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FUCK SPUC!!!
Anti-abortion nutjobs SPUC are holding their “International Youth Pro-Life Conference” this 19-21 March in Clydebank.
We’ve fought the racists and fascists on the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh – now it’s time to fight the woman-haters.
SPUC not only want to stop women getting abortions – they’re also against condoms, the pill, and sex education. WTF?!
A woman’s right to control her body is a fundamental human right. Women should have total control over their reproductive system, being able to make free and informed decisions about how they live. Every undermining of a woman’s right to choose whether, when and how to have children is an attack on all women.
Every day, 200 women die because they couldn’t access a legal abortion.
After the general election in May there’s the very real prospect that abortion rights will come under heavy attack. Tory MPs want to make it more and more difficult for women to access abortion. If enough of them are elected there could be a majority in the Westminster parliament for gradually taking women’s rights to control their own bodies away piece by piece. That means we need to get organised now, and start undermining the ability of anti-abortionists to meet and organise against women. Just as we do with racists, we also need to do with misogynists.
Women’s abortion rights need to be defended.
FUCK SPUC!
Protest! Saturday 20 March, outside Beardmore Hotel, Clydebank. 8.30am.
The language used in this blurb does nothing to aide the fight against “anti-Muslim” or “anti-woman” “fascism”.
SPUC are an odious and disagreeable organisation. They are not however, fascists. Anyone unsure of this should consider Poland as an example: under Nazi occupation Poland was fascist, but its current ban on abortion does not mean that it is a fascist state.
My point is far from pedantic and is motivated by my support for both causes. Calling SPUC “fascist” trivialises the nature of groups like the SDL. It also discredits this cause by converting sincere rhetoric into childish melodrama. Ultimately, it robs the term fascist of all meaning.
Hi Andy,
We take the point in that using the term specifically is inaccurate, it’s been changed. The underlying idea though was to try and express what we’re trying to achieve with the protest. Realistically we’re unlikely to be able to convince many participants in the conference that they’re wrong. We’re going there to try and disrupt the ability of the organised anti-abortion reactionaries to organise and build the political climate towards supporting reducing the term limit. While not actually fascist, the politics of groups like SPUC is inherently misogynistic, i.e. woman hating, therefore the broader idea of comparing them with racist groups imo is valid. Personally, I think there’s a debate to be had about whether the SDL (although clearly containing several BNP members and far right figures) is strictly a fascist group in the narrow use of the term. However, I don’t think it’s worth quibbling over.
In a separate issue, personally I would prefer it if comrades who have a concern or want to debate these sorts of things did it in the comments on the blog rather than facebook events. When we make a facebook event it’s essentially an advert for an activity, that goes out to hundreds of people with varying levels of politicisation. I’m not being critical or trying to stifle debate, I just think it’s better kept for here where we want most of out political debate to be going on.
Also, over the course of the week I intend to do an fairly in-depth examination of who SPUC are, so that we know exactly what we’re getting into.
SPUC came to my (non-demoninational) school twice to give a talk to my moral issues class, when i was in 5th then 6th year.. first on abortion and then the second time on the ‘evils’ of stem-cell research.
it’s pretty horrific that they’re allowed into schools like this to advance their ‘pro-life’ arguments on 16-17 year old students, getting free reign for an hour to spread their fundamentalist propaganda without any other viewpoint given. me and a few of my friends challenged them, but i’m sure their talk still made an impression on a lot of people in the class.
And the week after that we had a Meeenister from the mainland to talk to the children. Only as a comparative thing you understand.
when i say ‘challenged’, i do of course mean, BURNED IN A GIANT WICKERMAN.
maybe we could take a giant wickerman to the picket? PAGANS AGAINST FUNDAMENTALIST CATHOLICISM
First of all, I really like that song. Very true.
Secondly, Andy, I do not think we’re being childish and melodramatic, I think it’s true. What is the purpose of pro-life other than to control and restrict what a woman does with her own body? This is eerily akin to what the racist organisations such as the BNP wish to do to immigrants. Control and restrict.
Fascism is about taking a position of power over a group/groups of people. Females are no different a group from Asian people, Asylum seeking people, gay people – we are female people! We’re a group under threat not only from these SPUC twits, but from the impending changes in abortion law.
Anyway, I’m glad we’re going to be heard about this, because as I’ve already mentioned, when David ‘Im-just-like-you’ Cameron gets into power, the period in which a woman can have an abortion will be shorter still. We need to start thinking about how detrimental this will be for poor women especially.
Abortion does not make a woman un-pregnant…
it makes her the mother of a dead child.
HAHA pro-spuc, get tae… and stop telling women what to do with their own bodies. see you on saturday morning!
btw, i recieved two texts about this from random folk tonight so word is getting out.
shut down spuc! no return to the backstreets.
Ahahahahahahahahahaha! Un-pregnant!
Let me ask; are you one of the high-larious folks who thinks IUDs and the Progesterone Only Pill causes abortions?
