journalesque

Fail!

So, 24 weeks stays.  I'm somewhat surprised - there was a very real possibility of a cut - but pleased with the result.  I expect many pro-choicers will see the decision as a victory for women's rights, and I certainly agree that it will protect the most vulnerable women in the most difficult situations (including Northern Irish women, who are more likely to have later abortions), but realistically, there was never any major threat to abortion rights in this bill.  The biggest potential drop to 12 weeks was overwhelmingly defeated, and the more likely scenario of the limit being reduced to 20 or 22 weeks would not have resulted in any significant reduction of abortions since so few are carried out at that stage.

I'm going to risk some feminist wrath (although I suspect not really that much, since I'm pretty sure the only feminist reading is, well, me) and say that while I found many of the reasons put forth by Nadine Dorries in favour of a reduction to be weak (hint: if you run out of ideas, don't try to pad your argument with specious claims and rampant emotionalism), I do believe her to be genuine in her concerns and capable of making some reasonable points.  However, I would have been far more inclined to take her seriously had she not aligned herself with the pro-life propaganda machine and, in particular, with Andrea Williams, which was a curious thing for her to do at all considering that she openly identifies as pro-choice and supports emergency contraception, birth control and sex education (much to the dismay of the Shrill Meister, given the look on her face in the debate when Dorries stated her position).

I have to say, I've been fairly glued to the BBC's Parliament feed for the last couple of days and it's been something of a revelation.  Parliament is like a giant playground filled with balding and wrinkly, yet vicious as a pack of hungry Pit Bulls, children masquerading as sensible and competent adults.  I can't believe I've been wasting my time with The Apprentice and Gossip Girl when I could have been tuning into the biggest bitchfest of them all for educational purposes.  Even as a former and soon-to-be-again Politics student, I've never been quite bored enough to watch Parliamentary debates (there always seems to be more important things to do, like play Pacman or look at crap on ebay...), but I think I've been converted.  So much so, I almost stuck around after the abortion debate ended (I've never seen a room empty so fast) to listen to Willie Rennie talk to himself about radioactive waste management.  Almost. 

Write Now

The news from London is that the government is trying to get the abortion amendments in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill voted on a lot sooner than anyone expected – perhaps as early as 20th May. For those of you who didn't know, there is likely to be an amendment that tries to extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.

The Secretary of State for NI, Shaun Woodward, has written to Gordon Brown to tell him that there is no support here for the extension of the Act. The Family Planning Association has produced thousands of postcards to Gordon Brown to tell him that is not true. If you phone 0845 122 8687, they will send you as many postcards as you want to distribute among friends, etc. In Derry, they are being used on street stalls and getting a good response.

But you don't have to leave your computer to fight for this basic right for women. Send this email to everyone you know and ask them to write to the email addresses below (one email can be sent to all the addresses). Ask those MPs to support extension of the Abortion Act to NI and to ensure that 40 years after the NHS started providing abortions in Britain, women here finally get the right to choose.

It's vital to include your full name and postcode or they will ignore the email.

primarolod@parliament.uk
woodwards@parliament.uk
opikl@parliament.uk
harrise@parliament.uk
tongj@parliament.uk
mccaffertyc@parliament.uk
hoeyk@parliament.uk
bloodm@parliament.uk
alderdicej@parliament.uk
hermons@parliament.uk
coopery@parliament.uk
stuartg@parliament.uk

If you have time to email Gordon Brown also, you can do that at:

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page821.asp

Those of you are active in a trade union, especially UNISON, UNITE or NIPSA, get onto your union office and ask them to write to Shaun Woodward, Gordon Brown and Dawn Primarolo (Minister for Public Health) as soon as possible to inform them of the union support for extension of the Abortion Act to NI.

Among the things you might want to include in your email are:

- Women in Northern Ireland have no right to abortion, even if they are pregnant as a result of rape or incest.

- In NI, it's one law for the rich another for the poor. Anyone who has the money can get an abortion. Approximately 40 women a week leave NI to end unwanted pregnancies. About half go to Britain, the rest to Europe where the procedure is considerably cheaper.

- The difficulties of raising this money means women from NI having abortions in Britain are three times more likely than their British sisters to have an abortion after 20 weeks. If abortion was available on the NHS, as in Britain, most abortions would take place before 10 weeks of pregnancy.

