George Monbiot

George has never been one to shy away from a complex issue. Here is one of the best articles I have read about the abortion debate:

Here’s the article in full:

Face facts, Cardinal. Our awful rate of abortion is partly your responsibility

I agree with His Eminence about the distress caused by the deaths of unborn children – but his policies will only increase the rate

Who carries the greatest responsibility for the deaths of unborn children in this country? I accuse the leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales, His Eminence Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. I charge that he is partly to blame for our abnormally high abortion rate.

Let me begin with a point of agreement. “Whatever our religious creed or political conviction,” Murphy-O’Connor writes, the level of abortion in the UK “can only be a source of distress and profound anguish for us all”. Quite so. But why has it climbed so high? Is it the rising tide of liberalism? The absence of abstinence? Strange as it may seem, the evidence suggests the opposite.

Last week the cardinal sacked the board of a hospital in north London. It had permitted a GP’s surgery to move on to the site, and the doctors there, horror of horrors, were helping women with family planning. Though it is partly funded by the NHS, St John & St Elizabeth’s is a Catholic hospital, which forbids doctors from prescribing contraceptives or referring women for abortions. The cardinal says he wants the hospital to provide medical help that is “truly in the interests of human persons”.

Murphy-O’Connor has denounced contraception and abortion many times. That’s what he is there for: the primary purpose of most religions is to control women. But while we may disagree with his position, we seldom question either its consistency or its results. It’s time we started. The most effective means of preventing the deaths of unborn children is to promote contraception.

In the history of most countries that acquire access to modern medical technology, there is a period in which rates of contraception and abortion rise simultaneously. Christian fundamentalists suggest the trends are related, and attribute them to what the Pope calls “a secularist and relativist mentality”. In fact it’s a sign of demographic transition. As societies become more prosperous and women acquire better opportunities, they seek smaller families. In the early years of transition, contraceptives are often hard to obtain and poorly understood, so women will also use abortion to limit the number of children. But, as a study published in the journal International Family Planning Perspectives shows, once the birth rate stabilises, contraceptive use continues to increase and the abortion rate falls. In this case one trend causes the other: “Rising contraceptive use results in reduced abortion incidence.” The rate of abortion falls once 80% of the population is using effective contraception.

A study published in the Lancet shows that between 1995 and 2003, the global rate of induced abortions fell from 35 per 1,000 women each year to 29. This period coincides with the rise of the “globalised secular culture” the Pope laments. When the figures are broken down, it becomes clear that, apart from the former Soviet Union, abortion is highest in conservative and religious societies. In largely secular western Europe, the average rate is 12 abortions per 1,000 women. In the more religious southern European countries, the average rate is 18. In the US, where church attendance is still higher, there are 23 abortions for every 1,000 women, the highest level in the rich world. In central and South America, where the Catholic church holds greatest sway, the rates are 25 and 33 respectively. In the very conservative societies of east Africa, it’s 39. One abnormal outlier is the UK: our rate is six points higher than that of our western European neighbours.

I am not suggesting a sole causal relationship: the figures also reflect changing demographies. But it’s clear that religious conviction does little to reduce abortion and plenty to increase it. The highest rates of all – 44 per 1,000 – occur in the former Soviet Union: under communism, contraceptives were almost impossible to obtain. But, thanks to better access to contraception, this is also where the decline is fastest: in 1995 the rate was twice as high. There has been a small rise in abortion in western Europe, attributed by the Guttmacher Institute in the US to “immigration of people with low levels of contraceptive awareness”. The explanation, in other words, is consistent: more contraception means less abortion.

There is also a clear relationship between sex education and falling rates of unintended pregnancy. A report by the United Nations agency Unicef notes that in the Netherlands, which has the world’s lowest abortion rate, a sharp reduction in unwanted teenage pregnancies was caused by “the combination of a relatively inclusive society with more open attitudes towards sex and sex education, including contraception”. By contrast, in the US and UK, which have the developed world’s highest teenage pregnancy rates, “contraceptive advice and services may be formally available, but in a ‘closed’ atmosphere of embarrassment and secrecy”.

