Many of the rights we have long taken for granted have been eroded by this government. It now appears that yet another one may be in danger. A recent statement on ‘freedom of religion or belief and gender equality’ at a human rights conference was edited to exclude ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights, bodily autonomy’. Is the UK now following the US in the ‘pro-life’ tilt to the right at the expense of women’s rights?
On 5 and 6 July, a human rights conference urging global action on freedom of religion or belief was hosted by the UK government. The UK’s special envoy to the conference was Fiona Bruce MP (Conservative, Congleton) and the opening speech was given by leadership-hopeful Liz Truss.
The conference concluded with the publication of eight policy paper statements, including one entitled ‘Statement on freedom of religion or belief and gender equality’, signed by 22 of the participating countries. Amongst other things, the statement took an openly pro-choice position on abortion rights.
Then something deeply worrying happened: key words went missing.
Reproductive rights commitment disappears
The original text in the statement read as follows:
“[We commit to] uphold and protect gender equality, non-discrimination and freedom of religion or belief. Discriminatory personal status laws, laws that allow harmful practices, or restrict women’s and girls’ full and equal enjoyment of all human rights, including sexual and reproductive health and rights, bodily autonomy, and other laws that justify, condone, or reinforce violence, discrimination, or inequalities on the grounds of religion, belief or gender should be repealed”.
As first reported on 19 July by Humanists UK, subsequent to signatures being added, the statement then underwent modification, removing the mention of sexual and reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. Here is the amended version:
“[We commit to] uphold and protect gender equality, non-discrimination and freedom of religion or belief. Challenge discriminatory laws that justify, condone, or reinforce violence, discrimination, or inequalities on the grounds of religion, belief or gender and that restrict women and girls’ full and equal enjoyment of human rights”.
This was done without warning or consultation and it is still not clear who was behind the change. While eight countries have signed the revised statement (including now Malta, where abortion is illegal), many others have complained, and the majority have withheld their signatures.
Open letter asks Liz Truss for an explanation
On 22 July, more than 20 human rights, pro-choice and aid organisations sent an open letter to Liz Truss asking for an explanation and a reversal of the move.
The letter pre-empts any excuse that limiting the freedom of women and girls to exercise reproductive choice is an acceptable expression of a person’s own freedom of religion or belief. It quotes Professor Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, who states:
“Such claims must be rejected as representing intolerant and patriarchal attitudes that deny the equal rights of men and women to freedom of religion or belief. Such claims especially ignore that freedom of religion or belief also guarantees to women the right to bodily autonomy and conscientious choice.”
Professor Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief
The letter reminds Truss of the particular importance of supporting women’s reproductive freedom at this time, given the reversal of the Roe v Wade ruling in the US and the increasing difficulties being put in the way of women in the United States seeking access to abortion services.
A “deeply shameful” action
The revised version of the statement has caused consternation even within Conservative ranks. Conservative MP and Equalities Committee chair Caroline Nokes has added to the calls for an explanation. Expressing her concerns to the Guardian, she said it was very difficult to understand how and why the change had come about, since “Surely the religious freedoms being espoused must also include the freedom to have a right to an abortion?”
In an interview on the BBC Radio 4 programme Sunday on 31 July, Nokes characterised the UK government’s actions as “deeply shameful”. She expressed regret that the UK had “stepped back” with regard to confirming support for abortion rights when it should have “stepped up”.
Who is responsible and why?
In tracking down how this came about, it might be pertinent to note that the UK’s envoy to the conference, Fiona Bruce, is co-chair of the all-party ‘pro-life’ group of MPs. An interesting choice for the role of envoy, we might feel. However, in her BBC interview, Nokes suggests that the change is more likely to have come from a ministerial level source, so from Truss perhaps, or another foreign office minister.
Maybe it’s part of the same phenomenon being experienced in the US. With the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v Wade, legislators there are proving themselves to be more extreme than the people, who show clear support for abortion rights.
However, with even stronger support for access to abortion in the UK (in the British Social Attitudes survey of 2017, 93% said they supported having access to abortion if the woman’s health was endangered, and 70% supported a woman’s right to choose), and a growing trend towards ‘social liberalism’ in general, we might have thought that abortion rights were impervious to attack by any government. But possibly not.
Does this reflect Truss’s own views? In her emerging list of policy proposals, including scornfully dismissing Scottish democracy, are we about to be treated to ‘a return to backstreet abortions!’? If not this, then who wielded influence? Did some organisation promise funding for Truss’s campaign if those words were deleted?
Conspiracy theory? Well, news, like nature, abhors a vacuum, so, in the absence of facts, we are left to imagine the worst.
Be on guard
Ideally, no woman or girl would need an abortion; social attitudes and sex education would ensure safe sex behaviour, health issues would not arise, and rape would disappear. However, in the real world, unwanted and dangerous pregnancies occur and the right to end these safely is a human right.
In her opening speech to the conference, Truss quoted St Paul’s advice to the Corinthians: “Be on guard, stand firm, be courageous, be strong”. We should be grateful to her for this timely reminder.
If you feel strongly about this, write to your MP. Whatever their views on abortion, we can surely require them to take issue with the conference statement being so insidiously altered. And keep a careful watch. Don’t let the erosion of reproductive rights join the growing list of things we didn’t think could happen until they did.
