New anti-abortion bill threatens women's
BRITAIN
In 1967, the Act represented a big leap forward, and Britain's law seemed very liberal compared with most other countries. It allowed abortion on a variety of grounds — the woman's health, the effect on her existing children and for foetal abnormality — so long as two doctors agreed. One of the grounds allowed an abortion if it was safer right to choose than full pregnancy. With so little knowledge of the effects of legal abortion, it had been assumed that abortion was a dangerous operation, but it was this clause that in practice allowed doctors with a liberal atti-
ON JANUARY 22 parliament passed a new anti-abortion bill through its second reading, thus paving the way for one of the most serious setbacks for women's abortion rights since abortion was made legal under the 1967 Abortion Act.
The new bill - the fourteenth attempt to amend the Abortion
Act - was supported by a majority of only 45. It is sponsored by a Liberal Party MP, David Alton. Its aim is to amend the
1967 Act to make the legal time limit for abortions 18 weeks instead of the current 28 weeks.
LEONORA LLOYD
A
NUMBER of legal changes relating to "sexual liberation" took place in the late 1960s - divorce was made easier, relationships between homosexuals were legalized and abortion law liberalized. They were part of a climate in Britain at that time, known as the "swinging sixties", in which fashion and pop music were important factors in changing Britain's image and attitudes.
The important legislative changes occurred during a Labour government administration and were to have a profound effect on ordinary people's lives.
The political and moral climate has changed considerably since then, although in contradictory ways. There has been much talk of a "return to Victorian values", and there has certainly been a return to Victorian hypocrisy, with plenty of appeals for strengthening of the family and monogamy, attacks on single motherhood and abortion, while fewer people get married, more "illegitimate"
births are registered, the abortion rate continues to rise, and the Tory party is regrocked with sexual scandals.
Meanwhile, public opinion polls seem to show that, despite the evidence of people's actual behaviour, they agree with the politicians that such things are deplorable. The gutter press gets worse and its readership increases, and yet a recent poll indicates that the public thinks there is too much sex in the popular press! The British seem to be seized with collective schizophrenia.
The government, despite evidence that the majority of parents want their children to get sex education in schools, is now seeking to severely limit it by two measures in particular. One, in the Education
20 trel, respects sela ducation intes a cation
International Viewpoint • March 21, 1988 ity of parents have given permission (see IV 131); and the other, in the Local Government Bill, prevents local authorities (who also have responsibility for education) from "promoting homosexuality", which has been widely taken to include teaching that it even exists (see /V 135).
This, then, is the climate in which the anti-abortionists are making their most serious and dangerous attack yet on Britain's abortion laws, in the shape of the Abortion (Amendment) Bill, promoted by a Liberal MP who happens to be a Catholic, David
1967 Act promoted by
Liberal leader
The 1967 Abortion Act was also promoted by a Liberal, party leader David Steel. As a privately-sponsored bill dealing with a highly contentious issue, it stood little chance of getting enough parliamentary time to succeed, any more than a number of similar attempts before it had done, but the then Labour government gave it extra time. All the attacks on the '67 Act since then have also been in the form of private members' bills, and all have fallen because no government has been prepared to give any extra time for its passage through parliament. Without doubt, the enormous campaign mounted to oppose such attacks have been a factor in this, but it is also the case that the Conservative government does not want a return to backstreet abortion, nor to see a big increase in the numbers of disabled babies being born, at a time when the National Health Service (NHS) is under enormous strain already (see IV 136).
tude to grant permission, in effect, to give abortion "on demand". Society for the Protection of Unborn Children
That was certainly not parliament's intention. Abortion was seen — and to a large extent still is, even by some pro-choice supporters — as a "last resort" needed only by inadequate women: the poor, the mentally incompetent, the feckless and so on. Abortion, in this scenario, is seen always in a negative way, something that is always a "difficult decision", that is almost certainly going to result in some regrets, even whilst being seen as inevitable.
The possibility that some women positively choose to use less dangerous methods of contraception, for health reasons for example, knowing that they have the backup of abortion, is not considered, any more than the idea that other women have made the decision not to have children and know in advance that they would terminate any pregnancy, under any conditions, without regrets. For other women, the decision to have an abortion may be the first one they have ever made on their own and may mark a positive turn in their lives towards personal independence, maturity and liberation. That we now hear on pro-choice platforms the language of "regret" and "depression" is a measure of the success of the antiabortionists' campaign.
