Worrying development here

[fluttershies]

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!

I think Emily Dickinson would be quite surprised to know that she was in England at that time, being an American poet :p You're thinking of Emily Davison :)

[easternabeille]

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.

I have to say in Belfast it has become quite common to see a group of anti abortion protesters, complete with petitions and large medically inaccurate and shocking posters. They mostly hang out around the open area around Victoria Square. Thankfully it's usually only a small group of people, no more that 7 or 8 at the most, though they've started leaving anti abortion literature throughout the city (leaving leaflets in phone booths, on benches, etc).

[fluttershies]

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! ;)

There's often quite a lot of anti-abortion sentiment amongst women on council estates and in poorer areas. I know when I was in a YMCA hostel there was a ~girls' group~ set up by a local fundie-lite church. Ostensibly it was about body image etc but somehow anti-choice rhetoric got in there too. Not good. I was the only pro-choice girl in the whole hostel.

There's also a Life (anti-choice charity) charity shop in the nearest big town to where I live, I refuse to even step inside. I didn't know they even had charity shops!

[Little Miss Alien]

I've also seen reported this week that kids at a Catholic school have been encouraged to sign an anti-gay-marriage petition.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/04/25/ex ... -petition/

I know it's not the same, but we do seem to be getting more conservative by the day over here. For the record, I didn't vote blue or yellow at the last generals, I saw through 'Dave's' deceit from day 1. My ex will verify that I totally called it right from the start that he was a wanker who would lead this country to ruin all whilst claiming to care. GUESS WHAT?!

[jaynie]

I too agree that the anti-choicers worldwide are emboldened by success in the USA. Maybe it's because I am a relentless optimist, but it's been my secret hope that as the world watches debates about whether or not women have more value than chattel, the apathetic masses will become more alarmed by anti-choice movements in their own countries and act accordingly. Merely suggesting we revisit the definition of personhood up here in Canada had a lot of people rightly alarmed, whereas I think before the craziness in the USA that sort of thing might have gone unnoticed, or the people who did notice it might have been less concerned. And even in the hickest province (which I live in, sadly), we just voted in a so-called "Red" Tory* (fiscally conservative, but with more open-minded social values) over a previously well-supported bunch of far-right loonies who had advocated, among many other terrifying things, defunding abortion, so that's given me some hope that if we could separate fiscal conservatism from social conservatism we might not lose all of the progress we've made. (Mind you, I don't support fiscal conservatism either, but it's a start).

I don't think it's enough to be an optimist though, and I agree that it's important to educate people about the importance of safe, cheap (preferably free) access to abortion, and what it was like in the Bad Old Days. An awful lot of ostensibly pro-choice people are content to sit back and let the other side have their say undisputed, perhaps not realizing what we are in danger of losing.

*I mean Alison Redford specifically, not every individual member of the PC party, for any Albertan readers.