy Nationalist types not liking diversity than with crazy religious types not liking easy access to abortion.

If Jeremy Kyle and the chavettes on the council estates are any indication, it seems that plenty of young women are willing to pump out the babies if only to get benefits! ;)

And as if to prove that point I have just come back from a family get together where my husband ended up having a full-on row with his sister about immigration. I am constantly shocked that people who superficially seem 'just like me' (young family, same sort of upbringing) should have such far-right opinions. They live in a city with a fair amount of deprivation and problems which they attribute to 'Pakis', and believe all immigration should be stopped so that we can go back to some (imagined) utopia where England was only for the English. They have considered voting BNP but "obviously we wouldn't want it to be like the Nazis". Aaargh. I am not very good at discussing these sort of issues without getting over-emotional so I bowed out of the conversation when it began to get heated, but this is definitely a much, much bigger problem here that religious extremism.

[Deleted03]

Harper voted against this. It was a private bill by a conservative backbencher. Any MP of any parties can try to get private bills passed.

Not the biggest Harper fan but he did vote against it and doesn't want to open the abortion debate.

I obviously need to catch up with the news :P

[saraelise]

What was the age of the average protester? I think the Catholic Church has all but died in the younger generations.

I want to say that abortion is still illegal in Ireland. However, divorce and contraception have only become legal within the past 20 years there. Old habits die hard I suppose.

As I recall most were women of a childbearing age. I remember there being lots of babies.

[stonefruit]

Let go of the pearls, you'll snap the string.

It's not that I think they should be "too frightened" (do try to control your emotions) but that they are normally too small. The growth in such an organisation is not to be welcomed, and I suspect it's driven by developments in the US. Unsurprisingly, since I oppose their agenda, I am not delighted when they hold demos, any more than it delights me when fascists do.

The police warn us specifically because they see the SPUC as sweet concerned mummies and daddies with adorable weans and us as dangerous horrible anarchos. Have you ever encountered the police on a demo? Or had a dawn raid? If not, you really have no clue.

*sigh* Demo 101.

Seriously. No one's saying it ought to be illegal or they ought to be frightened; JFC's just saying it's alarming to see an uptick in conservative protests. Reading, how does it work.

[geniebelle6901]

2 words....VERY SCARY!

[bellicosebroad]

I'm so glad that ain't my country... :shock: Still the development over there worries me a lot. I want women - everywhere, to have the same rights as I do here in north Europe. We are moving forward here. You are moving backwards. It's disturbing - to say the least.

We are indeed moving backward, and it's absolutely awful. I actually had a (female) relative say to me that we should go back about 100 years politically and "start over." Uh, women's suffrage, anyone? Didn't what those women put up with and accomplished (for *us*, the women of later generations) mean anything? We have the right to be involved in today's political discourse (and to vote, for chrissakes) because of them. And now, their efforts and accomplishments are slowly being stripped away while women like the aforementioned relative stand by and applaud. WTF?

[constantgardener]

We are indeed moving backward, and it's absolutely awful. I actually had a (female) relative say to me that we should go back about 100 years politically and "start over." Uh, women's suffrage, anyone? Didn't what those women put up with and accomplished (for *us*, the women of later generations) mean anything? We have the right to be involved in today's political discourse (and to vote, for chrissakes) because of them. And now, their efforts and accomplishments are slowly being stripped away while women like the aforementioned relative stand by and applaud. WTF?

I heard on Radio 4 this week about a recent survey that found that if there was a general election tomorrow, only 22% of people would vote. So many women have no idea (or obviously just don't care) about how hard women fought to vote and become involved in public life. My kids are only young but they already get mum's lecture about Emily Dickinson and the King's Horse every time I go to vote!

[samurai_sarah]

We are indeed moving backward, and it's absolutely awful. I actually had a (female) relative say to me that we should go back about 100 years politically and "start over." Uh, women's suffrage, anyone? Didn't what those women put up with and accomplished (for *us*, the women of later generations) mean anything? We have the right to be involved in today's political discourse (and to vote, for chrissakes) because of them. And now, their efforts and accomplishments are slowly being stripped away while women like the aforementioned relative stand by and applaud. WTF?

Ugh. I get upset to the point of incoherence about the attempts to take women's rights away, especially when that sort of thing comes from other women. It always makes me want to scream at them that they don't realize that other women have died, just so they get to have mental diarrhoea in a public arena, and be heard.

[Minerva]

I do think it's inspired by the activity in the US. Here in Canada, the waves of anti-choice activity are often just ideas from the US that have crossed the border by osmosis (the defund rally they held in Queen's Park last fall, for example). I have no doubt the "successes" they're seeing in the US are giving them hope that the political climate elsewhere is becoming favourable to them. As they're discovering, at least in Canada, it is not.

I find it a bit alarming that Harper has decided not to whip his party on Woodworth's motion, seeing as he usually does when it comes to the right to choose (and he whips it in favour of that right). Maybe this is Harper's subtle way of making it easier for his backbenchers to open the debate for him. Given that the NDP is unanimously against the motion, I find it odd that they're whipping their party. I think what they're going for is "look how against this we are: we're unanimous and we're STILL whipping the party", but I agree it would look better if they left it open.

I think the solution to this creeping anti-choiceness in otherwise relatively not-backwards countries is having a strong, proactive pro-choice movement that is out there educating people about why we need free, safe, accessible abortion and what it was like before we had that. Because the anti-choice movement is constantly doing "educating" of its own and I don't want us to wake up one day and realize that while we were sleeping our kids were indoctrinated. Ontario catholic schools spoon-feeding kids this shite and most of the population is twiddling its thumbs going "silly alarmists, our Canadian right to choose will never be in danger".

[fluttershies]

I dunno, I just don't see the sheer amount of religious craziness in the UK as I do here in the US. I just got back from a 2 week stint there yesterday, and I can count on one hand the number of churches in DH's hometown...and there are at least twice as many in the town of 6000 people I grew up in. At that, from what I understand the Church of England and Church of Scotland parishes are literally, dying out. I know Glasgow is a bigger, more diverse city and has a history of religious in-fighting, but it's not really the same as what is going on over here.

I think you are right the pro-lifers have probably gained some courage to speak out, and there will always be the uber religious. But personally, I don't think you have much to worry about ;-)

The problem is that Church of England and Church of Scotland churches are declining, and US-style evangelical churches are growing - the Church of Scotland in particular is liberal, and the CoE not that far behind although not as liberal, and those churches being outnumbered by fundie-lite churches is scary (and I speak as a member of the CoE). Catholicism is also stronger in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. Anti-abortion feeling in the UK really does terrify me.