Even as the Act was going through parliament, its opponents were organizing to defeat it, in the shape of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC). It was largely Roman Catholic and this was seen as a weakness, so in 1970 a more specifically Catholic organization, LIFE, was formed, leaving SPUC as the supposedly "non-denominational" group. In practice, these two groups overlap considerably in membership, not merely with each other, but with other groups on the right concerned with "morality" and "family"
From the beginning, the way in which the Act worked attracted criticism. The enormous demand for legal abortion had in no way been anticipated, not even by those who supported liberalization, and the NHS could not cope. As a result, women who had been involved with the campaign before 1967 took steps to provide a service by setting up charities, which they saw as tem-
.M. e_N H porary measures until such time as the Health Service could cope with the demand, and, of course, the private sector was not slow to take advantage of the situation.
It took a little while for women and doctors to become aware of the new legislation and to start to use it. In 1969, the first full year in which the Act operated, there were 54,157 abortions, 4,990 of them on "non-resident" women (that is, those not from England or Wales, but including women from Scotland and Ireland). This represented a rate of just over 5 women in every 1,000 aged 15-44. In 1971, 126,774 women had abortions, including 32,207 nonresidents — a rate of just over 10. The abortion rate rose, with some fluctuations, to just under 13 per 1,000 in 1985, and then to nearly 13.5 in 1986. (The rates apply only to resident women.) In the meantime, the numbers of non-residents reached a peak in 1973, with 56,400 women coming to England for abortions, dropping to 24,589 in 1986. This change reflects the increasing liberalization of abortion laws in the rest of Europe during that period.
The large numbers of foreign women coming to London for abortions, together with the rising number of British women seeking terminations, led to increasing criticisms of the Act, orchestrated by the anti-abortionists. The press carried stories featuring plane-loads of women coming from other countries for abortions, being met by
OUR no taxi drivers who had arrangements with abortion clinics. Undoubtedly, this did happen — there were big profits to be made out of women's desperation. Internally, the NHS continued to be unable to meet women's needs, and in some parts of the country it proved almost impossible to find a doctor willing to give consent, or a consultant prepared to do abortions. It was, indeed, the consultants who were of most importance — an anti-abortion consultant in a key position could ensure that his whole hospital, or even a whole local health authority, refused to do abortions.
Question of time limits
La key issue
The increasing criticisms led in 1971 to the setting up of a committee to examine the workings of the Act, led by one of the few women judges, Justice Lane. SPUC, who had campaigned for this, were jubilant and were sure that the personnel of the committee would ensure a favourable result. When the Lane Committee reported that the Act was generally working well and had "relieved a vast amount of individual suffering", , SPUC and LIFE suddenly discovered that the members of the committee were pro-abortion and therefore bound to be biased.
The Lane Report was never debated in
BRITAIN re TRe a parliament. While it had been generally favourable, with several good proposals for improving the service, it accepted that the decision should be the doctor's and also suggested a reduction in time limits from 28 to 24 weeks.
In fact, there is no time limit in the 1967 Abortion Act. The time limit comes from a much earlier law, the Infant Life Preservation Act of 1929, passed at a time when abortion was still completely illegal. This Act made it an offence to kill a child capable of independent life and was designed to fill the gap between abortion and infanticide, in that it applied at the moment of birth, while the child was still attached to the mother by the umbilical cord. The child
"viable" by 28 weeks gestation at the latest. When the 1967 Act was passed, this was taken to be the limit
In every parliamentary attack since then, the question of time limits has been a key issue. In the first, a bill sponsored in 1975 by a Scottish Labour MP, James White, one of the proposals was to reduce the time limit to 20 weeks. It also attempted to restrict the grounds for abortion and to attack both the private/charitable sector and the right of foreign women to get abortions in England.
In 1977, Conservative MP William Benyon proposed an amendment which again included a reduction in time limits to 20 21 weeks, and in 1979 another Conservative,
March 21, 1988 • International Viewpoint
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O e Illustration: Christine Roche
BRITAIN John Corrie, included a similar amendment in his anti-abortion bill. It was this amendment which proved to be one of the stumbling blocks for the success of his bill -the anti-abortionists could not agree on a time limit. To accept a limit of 20 weeks seemed tantamount to accepting abortions before that time. Between the campaign mounted by the pro-choice side in and out of parliament, and the dissension on his own side, Corrie's Bill failed as the others
Series of anti-abortion publicity campaigns
Despite the growing acceptance of abortion reform, evidenced both by the successful campaigns to defend the Act and by opinion polls among both the public and the medical profession, abortionists were determined to deal a body-blow to the Act. They mounted a series of publicity campaigns. Around the time of the two millionth abortion since 1967, they had a series of advertisements in the national press showing a pregnant woman cut in half to show the foetus inside here. "If women had glass tummies", they asked, "would they have abortions?" The abortion rate continued to rise. Perhaps someone told the anti-abortionists that ultra-sound, which allows doctors and women to see the developing foetus, was being used routinely in most maternity units, and was not affecting the number of late abortions. At any rate, they dropped that partic-
Last year saw both the 20th anniversary of the 1967 Act and the three millionth abortion. For this, the anti-abortionists were hoping that one of their supporters would come high in the draw for private members' bills, and they prepared a bill with just one clause in it — on time limits
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— which was taken up by David Alton.
