The headline on the front page ol lne Observer on lanuarv 29 was somewhat breathtaking: demand tougher laws to curb abortions". The first line was even worse: "A majority of women in Britain want the abortion laws to be tightened to make it harder, or impossible for them to terminate a pregnancy".
Well certainly no one had asked me - or indeed anyone else I know. Buried at the end ol tae aruce was oe or ation that Ipsos Mori had interviewed 1.790 people aged 16-64 by on-line questioning between January 6-10, in a poll that was conducted for the Observer. Quite why what is usually a relatively liberal publication is playing into the hands of the anti-abortionists and their religious backers is rather less clear.
The number of
women having abortions over 20 weeks is miniscule
at just over 1 per
cent and almost exclusively in very
dire situations
The poll results do not currently appear on the Mori website so there is no way of verifying the way the journalists have interpreted them. Apparently 47 per cent of women interviewed said they believed the legal limit for abortion should be cut from its present 24 weeks, while a further 10 per cent want the practice outlawed all together.
Zoe Williams in a comment piece in the Guardian two days later gave a robust response. She argues that talking about abortion time limits is just a new (actually its not so new) way of "pedding the pro-life position".
She reminds us that in tact the number of women having abortions over 20 weeks is miniscule at just over 1 per cent and almost exclusively in very dire situations.
She attacks the "mawkish fetishisation of the foetus" that she believes lie behind the poll results.
She also argues that the anti-abortionists should be forced to come out openly and argue their real positions and concludes "let's stop asking questions about time limits and let's stop answering them".
While the burden of William's accul is absolutely correct and it's certainly refreshing to have someone arguing an unequivocalv oro-coolce Dosidon wo the media, she does miss one important issue.
The problem is not only the anti-abortionists hiding their real position but the fact that the pro-choice movement itself, not to mention the women's liberation movemenl as a wnoie ls much weaker than they were when the last major battles were fought to defend and extend women's rights to control our bodies in the 1970s and 80s.
We need to make slogans like "Not the Church, not the state, women must decide their fate" and "our bodies, our lives, our right to decide" as common currency as they were in those days and win once again a popular majority amongst both women and men to defend a woman's right to choose.
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The Education White Paper - Richard Hatcher although schools have been free to reduced scale, and it is difficult to see how the White Paper will lead to further outsourcing without either more enforced delegation to schools or new legislation. The threat of local market pressure
However, there is one potentially powerful attraction of Trust status. In a competitive market it may be seen as a key advantage. Some heads and governing bodies will enthusiastically seize the opportunity, others will do so more reluctantly as a result