Values have shown that among young people hemselves there is a majority for mainmining some form age mainly from the point of view of provi ling an element of protection from the exual older specially men. However alongside this here is also a clear majority for freely vailable contraception and abortion NEW PACK NEW PACK LONDON DISTILLED Dual activity. Can advice be given:
consent, virgin, people, this examination out?
the ability vitro restricts Or if a parent asks a doctor to examine a daughter to see if she is a which the daughter does not agree to. Does the doctor have to carry ENOCH POWELL'S Unborn Children (Protection) specifically claims that its provisions: •...do not involve any issue concerning abortion, surrogacy or legitimacy. But MP after MP, in supporting his Bill, gave arguments that could equally be applied to abortion.
Norman St John-Stevas said: 'the embryo is ... human and alive ... the interest of the child comes first.' (He means the unborn child.) Tory Ann Winterton claimed that : basic humar rights are applicable from the moment of conception...civilised tradition must exclude the killing of the innocent.
MP Campbell-Savours said that if Warnock had defined when life began: 'it would have put the arguments about abortion on a different plane and...the law on abortion into the area of absur -dity? Sir Bernard Braine believed that the embryo is: 'a member of the human family from the moment of conception'. And so on, ad nauseam.
These MPs and Powell claim that 'experimentation' on human embryos (or, to be accurate, concepti) is wrong because all such research should benefit 'patient' and not kill it The Bill, as Sir Hugh Rossi spelt out most clearly, gave the embryo legal protection against this But Powell's Bill affects more than just the possibility of attacks on abortion and contraception if the embryo is given legal status. It directly affects the Not doctors to give women ir fertilisation treatment. It also many promising areas research which promise benefits for women and their children.
The anti-abortionists have played on fears concerning modern technology and medicine. Norman St John-Stevas referred to Brave New World. It is true that scientific advance is not always Drooress ve Dul most nas progressive features - it is a question of who controls it in whose interests.
Infertility affects one in 10 couples in the UK. In some parts of the world it is even more serious. in some areas Africa, there is a veritable plague of infertility. For women in the affected areas, it is a very serious matter indeed Bill — their status and to a large extent their economic security depend on being able to bear children.
Finding the causes and cures for infertility would radically alter the lives of millions of people. In vitro fertilisation iș a treatment that enables about one in 10 of those women undergoing it to have a baby.
Powell's Bill restrict the effectiveness of cedures that many doctors have said that they would have to either break the law (and face unlimited fines and up to two vears lall) GI women would still be prepared to abroad or find some way of getting the treatment here. Poor women would suffer. The right to abortion - the right not to be forced to conținue with an unwanted pregnancy an absolute right. The 'right to have a child' is not an absolute right and cannot be. But the right to be treated tor a curable condition should be a right in a civilised society.
To argue that women (and men) should not be obsessed with having children is to ignore much human suf fering and to forget that knowing that you are infertile in itself creates part of the need. It is to forget that women can have children people' Not all infertility can be treated by in vitro fertilisation and one important area of research that will be affected by the Bill is into the causes of infertility and the search for possible treatments. Some couple dare not have a child, or they face the prospect with mixed feelings, because of the risks of passing on some hereditary disease ror unem, too, rowell's bill nas alre consequences in terms of (in vitro fertilisation can be used to screen embryos) causes and cures Recent research has shown that ex. isting contraception is far from adequate. We have to choose between ease bined (the pill).
More would so Severel the pro- the Powell Bill.
proposals • stop doing it. Rich Other • is (or should be)
by the research.
still be 'whole decide.
citing research.
For defect.
treatment research into our choices. and safety in use, but low effectiveness (the sponge), high effectiveness comwith problems in use (barrie methods), near certainty of protection, but a high risk of sterilty or ectopl pregnancy (the IUD) and nearly 100 per cent effectiveness hut high health risks research on contraception that can be used bv all women. male contraception, and contraception that can be used in conditions often found in the Third World, where few or no doctors are available, is urgently needed. This research, too is threatened bi Almost certainly, the Bill will not reach its third reading, , but the same will be made when the government brings in its own Bill in the next session on the Warnock Report.
areas affecting reproduction will be up for grabs, too.
We cannot turn the clock back. The technology exists and can be used for our benefit or against us. We must use the time between now and when the government Bill comes out to increase our understanding of the issues at stake and to develop policies on how we, and expecially women, can control these new developments.
Ethical committees set up to control and oversee research must have a majority of lay members and a majority of women — it is us who are most affected We must determine where the resources are to be directed — is the development of a new con traceptive more urgent than finding the causes of handicap? It is we who must We are on the brink of many exbreak-throughs much more worthwhile than many areas of dubious We should develop positive policies in relation to them Only a few years ago, effective contraception was almost non-existent and abortion dangerous and difficult. The could radically expand The labour movement must throw its weight behind our campaign to increase women's choices. This way lies a better life for women and our children.
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RIGH WOMAN'S