Inevitably, rights need to be defended

Well, it was obvious this was coming sometime during this Parliament. The Telegraph reports that amendments to further restrict access to abortion will be tabled to the Health and Social Care Bill by MPs including Nadine Dorries MP (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire) and Frank Field MP (Labour, Birkenhead).

[trigger warning]

The amendments haven't yet been filed, but the Telegraph reports that the first will:

[...] create a new precondition for any women having an abortion to receive advice and counselling from an organisation that does not itself carry out terminations.

...and the second will transfer responsibility for setting clinical guidance for abortions to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (away from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists).

The second appears to be more symbolic than anything else, at an initial glance: they don't like the recommendations that the RCOG is likely to produce, so they'll give the job to someone else less specialised. Given that two doctors are required to agree for an abortion to happen - one or two more than any other medical treatment - this may cause problems with finding doctors if the guidelines NIHCE comes up with are significantly more anti-abortion than the ones RCOG would have written, but there will still be plenty of doctors who believe that forcing someone to go through with an unwanted and/or dangerous pregnancy is sufficiently harmful in its own right.

The first comes right out of the USA anti-choice book, though. It's full of typical anti-choice assumptions:

• People in possession of a uterus automatically lose all their critical thinking skills and therefore, by force of law, must be required to be take advice and counselling whether they want or need it or not. No-one ever thinks about whether or not they should have an abortion before they walk into their GP's office.

  Unsurprisingly, this isn't applied to most other life decisions. Perhaps, given that - according to Science! - 99.81% of decisions on who to heterosexually marry are non-optimal, there should be mandatory advice and counselling for anyone wanting to get married. Religious organisations would not be allowed to provide this advice, since that would be a conflict of interest.

• The pro-choice side want to maximise the number of abortions performed. Therefore it's a major conflict of interest for advice to be provided by an organisation (such as the NHS) which also provides abortions.

  Claire Murphy of BPAS is quoted in the Telegraph article for the obvious reality:

  On average, 20 per cent of women who approach BPAS initially seeking an abortion eventually chose not to have a termination, [Murphy] said.

  “The bottom line is that like any other medical procedure, women have to consent before they receive abortion treatment,” she said. “We have no interest in pushing women into procedures they do not want. We are about giving women choices.”

• Reducing the number of abortions, in and of itself, would be a social good. The means taken to do this are irrelevant.

  The social problems resulting from a vast increase in the number of unwanted children - it's not as if our foster care and adoption services are keeping up with demand as it is; the health problems caused by carrying on with unwanted or dangerous pregnancies; the problems caused for families who neither want nor can cope with an extra child - all quietly ignored.

It's unfortunate, because there are several largely uncontroversially good actions which could be taken, one side effect of which would be to reduce the number of abortions. "Cheating" and just making abortions illegal or harder to get¹ doesn't have the same effect.

For instance:

• Researching - and not restricted to one form of reproductive anatomy, either - cheap, fully reliable contraception without side effects or the possibility of sabotage, and making this widely advertised and available to everyone in the country.
• Significantly increasing the level and range of support available to parents - especially those without much money, and those with disabilities, and single parents, and everyone else who differs from society's default parenting model.
• Major improvements in the coverage and availability of sex education for children - and, indeed, if we don't want to take most of a century to catch up, for adults too - especially on coercion issues (which often include coercion over contraception). Dismantling as much of rape culture as possible would help.
• Far more efficiency and effectiveness in dealing with domestic violence and rape.

All of these would - as a side effect - reduce the number of abortions that were needed annually, either by making it less likely that people would become pregnant unexpectely, or by making it more likely that people who became pregnant would be able to support a child for the following decades.

Of course, helping people is not really what these MPs go in for (both are well to the right of their party as a whole) - far easier to punish them for not doing exactly what those MPs would have done.

Aside on Parliamentary Procedure

Votes concerning abortion in the Commons are generally "free" or "conscience" votes on which none of the parties take a particular line. As far as I can tell, none of the major parties currently represented in the Commons have any official policy on abortion.

In practice, most Labour MPs will vote against restrictions, most Conservative MPs and most Northern Ireland MPs will vote for restrictions, and the Lib Dems will split roughly equally on both sides. When there was a Labour majority in the Commons, this wasn't too bad. At the moment, however, the odds are not good (though, with around a third of MPs being new, they may be better than it looks).

It's not clear yet whether the amendments will be submitted at committee stage, report stage, or for third reading, which affects who will be able to vote on them.

Footnote

¹ In Northern Ireland, abortion is almost entirely illegal. Middle-class people who are pregnant there can quietly get on a ferry to Great Britain, have an abortion, and return home. Poorer people need to rely on the services of groups like the Abortion Support Network to cover their travel costs, hotel bills, and so on. (ASN is always in need of donations to cover its costs, if you have some spare cash)

Quite a few of the suggested restrictions are heavily class-based. Outlawing abortion entirely would cause too much opposition from the middle-classes and their swing votes. Restricting it won't inconvenience them too much and "who cares about poor people anyway?".

Writing to the government

Some letters I've sent recently regarding recent issues. Specifically:

• Via Goriler of 3B, a letter asking that funding for a rape crisis centre not be cut. Please, if you have time, send your own as well, especially if you live in or near London.
• A letter to the Health Minister asking that they stop the letters accusing children of being too heavy.
• A letter to the Equalities Office to see if they have any idea what these exceptions are for.

Letters below.

[trigger warning]

As usual, please feel free to use these for inspiration for your own letters, though remember that letters in your own words are more powerful than copies of other letters, if you have the time and energy to do so.

