ABORTIONORAMA!

Justin Bieber says a big FUCK YOU to women's rights

Today, in what can only be described as an ABORTION EXTRAVAGANZA, we bring to you not one, not two, but THREE news stories that should cause sighs of woe from all sensible (i.e. pro-choice) people.

First and most stupidly of all, is the worrying news that pre-teen hearthrob and Leftfield laughing stock Justin Bieber is ignorantly and vocally anti-choice. Not only is he against a woman’s right to choose what she does with her body & mental health because “it’s like, killing a baby yeah?”, he also has some very worrying views on rape too.

Speaking to Rolling Stone Magazine, J.Biebs said he didn’t agree with abortion, and was asked by the interviewer one of the obvious questions – “but what about in cases of rape?”

Instead of sticking to his bollocks “babykilling” line, The Biebs went further, saying “Um, well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don’t know how that would be a reason [to have an abortion].”

Bieber, listen up, or I’ll fucking abort you. Rape does not “happen for a reason”, other than the ‘reason’ that there are some disgusting men who make the choice to horrendously abuse women. Being raped is not a woman’s “fate”. The idea that “everything happens for a reason” is nonsense invented to try to force people in disadvantaged and oppressed positions to accept the abuse and discrimination that they face from privileged sections of society. Usually with some sort of religious undertone of “it’ll all work itself out when you get to heaven, so just accept your shit life and get on with it and don’t question authority”.

Women should be the only people allowed to judge whether they want to have a baby or get an abortion, and to make the vital decisions at this time regarding their physical and mental health. In an ideal world, that would be accepted as a matter of principle. However, it seems that Justin Bieber is so far behind in his social attitudes that he hasn’t yet even accepted the basic right of women who’ve been raped to not be forced to have a child that their rapist forced into their body without their consent, under violent and/or emotionally damaging circumstances. Even most right wing fuckwads generally make a wishy-washy type of exception for abortion in cases of rape, so it’s particularly disheartening to hear The Biebs hold that kind of backwards view. Get yourself a clue, Bieber.

I suppose some might say, Justin Bieber is only 17. It may sound excessive to judge the views of a stupit wee boy so harshly. However, two things are important to remember here – Justin Bieber is old enough to get a girl pregnant (and has many young girls flinging themselves at him daily, so it’s not unlikely), and therefore it’s time he grew up a bit and thought about the real issues at stake here before he opens his mouth to the media.

Secondly, Justin Bieber is inexplicably worshipped as a god by very young and impressionable girls the world over. Well, maybe it’s not so inexplicable when you hear his songs, which are designed to sound as if he is personally serenading each and every girl about how she’s his “baby” and he’ll never ever leave her. There’s something (creepy) about him that they just go batshit crazy for. His views MATTER to them, and therefore it matters when he says really really bad things. He has the ability to make a genuinely negative effect with his views, and if he’s starting to spread conservative anti-woman tropes, that’s really quite worrying. Just look at how absolutely loopy he sends girls as young as 3:

They go fucking DEMENTED for him and anything that tumbles out of his mouth. He needs to be educated, fast. On the one hand his carefully cultivated image is selling false ideas of intense and everlasting love and early sexualisation to girls as young as 3, and on the other he’s promoting outdated views of the realities of having sex and babies.

And so on to the second story. While The Biebs’s unfortunate quotes have the potential to cause fucked-up internal conflicts in future generations of women, there’s another story in the Guardian today that highlights a real and direct problem regarding early medical abortions for women in the UK today.

Early medical abortions are standard practice in most countries where abortions are legally available. When a termination is sought in the early stages of a pregnancy (which is the case in the majority of abortions), there is no need for a doctor or nurse to perform any medical procedure. Instead, a woman can visit a clinic and take a pill which terminates the pregnancy. Two days later, the woman must return to the clinic for a second pill, which causes a miscarriage to happen, so that the embryo leaves the body.

BAN THIS SICK FILTH!

In almost every country which offers this medical service, when a woman visits a clinic for the first pill, she is allowed to take the second pill home with her in order to take it at home in a comfortable environment. The main reasoning for this is that most women who take the second pill in a clinic will miscarry on their journey home, which for many women will be inconvenient, humiliating, uncomfortable or traumatic. In the UK, women are not entrusted with taking the second pill home, and must return to the clinic in order to induce miscarriage.

A high court judge on Monday ruled that, unless the Tory Health Secretary Andrew Lansley decides to change the law to state otherwise, women must continue to travel to clinics for the second pill and, in many cases, miscarry in public. The proposal, put forward by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (a charity), has been incorrectly labelled a proposal for “home abortions” – this is not true, as the actual termination of pregnancy occurs with the first pill provided, and changing the circumstances under which the second pill is taken would in reality only be a matter of creating a more comfortable environment for women during an uncomfortable time. Nevertheless, the judge ruled that it was only within the Health Secretary’s power to approve a wider remit of places under which an abortion could *technically* take place, including the home. Even though health is a devolved matter, the ruling would have applied to England, Scotland and Wales.

