U.K Anti-Choice Activism Embraces U.S. Tactics

LONDON (WOMENSENEWS) -- Less than 48 hours after Labour's parliamentary majority voted May 20 to reject amendments that would have reduced the 24-week time limit for a woman to receive an abortion in Britain, the party suffered a stunning political defeat by losing a seat in their majority.

Following the political playbook of U.S. counterparts, anti-choice activists took it as a sign they could ratchet up the relatively low-key issue of abortion in the next general election, which must be called sometime in the next two years.

"Now the bad fortunes of the Labour Party are due to largely economic reasons, but I have no doubt that abortion will be a major issue at the next election," said Dr. Peter Saunders, the general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship, one of 12 organizations in the Alive and Kicking alliance, a British anti-choice umbrella group based in London.

If the same political shift away from Labour occurs in the next general election, Saunders expects to "see a reduction in the time limit to the 22nd week or the 20th week."

His group and others vow to target members of Parliament who refused to lower the abortion time limit.

In line with U.S. counterparts, they have targeted certain areas of the law -- including the point of fetal viability -- and are organizing their core constituencies through churches and on the Web into a voter base.

Focusing on just when the fetus can survive outside of the womb comes straight from the United States, said Charlotte Gage, a campaign coordinator for Abortion Rights UK, a pro-choice umbrella group in London coordinating the effort to protect the status quo.

"There has been a focus on late-term abortion to confuse the issue," Gage said. "A total of 83 percent say women should have access to an abortion if they wish. So they only attack the only way anti-abortionists can, which is borrowing the tactics from the United States. They start chipping away."

U.S. anti-choice activists have been pushing abortion into the political limelight for decades. The Christian Coalition of America played a decisive role in the Republican Revolution of 1994, a mid-term election in which the GOP wrested control of the House of Representatives by making abortion one of the major issues in the so-called Family Values package of social issues. Since that election judges and even surgeons general have been vetted with abortion in mind during the nomination process.

Highlighting Voting Records

The U.K. anti-choice coalition is also pressing for election victory.

"Our immediate mid-term goal is to halve the number of abortions in the U.K.," said Saunders. "Alive and Kicking is not a political party. We support all MPs who support our aims and we oppose all MPs who don't. And we will make it available, the voting record of each MP, on how they voted on the time limit reduction. We have a search facility. It's only two years at the most until the general election. There are some Labour MPs who will most certainly lose."

An election earlier this month -- called to fill a seat held by a recently deceased Labour representative -- marked the first time in 30 years that the Conservative Party wrested a parliamentary seat away from Labour, a heavy blow to the ruling party.

Two days earlier, Parliament revisited the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill to revise and update it, taking in breakthroughs in medical science. Anti-choice legislators took this opportunity to introduce a variety of amendments. The most competitive reduced the abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks. Others sought restrictions at 20 weeks, 16 weeks and 13 weeks.

When abortion was first legalized in England, Wales and Scotland in 1968, a woman could undergo the procedure up to the 28th week of pregnancy and as long as two doctors agreed that it was psychologically or medically justified. In a 1990 amendment that limit was reduced to 24 weeks.