- Some women will try to cause an abortion themselves. 11% of NI's GPs say they have seen the results of amateur abortions.

- There are women who will despair and kill, or try to kill, themselves. These are likely to be the poorest women who cannot get the money together to pay for an abortion.

- It is not true that "no one here supports abortion rights". All the larger trade unions: UNISON, UNITE and NIPSA have policies that support extension of the Act. Some politicians mutter that these are British unions "imposing" their views on us; this is nonsense. The policies were passed at Irish or NI regional conferences and NIPSA – the largest union in the region – organises only in NI.

- Women here have the same kind of sex lives, same chance of an unwanted pregnancy and same attitude to abortion as women in Britain or the South of Ireland.

We stopped the fundamentalists when they tried to prevent civil partnership being brought into NI by this kind of email campaign. We can do the same now on abortion.

***

Thanks to Goretti Horgan for the above. I'm working on a draft letter which I'll post a bit later for anyone who requires it.

Very Random Things

amateur d'art - French porn erotic art.

Britannica WebShare - Free subscriptions for "bloggers, webmasters, online journalists and anyone else who publishes regularly on the Internet".

Dear God - I'm not holding my breath for a reply.

ManBabies - Not what you think it is. Worse.

Robert Doisneau Photography - Sidelong glance.

The Billy Letters - Erik Menendez has lovely handwriting.

4 1/2 Inches Of Joy

i am not so serious
this passion is a plagiarism
i might join your century
but only on a rare occasion
i was taken out
before the labor pains set in and now
behold the world's worst accident
i am the girl anachronism

Every so often I go through phases of wishing I'd been born somewhere else. I'd still want to be me (although a smarter, taller and generally more brilliant me would be good), just me in a different place, in a more exciting time. In my mid-teens I wanted to be a hippie. I bought incense and wind chimes from my friendly local New Age shop, wore so much corduroy the friction from just walking around almost set me on fire and considered becoming a Wiccan (though ultimately didn't because the weird spell concoctions reminded me too much of a Home Ec. class and I was worried God might kill me). I was a child of the 90s with parents of the 70s who grew up listening to music of the 50s and wanting to be a teenager of the 60s.

I saw a picture of my mother once when she was around my age, maybe a little younger. She was standing in the sunshine, her hair waist-length and completely black, wearing bell bottoms and amazing platform shoes.

I'm not a big shoe person. Handbags, obviously, are my particular girl-vice. But very occasionally I'll see a pair of shoes - usually stupidly expensive patent Mary-Janes with at least a three inch heel - that I would just die for. Like these:

Patent? Check. Mary-Janes? Check? Big ass heel? Check. Obscene price tag? Yes, indeedy. And they're Biba. I love Biba! They couldn't possibly be more perfect...unless, perhaps, I could click my heels and be transported to Carnaby Street circa 1965. I had to buy them, of course. The outfit had already been mentally assembled. I'll probably break my neck. It'll be worth it.

Outraged Of Northern Ireland

It's not often I read something which pisses me off so much I feel I have to write an angry letter to someone. Oh, I compose plenty of angry letters in my head, but I'm far too apathetic to actually write and send most of them. Today, however, not only did I compose, write and send such a letter, I am still so furious about what inspired the letter that I'm blogging about it as well.

Now, I think that between my handbag obsession and fear of stretchmarks, we've probably already established that I'm a fairly shallow person. So I am only mildly embarrassed to admit that I subscribe to several extremely shallow publications, one of which is LOOK magazine. I know it's awful of me, but where else can I see a super-up-close picture of Amy Wino's scabs and on the very next page find a £23 Wallis copy of the classic quilted Chanel bag? Really, WHERE?? It's like my Playboy in reverse - I only read it for the pictures.

The "articles" usually consist of a Real Life Exclusive ("I Was Raised In A Cult!" *), a Scare Story ("Nail Bars That Maim!") and a Real Life Scare Story ("I Was Mained In A Nail Bar After I Escaped A Cult!"). Not surprisingly, none feature more than a vague attempt at journalism. In the 5 May edition, there is an International Exclusive (ooh!) on forced abortions in China. The story features a young woman whose pregnancy was forcibly terminated by Chinese authorities at nine months after her "successful businessman" husband refused to pay a bribe.

