The Severe Fetal Impairment Abortion (Amendment) Bill was narrowly rejected by Stormont in December. Introduced by DUP MLA Paul Givan and backed by anti-choice MLAs in the SDLP, UUP and Alliance, the bill attempted to restrict abortion access in cases of severe fetal impairment.
Just one week after International Women’s Day, a bill seeking to restrict abortion access in cases of non-fatal fetal abnormality was backed by a majority of MLAs and passed its second stage. Paul Givan of the DUP put forward this bill, cynically using the guise of defending the rights of disabled people in order to cut across the right to choose. For anti-choice groups, undermining abortion access in these circumstances is the thin end of the wedge, aimed at opening up a broader assault on the right to choose.
We know that Sarah ‘did everything right’; she walked a busy route, she made a phone call and let people know where she was going and when she was going to be home. But that didn’t stop the violent attack that cost her life. Almost 80% of women killed by men in the UK were victims of their domestic partner and were killed in their own home. Safety measures would not have protected them.
In January 1919, after a failed uprising led by the newly-formed German Communist Party, Rosa Luxemburg refused to leave Berlin despite the real threats against her; she didn’t want to leave her fellow workers who were experiencing counter-revolutionary repression. The Freikorps (paramilitary units) were sent to remove the ‘head of the beast’ – the revolutionary masses – by executing their influential leaders, including Luxemburg.
