> A UK Government-organised multinational statement committing to the fundamental rights of women and girls has been amended to remove references to ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights’ and ‘bodily autonomy’. The statement was issued by the UK as part of an intergovernmental conference it hosted in London on 5-6 July. A total of 22 countries signed the joint statement before it was amended. One – anti-abortion Malta – has first signed since. Humanists UK has expressed serious alarm at the changes. It is asking the UK Government for a full explanation, and if possible, a reversal.
>The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) has also expressed his dismay at the changes, saying that ‘Claims that FoRB can be invoked to deny women the enjoyment of their sexual and reproductive health rights… must be rejected as representing intolerant and patriarchal attitudes’. He says FoRB in fact guarantees such rights.
>The original statement was issued as part of the 2022 International Ministerial Conference on FoRB. It gave a commitment to abolishing discriminatory laws that ‘restrict women’s and girls’ full and equal enjoyment of all human rights, including sexual and reproductive health and rights, bodily autonomy’. It also said it would ‘support and build capacities of local religious and belief leaders to… ensure access to sexual and reproductive health and rights’.
>However, it has now been revised, removing all references to ‘sexual and reproductive rights’ and ‘bodily autonomy’.
Sounds about right wing
“Oh but it’ll never happen over here. The Tories arent anti abortion no not at all. Here face eating leopard party have my vote” – Average tory voter.
Wonder where all the recent “feminists” demanding we maintain women rights against trans people well be for this as well. Silence when the Tories first blocked it being added into their bill of rights. Gonna be silence again.
Edit: For those trying to claim Abortion is fully legal and could never ever be challenged or changed. They perhaps might want to you know look up what abortion rights and laws in the UK are. Theres a reason theres still constant campaigning to strengthen the right to abortion.
Abortion in the UK is on very strict grounds only and it’s only by the conscious choice of those in power to seek not to go after it that said convictions rarely happen. Note the word rare and note that there is regular investigations into pregnancy losses under the view that “it’s an illegal abortion and therefore punishable by law” each and every year.
Abortion in the UK still require multiple doctors approving it and nothing would stop the government taking a hardline stance on the law given the section often relied on is “risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman (up to 24 weeks in the pregnancy);”
Very loose wording and very very easy for any government to decide to change their approach on a whim. Anyone that thinks otherwise is just choosing to live in the mindset of “oh well we’re better we would never elect incompetent imbeciles or place religious nutjobs in positions of political power you know just ignore the House of Lords; multiple MPs include some ministers; or the widespread use of faith schools”
Wonder if this was pushed by the ERG? They seem to be controlling the tory party these days. And if Truss is elected leader then it will only get worse as a lot of her support is from the ERG.
Surely this is because of the plot twist in the latest episode of America?
This is massive. When people say all politicians are the same it’s bollocks. It’s only the Tories that want to strip away rights, time and time again.
Edit: And of course this happens as Parliament is going on Summer break. FFS
Edit 2: *(a reply a mine further down but I want to explain why I see this as massive)*
Its big because there is an anti-choice movement in this country and they’ve been validated by the RvW change in law.
For example, 8 days after it was overturned Nadine Dorries attacked our [abortion laws](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nadine-dorries-abortion-time-limit-b2118180.html). Now, I know I am quoting Dorries here but the point is she felt she could say something. More people will now come out of the woodwork feeling like they have a platform. And then you have the current government deleting abortion rights here to back this up.
Reading between the lines, attacks on abortion rights are gaining traction and this move will just emboldened more of the anti-choice people in the shadows to step forward.
Hold up, I distinctly remember being told in the UK subs that it definitely couldn’t happen here, because we’re all so much more enlightened than the US.
If you’ll excuse me, I have a ‘Told You So’ I need to polish up before it goes on display again.
It’s outrage bait lads. Ignore it
Abortion is already legal here, there is already a law legalising it. This treaty would just have been a doubling up on that law as a knee jerk reaction to events in another country (although admittedly with stronger language).
And reading the actual article, this was an international treaty on women’s rights, not an internal UK law, and was amended so that countries that currently ban abortion (Malta, USA) would also actually sign it.
What a lot of people don’t seem to get is how very, very terrible many other people really are.
