What I post about
Reading the comment from Justin below, which asks:
So you didn’t fancy posting on Tony’s attempt to introduce periods of internment that would have appealed to Henrik Verwoerd?
I began to think about which thoughts do and which don’t get turned into blog posts.
At about the same time, Tim Worstall’s britblog round-up appeared in my RSS feed reader, and directed me to a post by a guy called Duncan about the preoccupations of the blogosphere, and the way that both the 90 days’ detention proposal and the ID cards proposal were/are opposed by vast majorities of bloggers, whilst gaining the support of the majority of the voting public.
At this point, I’ll be clear: despite my Labour membership, I wasn’t happy about the plan for 90 days’ detention, and at best I’m agnostic on ID cards. But I’m not going to write about them, because frankly, I find them boring. That’s not to say that they’re not important, or that I don’t give a shit, just that if you want to talk about the war / Iraq / terrorism / ID cards / security, and for that matter, Europe / PR / voting reform, go and find some other blogger.
On a related note, considering the list of exclusions I have made and also my favoured topics, you would think that I would have blogged about Sue Axom’s ridiculous challenge to the right of young people to receive confidential advice about and referrals for contraceptive and abortion services. Sorry I haven’t: Philobiblion says pretty much everything that I would have done.
I would only add:
1. This challenge isn’t about parents’ rights, it’s a Trojan horse to reduce all women’s rights to choose. We know from the States that the way to reduce the practical right to choose whilst theoretically still keeping it legal is to chip slowly away at the edges - parental notification, spousal notification, pressure to allow professionals to opt out of provision but not to have to refer on, reducing time limits, enforcing “counselling” before abortion - and that’s exactly the tactic at play here.
2. That her daughter is pregnant only adds to the drama. I’m sorry for the young woman herself, who as she became pregnant after her mother began the challenge clearly has no right to choose at all, and furious with the mother, who has made her daughter’s sex life open season.
People wanting to read a really good security related weblog should take a look at the one run by Bruce Schneier. Many of his general observations, in both the blog and his books, informed the writing of the report to Canada’s Department of National Defence that I drafted earlier this year.
“pressure to allow professionals to opt out of provision but not to have to refer on,”
Now forgive me if I’ve got this wrong but I thought that had always been part of the law? That those with a moral or religious objection do not have to take part in the process?
It would be rather difficult for devout Catholics or Muslims to train as doctors if that were not true would it not?
No you’re right that those with a moral or religious objection do not have to take part in the process; at the moment, however, they also have an obligation to refer a woman to someone who will treat her. This is under sustained attack, both informally by doctors and pharmacists who delay the referral or just plain don’t come clean that they won’t be referring on, and formally, through lobbying to change the rules so that there is no obligation to refer on.
Just a minor point - the ICM/Guardian poll at the weekend showed that only 20% of the voting public back the 90-day detention period, with 46% backing 28 days. This popular wave of support is an entirely invented proposition by elements of the media.
Fair enough, political hack, I didn’t see that.
An additional problem with this isn’t just about WHETHER a doctor refers on, but about WHEN the woman finds out that her doctor isn’t pro-choice.