I am not going to deny that forced abortion, despite being illegal, still happens in China as one of its many human rights abuses. But there are so many things wrong with this article I don't know quite where to start. Oh wait, yes I do: the very first quote in the article comes from Antonia Tully, of the pro-life Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. The only other quote comes from Mark Allison of Amnesty International, an organisation notorious for its ambivalence towards taking a pro-choice stance on abortion.

Further on in the article is the suggestion that because Britain supports and contributes to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), it is "unwittingly" supporting forced abortions. Antonia Scully is again quoted saying that America withdrew $20m worth of support in 2002 because of China's policies on abortion and sterilisation. How noble. Unfortunately, it is blatantly false - the Bush administration withdrew its support (and provoked international outrage and opposition in doing so) because of its extreme anti-abortion (and anti information-on-abortion) stance.

The administration tried to use China as an excuse for withdrawing support by sending a fact-finding team to the country to investigate how the UNFPA was being used. The team (and subsequent teams sent by Britain and the UN) found there was "no evidence that UNFPA has supported or participated in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China". Bush chose to ignore this and the UNFPA lost $20m which would have been used to provide information on family planning and sexually transmitted diseases, give access to contraception and help vulnerable women go through pregnancy and childbirth safely. The UNFPA also funds projects that treat women with fistula, fight Female Genital Mutilation, build clinics in rural areas and advocates against violence towards women all over the world.

ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THIS WAS MENTIONED IN THE ARTICLE.

Email Ali Hall, the editor of LOOK here or at lookeditorial@ipcmedia.com

I'm off to cancel a subscription...

(* No, that was NOT me.)

Tabby

There has never been a blog post I've wanted to write less than this one. But to not write it feels wrong and I know of no other way to say how I feel right now. Last week, on a lovely blue-skied Spring afternoon, we put our 17-year-old cat Tabby to sleep. I made the decision during the previous weekend, but I had known it was coming for much longer so it was not unexpected at all...yet I am still oddly shocked that he's gone. I was quite sure until the call to the vet was made that I would change my mind and keep him just a little bit longer, but I had already kept him too long and I still feel horribly guilty that he may have suffered because I couldn't let him go.

We got him when I was seven. I never really wanted a cat. I begged for a dog for ages, but my mother decided that if I was going to have a pet then it would have to be a low maintenance one since she'd be looking after it all day. A cat was the next best option. I went to visit him when he was tiny, expecting him to be orange because I'd never seen a gray tabby before. I was disappointed at first and decided I'd prefer to have his black and white sister instead, but this little bundle of fur curled up on my lap and wouldn't leave, so that was that.

He was, quite possibly, the most laid-back cat ever. On long summer days I would strip the clothes off my dolls and dress him up, then wheel him around in a pram. He would snooze contentedly for hours, tucked up under a blanket in a dress and bonnet. He was my real live furbaby, the sibling I never had, my best friend. There were other pets over the years - guinea pigs and hamsters that he tolerated, at one (very brief) point a kitten that he did not tolerate - but they were always replaceable. There could never be another Tabby.

He developed cataracts and went blind about four years ago. He was always mostly a house cat and we got him a little harness so he could sit in the garden when it was sunny, which was about as much of the outdoors as he seemed to require. Last year, one of his eyes became infected and eventually had to be removed. That in itself wasn't a huge problem since it was virtually useless, but it required a general anesthetic which is always a risk for an elderly cat. Despite his age, the surgery was successful and he came home looking a little worse for wear, but still pretty much his old self and all was well again for some time.

In the last few weeks he started eating less and drinking a lot more. He lost weight quickly and became confused and unsettled. He had trouble finding his way around - which he'd always managed before even with the blindness - and would wail mournfully when he got lost. But still, when I picked him up and cuddled him and talked to him, he would respond, purring, wrapping his paws around my neck, tucking his head under my chin, and I could convince myself that as long as there were these moments then he still had some quality of life and I could justify keeping him alive, at least for awhile. Then the other eye became infected and we knew at that point surgery wasn't really an option. It was obvious he was miserable and had been through enough.