In Wales, the Guardian points out, there are no abortion clinics outside of Cardiff, so it is a myth that abortions are easy to access in countries which supposedly care about women’s rights like the UK. There should be no problem with a woman wishing to terminate a pregnancy in a comfortable home environment. Obviously in the current climate, where women require the permission of 2 separate doctors to gain access to legal abortion services (and many doctors are very rude and judgemental about the issue which is completely inappropriate), there of course could be the worry that allowing “home” abortions could lead to women who are scared to approach unfriendly doctors or who don’t know where to turn to get adequate advice and help, being offered potentially dodgy “home abortions” which may not comply to health standards. However, this is clearly not the case in this situation, where the practice can be changed without even changing the law or the interpretation of the word “abortion”. It is important that we remove all barriers to safe and easy to access legal and free abortions. It is such a fundamental right, and anything that places pressure or anxiety on women in the situation of requiring an abortion only serves to make abortions less safe and more traumatic.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is actually on record as saying that he is in favour of home abortions and getting rid of the 2-doctor requirement, although at the same time he argued for a reduction in the time limit that abortions are legally available within, causing misery for women in some of the most desperate circumstances. Still, he has said that he thinks abortions should be easier to access for women, and that is a very positive opinion for the Health Minister to be holding while we’re stuck with a generally backward and anti-women Tory government. And yet his response to this ruling has been… silence. Hopefully he will pull his finger out soon, but Zoe Williams makes a good point when she notes that while Lansley is the only person now with the power to change this anomaly in the UK’s abortion rights policy, he’s likely to remain quiet. Sadly, this is the case too often – pro-choice politicians are forced to stay quiet about their views because the anti-choice lobby is so aggressive, dangerous and downright crazy. And so the oppression of women continues de facto.

Abortion saves lives

The third story is one we’ve been meaning to make a point about for a while, but it’s something that’s ongoing and urgently needs to be addressed by the NHS. The Daily Mail recently hailed a ‘Victory for Christianity‘ in its murky, hate-filled pages, as someone who acted inappropriately at work was allowed to return to work, even though they were never fired anyway and were always simply suspended pending review.

It’s been a tough old time for those hard done by Christians of late here in PC GONE MAD GENDER BENDING BABY KILLING Britain. What with the draconian law stating that, shockingly, people who run businesses aren’t allowed to discriminate against people based on their sexuality (Suggestion: SSY Femi-Nazi Woofter roadtrip to Penzance?? We could descend on the town and really put the shits up them with our ceaseless arse-fucking), it’s almost as if the gay feminist mafia elite are trying to OUTLAW THE RIGHT TO HOLD BELIEFS!

Well, there’s some beliefs that should be outlawed, to be honest. The belief that it’s okay for you to use and manipulate your position as a worker in a public health service to put up blocks to or refuse someone access to an abortion that they want and need, for example.

The Mail’s “victory” was in fact the tale of an NHS worker who was suspended for distributing ideologically motivated lies in pamphlets about how abortion ruins womens lives. She never lost her job, and was in fact rewarded for not doing her job correctly by being offered a better job in a different department. She claimed she had been “bullied for expressing religious views”. But in fact it was her that was doing the bullying. She offered the misleading pamphlets to a colleague who worked in family planning, which amounts to attempting to persuade a worker who provides a vital medical service for women to either quit her “immoral” job or start fucking things up for women who came in to use the services. That’s an offensive way to conduct yourself while working for the public health service, and if there was any sense in the world the woman wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near family planning services ever again.

Thankfully, the health worker in question’s employer said:

‘The booklet implies that abortion can lead to alcohol and drug abuse, suicidal thoughts and increased risk of cancer. This could be very worrying and deeply offensive for women who may need an abortion and want balanced, sensible advice. We simply cannot allow NHS staff to distribute material that we know to be seriously unbalanced.’

Here’s a suggestion: if you don’t agree with providing medical services, DON’ T WORK FOR THE FUCKING NHS! It’s not a matter of “personal morality”, it’s a matter of you not doing the job you trained and signed up to do. If you have a fundamental disagreement with abortion, fine, no one’s forcing you to perform one. There are literally millions of other types of jobs which don’t involve administering abortion services. No one has the right to restrict the CHOICE of others to access abortions though, in any way – whether that’s murdering doctors, blocking the doors to clinics, or telling lies about abortion to women who need to have one. No one should be allowed to abuse their position of power (and that is exactly what is occurring when doctors refuse to give their permission for access to abortion services) to cause misery for women, and as a public service those who refuse to do their job or try to interfere with their opinions into the provision of and access to those services should lose their job immediately. They cannot be trusted with their power, and they should not be anywhere near the medical profession.