Voting for ‘slightly’ racist ideas like brexit are the tip of the iceberg. Letting a ban on abortion be brought to the UK is absolutely a possibility.
Many people, if they get their way, are quite comfortable with the idea of taking society back to the Victorian age, or further.
Society is fragile, and we only get to keep it nice if we actively work hard to keep it that way. That means good education for the whole of society, good support to help people parent well, etc.
The problem we’re seeing with populism in democracy is that there’s a sort of cheat code selfish people can use to obtain power. Keep the population dumb enough and you can convince them to elect you based on lies. Keeping the population dumb enough of course has other terrible consequences, but the people in power don’t care, because they get what they want for themselves and their friends.
We can very much control how good or bad our own society is, but complacency will almost certainly result in it getting gradually worse. Honestly, to all those edgy people who think not voting is a good idea, they need to get off their arses and put some effort in.
There’s a bunch of people who want to *encourage* that complacency too. They’re the ones you’ll see arguing with absolute confidence on points like this
> oh there’s no way the Tory party would ever ban abortion
The Tory party would ban abortion *without a second thought* if they calculate that it will gain them power in any way. They don’t operate on integrity or values. Nor do many people who support them. **Their only care is ‘winning’.** Granted they aren’t quite as nuts as the American right, yet. But they will happily follow the same path.
> Oh but there’s no way the good people of the UK would tolerate that
The good people of the UK barely blinked when Boris said we should *honour* Jo Cox by doing exactly what her murderer wanted. The guy who stabbed and shot her multiple times.
That kind of psychopathic narrative should have had Boris out on his ass the next day. But no, he was *cheered* by other Tories, and then he trundled on, scandal after scandal until he is finally replaced with someone even worse. And does the UK public give much of a fuck? Not especially. Maybe some 10-20% of people really passionately care about stopping this shitshow.
Millions of people can absolutely be convinced to hold very, very terrible ideas, or to have terrible ideas they already hold legitimized. People like Hitler don’t get in simply because they befuddle the voting populace. They get in because the voting populace can be just as vile and evil as the person they vote for – often the voters are worse than the populist, as the populist won’t actually care for the views they espouse.
People are malleable, and some more than others. If we don’t have a basis for decisions such as general common goals (e.g. reduce suffering), and the ability to use logic to reach those goals, we will keep losing our way as a society – with increasingly terrible consequences as technology gets stronger, and resources become more scarce.
I wish a comet would wipe us out. I’m sick of this shit.
This is exactly what Rees-Mogg wants
This… has nothing to do with the UK’s own position.
In the UK abortion is legal, has been legal for a very long time as a result of statute (i.e. no court can overturn it), and there is no meaningful movement to have that repealed or amended. Abortion rights are not at risk in the UK, and given the general public consensus in the country I very much doubt they ever will be in future.
This story is about a treaty that the UK organised, seeking to secure commitments from other countries with less-than-stellar records on rights of women so that we can try to improve the situation elsewhere. Initially, the draft treaty proposed that abortion rights should be included alongside all of the other women’s rights that the treaty will commit the other countries to uphold.
However, in negotiations with other countries it turned out that many were willing to sign up to a lot of the proposed rights, but abortion was a sticking point. Rather than have the whole treaty collapse, the draft text was amended to remove the reference to abortion rights. So now the other countries are willing to sign up, and that will protect the other rights that remain in the treaty.
It’s not ideal that abortion rights were removed, and I’m sure the UK drafters who initially proposed that text will be disappointed, but it’s probably better to have secured some advancement of women’s rights than to get nothing at all.
It’s remarkable that some are able to take what is undoubtedly a positive development, led by the UK, and turn it into criticism because they feel the steps didn’t go far enough. If anything, this is a reminder that the UK is still pushing, though not always successfully, for abortion rights to be better protected elsewhere.
[deleted]
[deleted]
This reminds me of when my mum was in hospital.
They wouldn’t tell her what sex I was, as families from my community were getting abortions after finding out they were having a girl.
Why? Anti-abortion rhetoric isn’t really a thing here.
This kind of thing leads me to believe that there’s some serious USA money somewhere in the uk government.
What is happening with the world? Human rights are blatantly being rolled back by 100 years day after day. Literally yesterday they decriminalised hiring temporary staff to cover strikers too, so now striking is ineffective too.
