Women's Fightback, Feminism

The trial and jailing of Carla Foster for an abortion past legal term limits should be a catalyst for a new movement for abortion rights. Mobilisations and campaigning so far have been led by liberal groups like the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and the Fawcett Society. They argue that the rest of the UK is now out of step with Northern Ireland, where a 2019 law legalising abortion put a moratorium on abortion-related criminal prosecutions. It is true dealing with abortion within criminal law stigmatises all abortions and leads to unjust sentencing like that of Carla Foster. But we...

In its early phase, her life-story was a bit like a Barbara Cartland-style romance.

The sentencing of Carla Foster in June, for procuring drugs to induce an abortion past the legal term limit, has been a stark reminder of how limited our reproductive rights really are. This is unjustifiable. No one should be imprisoned for ending a pregnancy, and no should be forced to stay pregnant against their wishes. Below is a model motion to submit to your Labour Party or trade union branch, calling for the decriminalisation of abortion and the abolition of term limits. Please amend as appropriate and let us know when it has been passed: office@workersliberty.org.uk MOTION: AS EARLY AS...

On 17 June abortion rights supporters marched in solidarity with a woman jailed for two years for breaking abortion laws. The protest in London was sparked when a 44-year-old mother of three was given a 28-month extended sentence earlier in week after taking abortion pills after the 24-week legal limit. She was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant at the time. Protesters marched from the Royal Courts of Justice to Whitehall, demanding release of the woman and an end to the criminalisation of abortion. The same week people in Poland marched in at least 80 towns and cities to protest the death of a...

Please help the campaign to free Sephideh Gholian by passing this motion in your union branch. This branch notes The extreme repression used by the Iranian regime in the aftermath of the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini by the so-called Morality police in September 2022. At least 537 people have been killed, over 20,000 arrested, and 7 executed during the women-led mass protests against the compulsory hijab law in Iran. Demonstrators have demanded “Women, Life, Freedom.” Women are heavily discriminated against in employment, custody rights, education and inheritance. The legal age for marriage, for...

On 12 June, a woman, Carla Foster, was sentenced to 28 months in prison for obtaining drugs to induce an abortion after the legal term limit. After taking the medication, she experienced complications and called 999. Police were called to her hospital bedside. Currently, the legal limit on having an abortion in England, Scotland and Wales is 23 weeks and six days, as per the Abortion Act of 1967. The maximum sentence under the The Offences against the Person Act, which applies in cases of illegal abortion, is life imprisonment. Compared to countries around the world like Poland and the US, it...

Dozens of women’s rights activists and journalists gathered in Sidon, Lebanon, on 21 May, in solidarity with a woman harassed by religious reactionaries for wearing a swimsuit at a public beach. Two men demanded Mayssa Hanouni Yaafouri and her husband leave a public beach because Yaafouri was wearing a one-piece swimsuit. “They said it’s their law — the power of the sheikh,” Yaafouri told Al Jazeera. When the couple refused to leave, the men returned with at least a dozen others surrounding them. They began kicking a football around the couple, and kicking sand at them. Lebanese law does not...

Iran’s dictatorship tightened restrictions on medical abortions and banned the free distribution of contraceptives in 2021 amid a moral panic around the birth-rate. Iranian women have been choosing fewer children in part due to economic crisis. This has led to public health alarm about numbers of illegal abortions. Government officials have said that each year between 300,000 to 600,000 abortions are performed in the country, and over 90% are illegal. Access to contraception and legal abortion is driving a dangerous black market. Until recently abortions could be legally performed during the...

Alva Gotby’s They Call It Love: The Politics of Emotional Life is the latest contribution to a growing series of Verso books on the topic of Social Reproduction Theory, in which Gotby explores the concept of emotional reproduction. She defines this as, on the one hand, the work of generating certain feelings in those around us, and, on the other, the work of maintaining the social norms that are both “cause and effect” of emotional labour as we know it. Family The nuclear family, Gotby explains, remains the “proper place of intense feeling”; the source of emotional well-being and where we’re...

In the Serbian capital of Belgrade, protests have been held since September 2022, when a pro-government newspaper published an interview with Igor Milošević, who had served a 15-year sentence for numerous rapes and physical assaults on women. The piece instructed women on how to protect themselves during sexual assault. “While I was raping and robbing, I felt freedom,” said Milošević. He reportedly threatened the female journalist who interviewed him, telling her, “If I decide to rape you, I will.” Ženska Solidarnost (Women’s Solidarity), a Belgrade-based women’s collective, began calling...