Tuesday 5 July 2011

War on Women Goes Global

Weird, dark days for women's rights and not just in the Excited States, though they do take the (fruit) cake.

In the UK, they have an adoption czar, who wants women to, guess what? Give up unwanted children for adoption.
Women who are pregnant with unwanted babies should be advised to have the child and give it away for adoption, the Government’s new adoption czar said today.

They should be offered adoption as a routine ‘third option’ alongside abortion or struggling to raise the baby themselves, he said.

What are the qualifications for adoption czar, you ask?
Mr Narey, a former Prison Service chief who became an advocate of adoption while running the children’s charity, said social workers should no longer press pregnant women with personal difficulties that they should bring up their child.

This, a day after scandalous abortion stats were released showing that some women aborted fetuses that would have become 'special needs' children. So, I guess those women should have carried to term and loving couples would be lined up around the block to adopt.

Yeah. Right.

Now, Poland, poor benighted Poland, where fetus fetishists are also on a roll and want to outlaw abortion altogether.
The draft had been submitted to parliament by anti-abortion activists, drawing support from about 450,000 petitioners from the conservative opposition as well as a rightist, liberal party in the ruling coalition.

Abortion is outlawed in Poland except in cases when pregnancy results from rape or incest, poses a health risk to the mother or if the foetus is severely deformed.

But even under such conditions, hospitals are known to refuse abortions.

Illegal abortions can be punished by up to two years in prison for those who perform them, while the women themselves are not liable.

Polish women's rights group say there are up to 180,000 illegal abortions in Poland each year, while official data indicates just hundreds of legal terminations annually.

We've followed stories from Poland before: like this one of a raped 14-year-old girl caught between the forced birth gang and more humane forces. She was separated from her mother and bullied by a priest into refusing an abortion. Sense prevailed.

This story didn't have a good outcome. A severely myopic woman feared for her eyesight if she continued her third pregnancy. She consulted a bunch of doctors who agreed that her sight was endangered but who wouldn't sign the permission for an abortion. Right to (fetal) life trumps right to see.

And now for some good news.

Last year, Spain liberalized its abortion and contraception laws. The Poop was pissed and Spain was declared to be on a direct route to hell.

Well, looky here. A year later, abortions have declined.

Funny, innit? Treat people like grownups and they act like grownups.

5 comments:

Pseudz said...

Fern Hill . . . there's some encouraging news about some of the consequences of the Zapatero government's changes to policies affecting reproductive rights; no hell broke loose! At the end of the linked article there's mention of an imminent decision(?) or statement(?) from the Spanish High Court - - what's to decide? Did I miss something? What's being contested?

fern hill said...

Dunno, Pseudz. Will stay on it. Maybe get Spanish reading/speaking pals to help.

deBeauxOs said...

ahem. I believe Beijing York is familiar with some Spanish vernacular.

fern hill said...

I believe you're right, dBO. I'll find a Spanish source and see what she makes of it.

Anonymous said...

I'm Polish. Suffice to say, I'm no longer Catholic, but the view from the other side of the pond (I live in Canada) tells me that Poland is still very much a colony of Vatican.

The Polish abortion underground is massive as you can tell from the annual number of illegal procedures.

As for the UK - 60,000 kids are in the system and they try to convince women to give up their future kids for adoption? And this is supposed to be the "loving" option? Ha! That's a good one!

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