The Alton Bill is only about reducing time limits. The anti-abortionists have learnt from their previous defeats that it is not possible to attack the Act wholesale and have decided to compromise on the issue. For it is undoubtedly a compromise. Hardline anti-abortionists would prefer a bill along the lines of the previous ones, given that they cannot do away with legal abortion altogether. They see the introduction of more restrictive time limits as the thin edge of the wedge, getting rid of the Act bit by bit.
The anti-abortionists have fought a dirty, no-holds barred battle. Their propaganda has been centred around an attempt to prove the humanity of the foetus, using a photo of an 18-week "unborn child", which has adorned millions of postcards sent to MPs (sometimes hundreds in the same handwriting), posters and double-page ads in the quality press — a picture which now turns out to be of a natural miscarriage, taken in 1955, and of doubtful gestational age. Alton has described a method of late abortion in very gruesome detail, omitting to mention that it is used before 18 weeks, but not after, as support for his proposed cut-
Debate on disability and
Some MPs have even claimed that an 18week old foetus is viable, and since the Bill passed its second reading, there has been a report of a 21-week foetus "left alive for several hours", which Alton will pursue in parliament and with the police. This sort of horror story is common when anti-abortion bills are being discussed.
Over the last few years, the aim of the anti-abortionists has been to steer the debate away from women's rights and towards the supposed rights of the foetus. To some extent they have been successful in this; women have certainly not stopped going for abortions, but have begun to ask doctors if the "baby" will feel pain during the operation. Another tactic has been to claim that women will suffer "postabortion trauma", and that this can happen at any time. So if women claim that they feel nothing but relief after an abortion, they are warned that trauma will strike in years to come.
The third main strand of their campaign has been directed at the rights of disabled people, Which they say are undermined if abortions on grounds of foetal abnormality are allowed. They have always claimed that abortion allows society to ignore the problems which, they say, are the reasons for women wanting abortion - poverty, lack of child-care, housing and so on (rich women only have abortions for reasons of convenience, of course, because they are going on holiday or it would spoil their figure). In the case of disability, women are stated to want abortions only because of society's lack of help for disabled people.
There can be no question that all these tactics have been partially successful and that the response from sections of those who support abortion rights has been inadequate. In particular, parliamentarians and the medical lobby have concentrated on the 8% of abortions after 17 weeks done on grounds of foetal abnormality, and the hardship that would result to women forced to continue unwillingly with their pregnancy in such circumstances. Only a few have tackled head-on the question of "non-resident" women, supporting the right of women from Ireland and Spain in particular to come to England for private abortions, in the same way as others come for private medical treatment.
Some people have floated the idea of a "trade-off" — accepting some reduction in time limits in return for an amendment allowing abortion at 12 weeks on demand. There are a number of problems with this. First, and most important, 12 weeks on demand is not on offer and would almost certainly be voted down by the current parliament. Second, without a statutory requirement for all health authorities to provide adequate facilities, the law would be a dead letter. Lastly, it would still restrict the present flexibility allowed to doctors and
All public opinion polls show that, in general, people support the current law and think it works reasonably well. The problem is, of course, that women do not find out otherwise until they themselves need the service, and many of them just want to forget about it afterwards — shown by the numbers who admit to having abortions (one in ten), compared to the statistical reality (one in three or four). But there is genuine uneasiness about late abortions, and it is on this that the anti-abortionists are relying for success n their campaign. Fighting for abortion to be decriminalized
Those opposing SPUC and LIFE have come together in the Fight Alton's Bill campaign (FAB), which was set up by the National Abortion Campaign. NAC wants to see abortion on demand, the decriminalization of abortion, and adequate facilities available to allow all women to have NHS abortions. It has been campaigning for this since 1975, but since the defeat of the Corrie Bill in 1979, it has been battling with the problem of apathy — so long as the law is not actually under attack, only a few people realize the importance of maintaining the
Since 1984, however, when a split took place in NAC, it has been steadily working within the labour movement and has more than doubled the number of trade unions affiliated at national level, and greatly increased the number of local union branches and Labour Party and women's sections in its membership. In particular, it has stepped
BRITAIN Second, a substantial number of MPs voted for the Bill because of Alton's promise to amend it in its committee stage, by raising the time limit to... well, here he was vague, it could be anything; or by making substantial exceptions for "hard cases" such as rape victims or severe handicap. Third, and most crucially, 36 Labour MPs voted for the Bill and a further 19 abstained, despite clear party policy in support — not merely in support of the 1967 Act, but for abortion on request. A substantial number of these MPs represent Scottish constituencies, where abortion has traditionally been a more contentious issue, because of the influence of the Presbyterian Church.
