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Post updated Sunday 10 July 2011:

Videos from the Saturday 9 January Abortion Rights rally outside the Houses of Parliament (unedited, so a bit rough in places). the demonstration was organised by the Swansea Feminist Network.

It was a well-attended rally, if a dispiriting one – dispiriting because we’re STILL having to do this. Still. Nadine Dorries’ and Frank Field’s obsession with compulsory counselling for women who want abortions, Dorries’ perverse pursuit of abstinence for girls, regular assaults on the late-abortion time-limit and the appalling erosion of abortion rights in the US: hard to believe we’re here, really.

Kudos to Laurie Penny, who took Diane Abbott on for repeating her “every abortion is a tragedy” line in speeches (she said it at the recent F-word/Liberal Conspiracy meeting to organise against Nadine Dorries) and on Comment is Free.

Penny was absolutely right – every abortion is not a tragedy and pretending that they are is an unnecessary sop to the “fetus-first” brigade – the (purportedly growing) misogynist middle which insists every abortion must come with a pound of female flesh. For some women, an abortion is a tragedy. For others, abortion is much-welcomed, get-of-of-jail card that women in a humane society should always hold. The truth is that if women are to be truly equal to men, abortion must be about the right to discard an unwanted pregnancy, no matter how it came about. That reality needs to be accepted and defended, not watered down to  suit caution.

I note that Penny and Abbott have had a discussion about this on twitter and seemed to have resolved it, but still – this speech ought to be compulsory viewing. Penny was exactly right: the pro-choice movement should not compromise its rhetoric under any circumstances:

Here’s Diane Abbott:

And Director of Education for Choice Lisa Hallgarten

Mara from the Abortion Support Network talks about the problems of abortion access in Ireland:

Fab pictures and blogging on the event from Harpymarx – a good retrospective on having to defend abortion rights in the last 20 years.