I couldn't take him to the vet myself. I told myself I just didn't want to get upset and stress him out, but really I know that if I'd been there I simply wouldn't have been able to go through with it. I do not often have the ability to do the right or responsible thing even if it makes me feel bad. Just about every difficult decision I ever make is based on what will hurt the least. I am not brave. My mother - who is almost always in a flap about something or other - is not someone I would usually consider brave either, but I guess she knew that for this one day she had to be braver than me. And she was.

When it was over I felt, more than anything else, relieved. He wasn't in pain anymore. It has only been in the last couple of days that the realisation he is gone has hit me. I look over to his spot on the bed still expecting him to be there. I wonder why I can't hear his paws tapping on the floor beneath my chair while he waits for me to reach down and stroke him. Sometimes I forget about him for awhile and then I panic because I don't know where he is. At night I instinctively leave my bedroom door open a little bit so he can get out and over and over again I search under the duvet with my feet, missing the familiar weight of him where he has been almost every night for as long as I can remember. I feel lost without him.

Sleep well, sweet boy. You were wonderful.

Big Questions, Bad Debates

So, this morning I was lying around in bed and felt in the mood for some stimulation of the intellectual variety (well, there was no other kind available). Since T4 wasn't really doing it for me, I flicked over to BBC1 and The Big Questions. I really should know by now to avoid TV debate shows, particularly those with disgustingly smug hosts, because they invariably end with me fighting the urge to hurl stuff at the screen. But, glutton for punishment that I am, I always start out thinking to myself that this time it'll be different. I just caught the end of the audience Q&A with Richard Dawkins, wherein he took great delight in shattering the entire worldview of a young woman by informing her that the universe does not, in fact, owe her anything. She sat down, crestfallen. I chuckled gleefully. I enjoy watching Dawkins immensely, though I haven't read much of his work (what I have read I liked, though didn't entirely agree with). I find him oddly likeable, and his manners are impeccable even when he's being shouted down by those purporting to be Christians. But I have to wonder why he bothers to go on these shows at all, when it's clear he's only there as the token Atheist.

Today's Big Question was "does the Devil exist?" The consensus from the commentators, which included a Bishop, a Rabbi and a woman in white who "has personally cast out demons" (throw in an Irishman and there's all kinds of joke potential) was, not surprisingly, yes. There was a rather stunning comment from a man I didn't recognise, but who Google informs me is the Christian Peoples Alliance London Mayor candidate Alan Craig, that "the only satisfactory explanation" for the Holocaust was that it was caused by Satan himself. This was not stunning from its sheer idiocy, but from the fact that upon making this statement there was not a single murmur of protest from the audience. Of course, when Dawkins had earlier, and quite correctly, stated that there was no evidence proving the existence of God, the audience howled in outrage. But the Holocaust gets blamed on the Devil and they all sit there like frickin' lemons. There was at least some retaliation from AL Kennedy and some other bloke I don't know but will refer to as "Dawkins-lite", but these responses didn't stop one not-so-bright kid in the audience from worriedly asking Mr. Craig how he could stave off the Devil (predictably, "by Christ").

The whole episode is now on iPlayer, so I can catch up on what I missed and fight the urge to hurl things at my computer screen instead. Perhaps from now on I'll just stick to T4 and battery-powered stimulation...

There Is No Back Door

Of the many ridiculous things that come out of the mouths of the pro-life lobby, their constant accusations that us dirty pro-abortionists and our baby-killin' cohorts are insidiously trying to sneak abortion into Northern Ireland via some mythical "back door" is perhaps the most mind-numbingly stupid of the lot.

This time it's Paisley's turn to pull out the old chestnut:

Ian Paisley has asked Gordon Brown for an assurance that the embryo research bill is not "a back door way to introduce abortion to NI".

The DUP leader argued that Stormont was the correct place to deal with the topic of abortion in Northern Ireland.

Quite apart from the fact that most British politicians aren't the slightest bit interested in the abortion situation in Northern Ireland (or indeed in Northern Ireland politics at all beyond having a laugh at those bumbling fools over the water), Mr. Paisley does not appear to have realised that abortion is already in Northern Ireland...and it always has been. Approximately 70 abortions are performed in the province each year and Northern Irish women routinely travel to England in their thousands to have unwanted pregnancies terminated privately. They then return and, quite sensibly given the wrath they they assume they'll face if they dare speak out about their abortions, keep very quiet, and so the cycle of denial over the reality of abortion in Northern Ireland continues.