### Fight to implement
Labour Party policy
Women within the Labour Party are therefore mounting a strong campaign calling for the party whip to be put onto MPs for the third vote, and for the de-selection
6.3 Women are faced with a new threat In the shape of David Alton's bill (DR) up its educational work, to counteract the influence of LIFE and SPUC in the schools.
NAC set up the Fight Alton's Bill campaign to draw in the widest possible support, on the basis of defence of the 1967 Abortion Action and no reduction in time limits. Within FAB, it continues to campaign for its programme, as a result of which membership is increasing at a faster rate than usual. FAB has involved all the pro-choice groups, as well as members of all political parties, including the Tories, and very broad sections of the labour movement. It has succeeded in getting sponsorship of its major demonstration to be held on March 19 - from both the national Trade Union Congress and the La-
FAB has also attracted all the far-left groups, only one or two of which have a consistent record of work in NAC (namely, those supporting the Fourth International). But some of these groups have played a very disruptive role. The British SWP, for instance, has disregarded the decisions of the organizing committee, alleging that it represents nothing. From the beginning they failed to recognize that setting up a campaign with limited demands was the best way to involve the broadest possible layers in fighting the immediate threat of the Alton Bill, counterposing instead NAC's full demands. There were also attempts to sabotage the one women-only event the campaign organized — a torch-lit procession on the eve of the second reading of the Bill, which nevertheless attracted over 6,000 women - on the grounds that abortion is a class issue, not a woman's issue (it is, of course, both).
However, the two central problems come from other directions. First, there is the emphasis on disability as the main reason for wanting to retain late abortions, which leaves the campaign open to the charge that they are ignoring the 92% of post-17 week abortions done for other reasons, and that they are discriminating against the disabled. The second central problem is the role of the medical profession and some MPs, who want to see a reduction to 24 weeks.
No reduction in time limits
The response to this has been to carefully explain why there must be no reduction in time limits at all, not least because this would be seen by the anti-abortionists as a victory, however limited, which would lead the way to further attacks, and to put the emphasis back to the woman and her right to decide whether or not to continue with the pregnancy. That this approach is succeeding is shown by public opinion polls, which have indicated a steady dropping-off of support for Alton as the weeks
Within parliament, the attack of the campaign is directed mainly at Labour MPs. Alton got a majority of 45 on the second reading. This was a lot less than at the second reading of any of the previous anti-abortion bills, but the overall vote for both sides was the highest ever on this issues, and one of the highest ever recorded for a private member's bill. He got his majority with the help of three groups in particular that the campaign against him will be highlighting.
First, all but one of the Northern Ireland MPs voted for him, despite the fact that the 1967 Act does not apply to the province.
of MPs opposed to party policy. Traditionally, there is no whip on private member's bills, but the government has recently broken that tradition in order to ensure the defeat of a bill to amend secrecy legislation.
Since the vote, Alton has drawn back on all the promises of amendments, saying that to increase the time limit and to allow exemptions for disability would emasculate (sic) the Bill. On rape, he has said that women would have had to report their rape by a certain time (before they could be sure they were pregnant) in order to be able to get an abortion on that ground (at present, rape is not a ground for abortion, although usually allowed on the grounds of the wom-
The two sides are unevenly matched. The anti-abortionists have money and church. Their advertisements in the national press, costing nearly half pounds, were paid for by a "philanthropic" businessman, and they have now announced that they are to launch a f1 million campaign of advertising and propaganda material. On the pro-choice side, the strongest card is the involvement of the labour movement and the personal commitment of many thousands of women feeling
At the end of the day, the issue will be decided in parliament, with its less than 5% women membership. There can be no question that the anti-abortionists are in a minority and that if they have their way there will be an appalling price to pay. In selecting the limited issue of time limits, they have posed the hardest task yet for the pro-choice lobby.
If Alton loses, it may be some time before the anti-abortionists dare to try again. If they win, even if in a limited way, we can be sure that it will just be the start of a long, hard battle to erode women's abortion rights, sex education, and even contraception. At stake are women's lives. The pro- 23 choice movement cannot afford to lose. *
March 21, 1988 • International Viewpoint
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