Paul Wilcox is pro-SPUC btw and is the one who’s been posting about us on the SPUC facebook page. One anti-woman nutter who used to be in the SSP does not a coherent argument against us make.
I wasn’t going to be able to come on Saturday because I’m supposed to be in Edinburgh but on the back of this I’ve decided I’m definitely coming back for it
ProSPUC… if you’re a pro-life catholic, how come you have 666 in your email address?
LOL no way, hi Paul – I kind of hoped it was you!
Yeah despite spending Friday night dancing away at Ewan Pearson I’ll be there on Saturday too. Not at half eight, but I’ll be there, spectacularly hungover and full of lulz and derision!
BTW Paul how many political groups have you been in now?
It’s actually not Paul that posted here. But if you’d like to chat with him about his latest in a long line of mind changes, you can do so here:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2222831342&topic=26672#!/topic.php?uid=2222831342&topic=26672
Ha! I still want his number; it must be some kind of record.
It would seem he is also a BNP supporter – http:// bnp.org.uk/members/pablo72/
Really guys, there are plenty of women who are against abortion. Lots of them will be at that conference. And on the topic of pro-life ‘propaganda’ in schools – give me a break. Pro-choice ‘propaganda’ is shoved into pupils’ minds every day anyway. All sides deserve a hearing so pupils can make up their minds. Don’t insult students’ intelligence, please.
At the end of the day it is a woman’s choice. And lots of men and women agree that abortion is wrong, and that’s their choice. The majority believe that abortion is allowed, and it is. If the majority is convinced by groups like SPUC that abortion is indeed wrong and it is banned again, who are you to stand in the way of democracy? Let the masses decide. Stop being vain and ignorant.
If a woman decides to have an abortion, who are you to stand in her way? If you are anti-abortion then don’t have an abortion, don’t try to change the law so women have to have backstreet surgery cos they can’t get a legal abortion.
And I went to a catholic school, the idea pro-choice propaganda gets thrown down your neck is bollocks. We got taught abortion was always wrong and that condoms had a 33% failure rate.
exactly. ‘pro-life’ and even ‘anti-abortion’ are misleading terms for SPUC. they’re anti-choice.
if a woman is against abortion then good for her – noone should try to push her to have one. and the reverse is also true. SPUC want to take away this right though!
and what are you trying to say ‘impartial’… that we should only campaign for things that’re popular and that the majority want, or otherwise we’re being ‘vain and ignorant’? it’s probably the case that the majority want the death penalty brought back! but then who are we to stand in the way of “democracy”…
Hey impartial, a few thoughts:
1) Do you know what the word impartial means? You clearly have a view.
2) If some Tory MPs succeed in restricting a woman’s right to choose in the next parliament, how is that an expression of ‘democracy’? You make it sound as if we’re away to have a referendum on the issue and everyone gets a say. We’re not. The handful of the population that have the money and the privilege to get themselves elected to the Westrminster parliament will.
3) It is not anyone else’s choice to decide what someone does with their own body.
4) You’re trying to portray things like everyone has some kind of legitimate point of view. But when your point of view is you want to take control of someone else’s body, and pass laws that will directly lead to the harm and death of thousands of women, then your point of view is no longer legitimate. It’s an expression of misogyny, i.e. woman-hating. You don’t have to be a man to be a misogynist, plenty of women have integrated the dominant ideas of our patriarchal society.
The way you put things across reminds me of the bit in Peep Show where Mark’s like “Isn’t that what a multicultural society is all about? You’ve got the Jews, the Muslims and the racists all living side by side.” Of course the problem is that one of those groups wants to attack the others, and their views are not legitimate.
I second what Andy says – I’m at catholic school and abortion is never mentioned except in the context of EXTREME EVIL, and the only time condoms get mentioned is to talk about how they don’t work.
Also, it’s not like SPUC are saying “we don’t like abortion, but oh well, never mind”. They would be extremely happy if the right to an abortion was forcefully taken away from women, and actively campaign to do this. If society had a vote and decided that abortion was illegal, I would be totally opposed to that, no matter how “undemocratic” that was, and would have no moral qualms about helping women to access safe abortions despite the majority that says it is wrong.
Thankfully the situation Liam outlined is only hypothetical – in reality, 77% of people support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to continue with a pregnancy. We are the pro-choice majority.
ALSO – my body is not a democracy, it’s mine!!!