The system has failed. Can we overthrow the government already?
So I read over the article and its worrying. Because I didn’t have time yet to do the proper research I was wondering if some people could give me a boost in my knowledge for when I do:
1. What is the significance of this document? Is it part of UK law?
2. Who gets to decide on what ammendments are made? The UN FoRB seemed to be displeased with the changes, so is it just the UK government that makes the changes?
3. How is the outline of the document enforced in the countries which signed it?
4. Can we as citizens do anything about it? Our protest rights have been limited, however this change can potentially disuade a large part of the electorate for voting Tory (potentially).
Thank you in advance for helping me out! I don’t want the British Isle’s to turn into another US State.
​
Edit 1:
So a few of my questions have been answerred by **McChes** lower down. It seems that my initial worry about Britain following in the footsteps of the US may have been unjustified. I am still going to look into it and decide for myself and I would appreciate any additional information from you folks!
As always some ridiculous knee jerk takes here. Please read the article before commenting
Even if this seems like a nothing burger, it is still important to express disdain for it. We need it to be be vocally clear that we in the UK will not tolerate the Tories further engaging with religious extremists from the USA.
If we show no room for the vile thinking that leads people to be anti abortion then we hopefully can get the Tories to back off the idea long enough for them to be removed.
So in the last 48 hours the UK has abolished union rights and is now making a go at starting to abolish abortion rights.
Last minute fascist speed run? What the fuck is going on?
Clearly very few people have actually read the article.
The group that pushed it in America said the UK is next and they are throwing lobbying money at it, a vice journalist broke the story
Tories would absolutely repeal abortion and anyone who thinks they wouldn’t is a stupid, naive fool. They serve the wealthy and our declining birth rate means they can’t get wage slaves like they’re used to. The Tories will force women to give birth, if it means that business of the future can continue to exploit cheap and bountiful labour.
26 comments
> A UK Government-organised multinational statement committing to the fundamental rights of women and girls has been amended to remove references to ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights’ and ‘bodily autonomy’. The statement was issued by the UK as part of an intergovernmental conference it hosted in London on 5-6 July. A total of 22 countries signed the joint statement before it was amended. One – anti-abortion Malta – has first signed since. Humanists UK has expressed serious alarm at the changes. It is asking the UK Government for a full explanation, and if possible, a reversal.
>The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) has also expressed his dismay at the changes, saying that ‘Claims that FoRB can be invoked to deny women the enjoyment of their sexual and reproductive health rights… must be rejected as representing intolerant and patriarchal attitudes’. He says FoRB in fact guarantees such rights.
>The original statement was issued as part of the 2022 International Ministerial Conference on FoRB. It gave a commitment to abolishing discriminatory laws that ‘restrict women’s and girls’ full and equal enjoyment of all human rights, including sexual and reproductive health and rights, bodily autonomy’. It also said it would ‘support and build capacities of local religious and belief leaders to… ensure access to sexual and reproductive health and rights’.
>However, it has now been revised, removing all references to ‘sexual and reproductive rights’ and ‘bodily autonomy’.
Sounds about right wing
“Oh but it’ll never happen over here. The Tories arent anti abortion no not at all. Here face eating leopard party have my vote” – Average tory voter.
Wonder where all the recent “feminists” demanding we maintain women rights against trans people well be for this as well. Silence when the Tories first blocked it being added into their bill of rights. Gonna be silence again.
Edit: For those trying to claim Abortion is fully legal and could never ever be challenged or changed. They perhaps might want to you know look up what abortion rights and laws in the UK are. Theres a reason theres still constant campaigning to strengthen the right to abortion.
Abortion in the UK is on very strict grounds only and it’s only by the conscious choice of those in power to seek not to go after it that said convictions rarely happen. Note the word rare and note that there is regular investigations into pregnancy losses under the view that “it’s an illegal abortion and therefore punishable by law” each and every year.