A paper published by the British Medical Journal assessed four programmes seeking to persuade teenagers in the UK to abstain from sex. It found that they “were associated with an increase in the number of pregnancies among partners of young male participants”. This shouldn’t be surprising. Teenagers will have sex whatever grown-ups say, and the least familiar with contraception are the most likely to become pregnant. The more effectively religious leaders and conservative papers anathemise contraception, sex education and premarital sex, the higher abortion rates will go. The cardinal helps sustain our appalling level of unwanted pregnancies.

But the suffering his church causes in the rich nations doesn’t compare to the misery inflicted on the poor. Chillingly, as the Lancet paper shows, there is no relationship between the legality and the incidence of abortion. Women with no access to contraceptives will try to terminate unwanted pregnancies. A World Health Organisation report shows that almost half the world’s abortions are unauthorised and unsafe. In East Africa and Latin America, where religious conservatives ensure that terminations remain illegal, they account for almost all abortions. Methods include drinking turpentine or bleach, shoving sticks or coathangers into the uterus, and pummelling the abdomen, which often causes the uterus to burst, killing the patient. The WHO estimates that between 65,000 and 70,000 women die as a result of illegal abortions every year, while 5 million suffer severe complications. These effects, the organisation says, “are the visible consequences of restrictive legal codes”. I hope David Cameron, who wants restrictions on legal terminations in the UK, knows what the alternatives look like.

When the Pope tells bishops in Kenya – the global centre of this crisis – that they should defend traditional family values “at all costs” against agencies offering safe abortions, or when he travels to Brazil to denounce its contraceptive programme, he condemns women to death. When George Bush blocks aid for family planning charities that promote safe abortions, he ensures, paradoxically, that contraceptives are replaced with backstreet foeticide. These people spread misery, disease and death. And they call themselves pro-life.

Rose Hacker…

Rose Hacker, the oldest columnist in the world died on Monday aged 101. Until an hour ago I didn’t know who she was, yet after a little investigation I now feel saddened at her passing. Funny that. There she was living her life for 101 years unbeknown to me and now no more.

She did and said a lot of stuff in her time and was still fighting the good fight for social equality right up until the end. She was there right at the beginning when women got the vote, she saw two world wars, land girls, women’s lib and the 60s, the equal pay act, ’80s power dressing, and finally WAGS, cult of celebrity, and boob jobs. It’s clear that we’re in danger of regressing and men are still valued for their earning potential – but what does the ideal look like? The ’80s shoulder pads did nothing for us as we strove to appear more masculine in order to attain more power. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Strong women don’t have to act overly masculine and suppress their femininity as the stereotype suggests. Conversely overly feminised women who love pink and giggle a lot don’t have to be (or pretend to be) air-head bimbos do they? Or does that just go with the territory?

I don’t have the answers but I’ll keep asking these questions.

I’ll end with Rose Hacker’s haiku

What, where, why, how, who, when we are seeking answers, we’re happy and wise.

The state of modern feminism

With Anita Roddick dying the other week it got me thinking: who are the great role models for women these days? Who are the women that have any positive influence over girls? Seriously, who are they? I can’t think of any.

Women today have a perverse sense of feminism. Take that bimbo Chanelle from big brother: all she wants is to be a Victoria Beckham lookalike. As if being Victoria Beckham herself isn’t bad enough. The brain rot that is big brother finished months ago yet the tabloids are still writing about this girl. She’s pretty and probably does have a brain rattling around in her head but what an absurd ambition.

The trouble with feminism these days is either people thinks it’s all butch lesbians and man hating and shun the women that try and talk sensibly about the issue. Others believe there’s no real need for it any more – that we’re equal to men. However you go and talk to yet another city girl who’s been passed over for promotion because she’s thinking about having a baby.

I’m not about to start burning my bra but it’s a sorry state of affairs when the only women I can think of that get held up as role models are Stella McCartney and Sadie Frost. Both shrewd business women but in fashion and we all know how that industry helps to erode women’s self worth.