Can I just get one thing straight a baby can be aborted at 25 weeks, no funeral no emotional attatchment, just dumped in a bin. A baby has been known to be born and survive at 25 weeks, so basically you folk wouldn’t see anything wrong with someone getting a knife going to that premature baby in its incubater and hacking it to death?? There is no difference!!! Its hilarous that you folk think that baby isn’t really ‘alive’ until it leaves the womb, murder is murder!! Just because you can’t see the baby doesn’t make it ok to end its life. You folk are entitled to your opinions but you have to allow others to have theirs. You can’t stop them meeting, that is not democratic and fascist! People are entittled to their opinions! Also I am getting fecking sick of every male who is against abortion being called sexist! It is the act of abortion they do not agree with you can’t call them sexist for that. I as a woman am against abortion so therefore I must be sexist to! You lot are against the death penalty but pro abortion, hmmmmm! Killing is killing! Personally I thinking making abortion illegal wouldn’t work but decreasing the at what stage you can have one and not ‘promoting’ it and making it so socially acceptable would decrease the amount of abortions. Would that not be a good thing?? Have you folk what a woman must feel like after aborting her child? I doint agree with pro-choice, you had the choice to have sex not protect yourself and you didn’t take it now its time to deal with life growing inside you not end it because it doesn’t suit.
Pro-choice doesn’t mean anti-baby. I love babies! That’s why I want every child brought into the world to be loved, cared for and wanted.
My friend just had a beautiful baby boy after being responsible and using contraception, which failed. She decided to continue with her pregnancy. Some people wouldn’t have done. I want every woman to have that choice.
Abortion is legal up to a maximum of 24 weeks – abortions after 22 weeks make up less than 1% of total abortions, and 90% of abortions are performed in the first twelve weeks.
One in three women have an abortion in their lifetime – so yeah, we know what we’re talking about.
The only thing that’s going to decrease that number is better sex education and better contraception – NOT attacking abortion rights.
This debate has taken very extreme tones, where words such as misogynist and fascist have been loosely flung around and been devolved any real meaning.
the entire debate around abortion is not something which is focussed on whether or not a women has the right to do whatever she wants with her body. this point is accepted by both pro life and choice individuals. Therefore your calls for this will only fall upon death ears amongst the pro life community. rather the debate is more focussed upon whether the fetus is a part of a womens body, or an independent autonomous human being. You obviously believe that the fetus is not an individual human being, but rather part of a womans body, you are entitled to this point of view, however it is reasonable for you to be expected to justify it.
The pro life community is not anti human rights, whether you agree with them or not, what the want to do is bring the only fundamental human right (i use the word fundamental because all other human rights are void if one is not given) to a group in our society which is most vulnerable, the unborn. that right is the right to life.
You as a group i’m sure believe we all have the right to life. the death penalty is therefore wrong, infanticide is therefore wrong,and the list could go on.
It does seem that if you look at whether a fetus is a human life, we must say yes. I say this because we recognize human life to beginning at conception from a scientific perspective. It would also be hypocritical to say a child born very prematurely should have infanticide committed against it for humanitarian reasons (they will have a higher chance of developing severe disabilities), whilst believing in the right to life. therefore if we recognize the premature baby as a human life with the right to life, it stands to logic that the equivalent age unborn child must also be a human life. if you have agreed with me thus far, that unborn children in the very late stage of development are human lives (which most pro choice people do because they agree on restricted abortions to the last trimester), then by taking his principle it is impossible to use the argument that the fact the baby is Dependant upon the women makes it part of her body (or else this would apply in the last trimester).
first and second trimester fetus’ should be considered both a human life, and an autonomous individual unless a significant reason is given to the opposition.
I have thought about it very much and tried to find a reason for why the unborn human should not be afforded equal dignity to the rest of us. I have never found a reason. Some people say they the so young, yet we have an age discrimination act. Some people say they don’t have sentience, yet the most active pro choice campaigners would be amongst the first along with pro lifers to fight, if we began to euthenise, as the Nazis did, people with severe mental disabilities. some people say it is the fact they are Dependant on the mother, yet we have established in the previous paragraph that this would be hypocritical because they are still a human life, and therefore have the right to life.
I am a pro lifer and i am not ashamed of it. I hope you have seen that my reasons for this are not religious, are not anti human rights and are not mysoganistic. If the only thing this testimony has done is to broaden you minds, to see that not all pro life individuals are crazy women hating, anti human rights extremist fundamentalist catholics then i will be happy. On the contry, most prolifers are in fact people who are genuinely concerned that human rights are not being fairly applied, if you disagree with this, it is not best to fling words such a fascist and misogynist around but to address the issues with coherent, logical and consistent argument.
thank you.
I now have a question now. please, if anybody has a good reason why they feel a fetus is not a human life and therefore does not have the right to life, please write below as i will be most interested to hear your views.
sean
I was once strongly supportive of a woman’s right to assert control over her body but it became clear to me that the body is tehy subject of shared ownership. In the same way that conjoined-twins are two persons in one body. The biology of life beginning at conception is clear and those seeking to argue otherwise are deluded. If human rights means anything they they must be shown to belong to all humans. it was this argument that convinced. I don’t believe in any god, just hukan rights for all humans.
AHAHAHA THE BODY IS THE SUBJECT OF SHARED OWNERSHIP?!!?
AHAHAHA
esp love how you said “the body” instead of “women’s bodies”… where can i get part ownership of a man’s body? totes want one.