Women’s rights under attack

The election of Tony Abbott has the conservative women-haters feeling pleased with themselves.

The bigots will be mobilising on 12 October in Melbourne for their annual “March for the Babies”. It will be a display of hatred for women’s rights masked as concern for the unborn.

The event has been organised by Victorian Liberal Party MP Bernie Finn. Its stated aim is to overturn the Abortion Law Reform Act, passed in 2008, which legalised limited abortion rights in Victoria.

In NSW the introduction of a private member’s bill, “Zoe’s Law”, which is an attempt to grant legal personhood to foetuses, is also providing a battleground over reproductive rights. If passed in its current form, the bill will possibly open women who obtain abortions to prosecution.

Access to abortion is a question of basic health care for women. It is a necessary service if we are to have the right to control our own bodies and make choices about how we will live our lives.

The conservatives know this. They claim that abortion is “a tragedy” and try to shame women and reinforce the idea that a woman’s main purpose in life is to have and raise children.

Women’s rights campaigners have put out a call to organise a response to the conservatives. A meeting in Melbourne on 20 September agreed to organise a counter-demonstration to the 12 October march.

It will gather at 12:30pm on the steps of Parliament House to confront the bigots and reassert women’s right to control our bodies.