Abortion in the UK still require multiple doctors approving it and nothing would stop the government taking a hardline stance on the law given the section often relied on is “risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman (up to 24 weeks in the pregnancy);”
Very loose wording and very very easy for any government to decide to change their approach on a whim. Anyone that thinks otherwise is just choosing to live in the mindset of “oh well we’re better we would never elect incompetent imbeciles or place religious nutjobs in positions of political power you know just ignore the House of Lords; multiple MPs include some ministers; or the widespread use of faith schools”
Wonder if this was pushed by the ERG? They seem to be controlling the tory party these days. And if Truss is elected leader then it will only get worse as a lot of her support is from the ERG.
Surely this is because of the plot twist in the latest episode of America?
This is massive. When people say all politicians are the same it’s bollocks. It’s only the Tories that want to strip away rights, time and time again.
Edit: And of course this happens as Parliament is going on Summer break. FFS
Edit 2: *(a reply a mine further down but I want to explain why I see this as massive)*
Its big because there is an anti-choice movement in this country and they’ve been validated by the RvW change in law.
For example, 8 days after it was overturned Nadine Dorries attacked our [abortion laws](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nadine-dorries-abortion-time-limit-b2118180.html). Now, I know I am quoting Dorries here but the point is she felt she could say something. More people will now come out of the woodwork feeling like they have a platform. And then you have the current government deleting abortion rights here to back this up.
Reading between the lines, attacks on abortion rights are gaining traction and this move will just emboldened more of the anti-choice people in the shadows to step forward.
Hold up, I distinctly remember being told in the UK subs that it definitely couldn’t happen here, because we’re all so much more enlightened than the US.
If you’ll excuse me, I have a ‘Told You So’ I need to polish up before it goes on display again.
It’s outrage bait lads. Ignore it
Abortion is already legal here, there is already a law legalising it. This treaty would just have been a doubling up on that law as a knee jerk reaction to events in another country (although admittedly with stronger language).
And reading the actual article, this was an international treaty on women’s rights, not an internal UK law, and was amended so that countries that currently ban abortion (Malta, USA) would also actually sign it.
What a lot of people don’t seem to get is how very, very terrible many other people really are.
Voting for ‘slightly’ racist ideas like brexit are the tip of the iceberg. Letting a ban on abortion be brought to the UK is absolutely a possibility.
Many people, if they get their way, are quite comfortable with the idea of taking society back to the Victorian age, or further.
A scary amount of men are okay with the idea of raping women. At least in this survey, 31% said they would force women to have sex if they could get away with it. https://archive.ph/O3FgR And in this survey in the UK, similarly high numbers were given for forcing women in a married relationship to have sex https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/06/quarter-of-adults-think-marital-sex-without-consent-is-not-uk-survey-finds
Society is fragile, and we only get to keep it nice if we actively work hard to keep it that way. That means good education for the whole of society, good support to help people parent well, etc.
The problem we’re seeing with populism in democracy is that there’s a sort of cheat code selfish people can use to obtain power. Keep the population dumb enough and you can convince them to elect you based on lies. Keeping the population dumb enough of course has other terrible consequences, but the people in power don’t care, because they get what they want for themselves and their friends.
We can very much control how good or bad our own society is, but complacency will almost certainly result in it getting gradually worse. Honestly, to all those edgy people who think not voting is a good idea, they need to get off their arses and put some effort in.
There’s a bunch of people who want to *encourage* that complacency too. They’re the ones you’ll see arguing with absolute confidence on points like this
> oh there’s no way the Tory party would ever ban abortion
The Tory party would ban abortion *without a second thought* if they calculate that it will gain them power in any way. They don’t operate on integrity or values. Nor do many people who support them. **Their only care is ‘winning’.** Granted they aren’t quite as nuts as the American right, yet. But they will happily follow the same path.
> Oh but there’s no way the good people of the UK would tolerate that
The good people of the UK barely blinked when Boris said we should *honour* Jo Cox by doing exactly what her murderer wanted. The guy who stabbed and shot her multiple times.
https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-says-best-way-to-honor-jo-cox-is-to-deliver-brexit/
That kind of psychopathic narrative should have had Boris out on his ass the next day. But no, he was *cheered* by other Tories, and then he trundled on, scandal after scandal until he is finally replaced with someone even worse. And does the UK public give much of a fuck? Not especially. Maybe some 10-20% of people really passionately care about stopping this shitshow.
