The need for vigilance on women’s rights is examined in this opinion piece published Barking & Dagenham Post and Ilford Recorder 19.10.22.
Making decisions about our own bodies is a fundamental human right. Over the summer Humanists UK sounded the alarm over an underhand Government U-turn when it comes to supporting this right for women and girls. Our increased vigilance is needed as the US roll-back of women’s rights continues to reverberate.
22 countries, including the UK, signed a joint statement in July pledging to seek repeal of laws which “restrict women’s and girls’ full and equal enjoyment of all human rights, including sexual and reproductive health….” The statement was agreed at the International Conference on Freedom of Religion and Belief, hosted in London, where representatives of many Governments and faith and belief groups met to strengthen efforts to protect and promote freedom of religion and belief. But Humanists UK noticed that, when our government published it, they had removed the references to “sexual and reproductive health and rights’ and ‘bodily autonomy.’“
Original signatories condemned the UK for changing the statement without consultation. Senior Conservative MP Caroline Nokes, who chairs the Women and Equalities Select Committee, wrote to Truss, then Foreign Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities, to ask for an explanation for this “sudden backtracking on women’s rights.”
The US roll-back is championed by religious conservatives. Trump’s Supreme Court appointments tilted the balance in their favour. Their success has further energised a like-minded minority here, also keen to turn the clock back. On becoming PM Truss refused to appoint a Minister for Women, and appointed Theresa Coffey, a religious conservative opposed to reproductive rights, as Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health.
Freedom of religion and belief is front and centre of Humanist values. We took part in and supported the London conference. But we also highlighted, correctly as it turns out, the danger of individuals’ rights being usurped under the guise of religious freedom.
Reproductive rights should be attended with compassion, fairness and reason. Think of the agony of women and girls faced with unwanted pregnancy, such as war rape victims, victims of domestic and child abuse, and those struggling to feed and heat themselves, let alone a new baby. Imposing religious doctrine to compel women and girls to give birth against their will, or hinder their access to abortion, is neither compassionate, nor fair, nor reasonable.
Paul Kaufman
Chair East London Humanists