I emphasise assume because the pro-lifers have done an astoundingly good job of attempting to convince the entire population that there is zero support for abortion in Northern Ireland. They've had help, of course, largely in the form of anti-abortion politicians in the leading political parties who are actively stonewalling the Department of Health's attempts to do as they've been ordered and set out guidelines clarifying the current law. Furthermore, given the recent Stormont "debate", it is quite laughable of Mr. Paisley to even suggest that this subject could be "dealt with" by our own politicians in any fair and reasonable way.

It's no wonder then that women who've had abortions refuse to talk about them. However, in my own experience of talking about abortion with lots of women (and men) - some who'd had an abortion themselves, others who knew a friend or family member who'd had one - the attitudes of individuals towards abortion are significantly more sympathetic and, more importantly, liberal than any pro-lifer would ever admit. But they know it. And they're terrified of it.

The fact is, if (when?) the liberalisation of abortion law in Northern Ireland becomes a reality, it certainly won't be by any back door. There will be no sneaking in of abortion rights because there should be absolutely no reason to regard such an event as being in any way shameful. It will be a day worth celebrating and I for one hope to see abortion rights march straight in through the front door with a hefty slam in the face of those who will, inevitably, loudly oppose.

Face Saving Promises

Two years ago, at the grand old age of 22, I discovered my first wrinkle. Well, it wasn't really a wrinkle so much as a small crease that appeared under my eyes when I smiled, but I hadn't noticed it there before, so I assumed the worst, bought myself some expensive eye cream and started practising smiling without moving my face (OK, kidding...mostly).

A couple of years on and the "crease" has been joined by what L'Oréal et al. optimistically refer to as a "fine line". I am not happy. Oh, I know it's perfectly normal and not noticeable to anyone but me - and even then only with a mirror touching my nose and overhead lighting - but still, if I'm honest (and I shall be since it's not like anyone's reading) I am more bothered about those damn lines than I am about immigration, climate change and third world debt combined. I am a shallow, shallow creature.

I can't help feeling terribly betrayed by my body. How very dare it try to age without my permission! I'm not supposed to get wrinkles. I still get asked for ID at the cinema. I have never smoked. I have never used a sunbed. If it doesn't have at least an SPF15 it doesn't go on my face. I do everything right, to the point of looking like a pale freak even by British standards for no other reason than so I don't end up a haggard old bag by the time I'm 40.

It's not that I'm particularly vain or high maintenance. I don't have a perfect body and I've mostly accepted that I never will. I'm neither the prettiest nor the ugliest girl in any room. I make an effort to look after the bits that matter to me, like my hair and nails, but most of all my skin. My skin is the only thing I've ever been complimented on (apart from my eyes and boobs, which don't count - everyone has nice eyes and who doesn't like boobs?) It kills me that one day in the not too distant future my skin will no longer be young and fresh and smooth.

In my most paranoid moments - of which there have been many - I Google Image Search random female celebrities, with the search set to "extra large" so I can compare their lines to mine. While I admit that this is completely, well, mad, it can also be quite reassuring. For example, Ashley Olsen's lines are much worse than mine and she's three years younger than me. Mine are pretty similar to Mandy Moore's (sadly, the similarities stop there), so I can't be doing too badly (on the wrinkle front at least, at life in general...not so much).

Of course, it's not all about the wrinkles. As aesthetically displeasing as they are, no one ever died from a few crow's feet. But wrinkles mean getting older and while I'd love to believe that being old can be wonderful, all I can see is a society that worships youth above all else. Which works out pretty well for me right now, even in this country, even as part of a generation so royally screwed by NuLab. I am valuable because I am young.

But what happens when I'm not young anymore, when I'm not useful, when I'm a sad old wrinkly lady with lots of cats? Greta Garbo had the right idea, I reckon. The reclusive lifestyle would suit me quite well and would, I suspect, be a much more sensible and classier option than hoiking my bellybutton up to my chin in an attempt to recapture my lost youth.

"The Lights Are On A Dimmer Switch!"

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6