Millions of people can absolutely be convinced to hold very, very terrible ideas, or to have terrible ideas they already hold legitimized. People like Hitler don’t get in simply because they befuddle the voting populace. They get in because the voting populace can be just as vile and evil as the person they vote for – often the voters are worse than the populist, as the populist won’t actually care for the views they espouse.
People are malleable, and some more than others. If we don’t have a basis for decisions such as general common goals (e.g. reduce suffering), and the ability to use logic to reach those goals, we will keep losing our way as a society – with increasingly terrible consequences as technology gets stronger, and resources become more scarce.
I wish a comet would wipe us out. I’m sick of this shit.
This is exactly what Rees-Mogg wants
This… has nothing to do with the UK’s own position.
In the UK abortion is legal, has been legal for a very long time as a result of statute (i.e. no court can overturn it), and there is no meaningful movement to have that repealed or amended. Abortion rights are not at risk in the UK, and given the general public consensus in the country I very much doubt they ever will be in future.
This story is about a treaty that the UK organised, seeking to secure commitments from other countries with less-than-stellar records on rights of women so that we can try to improve the situation elsewhere. Initially, the draft treaty proposed that abortion rights should be included alongside all of the other women’s rights that the treaty will commit the other countries to uphold.
However, in negotiations with other countries it turned out that many were willing to sign up to a lot of the proposed rights, but abortion was a sticking point. Rather than have the whole treaty collapse, the draft text was amended to remove the reference to abortion rights. So now the other countries are willing to sign up, and that will protect the other rights that remain in the treaty.
It’s not ideal that abortion rights were removed, and I’m sure the UK drafters who initially proposed that text will be disappointed, but it’s probably better to have secured some advancement of women’s rights than to get nothing at all.
It’s remarkable that some are able to take what is undoubtedly a positive development, led by the UK, and turn it into criticism because they feel the steps didn’t go far enough. If anything, this is a reminder that the UK is still pushing, though not always successfully, for abortion rights to be better protected elsewhere.
[deleted]
[deleted]
This reminds me of when my mum was in hospital.
They wouldn’t tell her what sex I was, as families from my community were getting abortions after finding out they were having a girl.
Why? Anti-abortion rhetoric isn’t really a thing here.
This kind of thing leads me to believe that there’s some serious USA money somewhere in the uk government.
What is happening with the world? Human rights are blatantly being rolled back by 100 years day after day. Literally yesterday they decriminalised hiring temporary staff to cover strikers too, so now striking is ineffective too.
The system has failed. Can we overthrow the government already?
So I read over the article and its worrying. Because I didn’t have time yet to do the proper research I was wondering if some people could give me a boost in my knowledge for when I do:
1. What is the significance of this document? Is it part of UK law?
2. Who gets to decide on what ammendments are made? The UN FoRB seemed to be displeased with the changes, so is it just the UK government that makes the changes?
3. How is the outline of the document enforced in the countries which signed it?
4. Can we as citizens do anything about it? Our protest rights have been limited, however this change can potentially disuade a large part of the electorate for voting Tory (potentially).
Thank you in advance for helping me out! I don’t want the British Isle’s to turn into another US State.
​
Edit 1:
So a few of my questions have been answerred by **McChes** lower down. It seems that my initial worry about Britain following in the footsteps of the US may have been unjustified. I am still going to look into it and decide for myself and I would appreciate any additional information from you folks!
As always some ridiculous knee jerk takes here. Please read the article before commenting
Even if this seems like a nothing burger, it is still important to express disdain for it. We need it to be be vocally clear that we in the UK will not tolerate the Tories further engaging with religious extremists from the USA.
If we show no room for the vile thinking that leads people to be anti abortion then we hopefully can get the Tories to back off the idea long enough for them to be removed.
So in the last 48 hours the UK has abolished union rights and is now making a go at starting to abolish abortion rights.
Last minute fascist speed run? What the fuck is going on?
Clearly very few people have actually read the article.
The group that pushed it in America said the UK is next and they are throwing lobbying money at it, a vice journalist broke the story
Tories would absolutely repeal abortion and anyone who thinks they wouldn’t is a stupid, naive fool. They serve the wealthy and our declining birth rate means they can’t get wage slaves like they’re used to. The Tories will force women to give birth, if it means that business of the future can continue to exploit cheap and bountiful labour.