Regarding RASASC

I sent this by email to mike.fisher@croydon.gov.uk.

Dear Mr Fisher,

You have recently announced that the funding for RASASC, the Croydon Rape Crisis Centre, will be cut by 27,000 pounds a year. This is a significant amount for a rape crisis centre, and it is likely to lead to the centre being unable to support hundreds of rape victims a year.

As the only rape crisis centre for the London area, the service it provides to victims is invaluable, and the effects of reducing its funding will spread well outside your own Council's boundaries. By running a helpline, supporting survivors of rape through counselling and through legal assistance at trials, it not only provides a vital public service, but provides a highly cost-effective way for your Council to support victims of crime.

The government have promised to improve the funding provided centrally for rape crisis centres, but it is not clear when - or even if - this promise will be fulfilled. Until then, it is necessary that others such as your Council play their part in keeping these services open. With thousands of rapes occurring in London each year, RASASC's ability to help additional victims is crucial.

Please restore RASASC's funding.

Yours sincerely,

[me]

Letters regarding children's weight

I sent this using the contact form on the Department of Health's website.

Dear Andrew Lansley MP, Health Secretary

I understand that you are looking for programmes run by the NHS and other health providers within your remit that could be reduced or eliminated without impacting the quality of front-line service.

I would like to suggest the sending of letters regarding the weight category of children, which is carried out as part of the National Child Measurement Programme. While the general aims of that programme are not in question, and the statistical data it gathers is perhaps worth much more to your department than the cost of gathering it, this particular application is not a good use of limited resources.

There have been a few reported cases - for example one last February reported at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/8523707.stm and one recently reported at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leeds/10505584.stm - where letters telling parents that their child is overweight and warning of dire consequences, have been sent out to the parents of children who were physically active, eat healthily, and nevertheless happen to be marginally above the guidelines set out by the previous government for a person's required weight.

It is extremely likely that these cases are only the tip of the iceberg and there are many more letters being sent out in similar circumstances. The mechanism used to determine who gets the letters guarantees this.

Firstly, the letters are sent out based on Body Mass Index. This measure was developed as a way of providing a statistical estimate across a wide population of adults. It has never been appropriate to use as an individual measure, has not necessarily coped well with the increase in average height over the century since its introduction, fails to account for normal racial and sexual variations between individuals, and other forms of normal genetic variation, fails to distinguish between fat and muscle mass, and certainly was never intended to apply to children, whose shapes vary considerably and rapidly as they grow, especially in early puberty when the second set of measurements for the NCMP takes place.

Secondly, the children in regard of whom these letters are being sent are at a young and impresssionable age. It may have been the aim of the previous government in introducing these letters to encourage healthy eating and exercise habits to start early. In practice, of course, the effect can be quite the opposite - the child in the second article above refused to eat their meal when they discovered that - as is of course natural and desirable for growing children - their weight had increased since the NCMP measurement. This is something that could very easily turn into a serious eating disorder.

Thirdly, the science regarding weight is inexact. Multiple research studies - Orpana et al 2009 in Canada (doi:10.1038/oby.2009.191), Lenz et al 2009 in Germany (doi:10.3238/arztebl.2009.0641), or the NHANES studies in the USA (Flegal et al 2005) have shown that - at least in Western industrial societies - the mortality risk of people with a BMI in the 25-35 range is not statistically different to that of those in the current government-recommended 18-25 range (indeed, there may be a marginally lower risk for those in the so-called "overweight" 25-30 range). This is the research for adults, suggesting that the BMI guidelines set out by governments for them may not be correct. There is no similar research I know of for children - because, regardless of their weight, children very rarely die of weight-associated conditions other than eating disorders - but it seems very unlikely that the BMI guidelines set for them are correct either.

Fourthly, even if increased weight is correlated with an increase in risk for various health conditions, and even if that correlation is causative, which has generally not been shown, there remains no reliable long-term method for reducing weight in the long term. The few 5-year follow-up studies that have been done show that dieting is ineffective. Exercise certainly improves general health, but does not appear to cause weight loss. Early indications are that the surgeries currently being trialled have a greater chance of causing early death than any of the health conditions associated with above-average weight.

As you have gathered, I would like to see a general move away from the overemphasis of the crude BMI measure, and from the excessive conflation of weight and health carried out by previous governments, in general.

For now, however, I would appreciate it if the money used to produce and send these letters was reallocated into other more useful areas of your department's activities.

Yours sincerely,

[me]

Equality Act exceptions

And finally this one to the Equalities Office general enquiries address, to see what they know. I'll post up the response if I get one.

Dear Government Equalities Office,

I have a number of questions regarding the Equality Act 2010, that are not answered by the explanatory notes provided. Could you please provide me with the Goverment Equalities Office's current opinions on these matters.

The wording of Section 12 is not completely clear to me. While the application of legislation would ultimately be a matter for the courts, does the Government Equalities Office believe that this section would protect those people who identify as asexual (i.e. they are not sexually interested in people of any gender) as well as the bisexual, heterosexual and homosexual people that it more obviously protects?

In the areas of dual discrimination (Section 14), the protected characteristics of "marriage" and of "pregnancy" are excluded. Does this mean that an organisation that did not in general discriminate against people who were married, and did not in general discriminate against women, would still be allowed to discriminate against married women? If so, could you outline a situation where it would be desirable for this to be legal for an organisation to do?

The same characteristics are excluded from Section 26 (harassment). Could you outline a situation where the harassment (as defined in 26b) of a person or persons due to their marital status or pregnancy would be desirable, please?

In Sections 29.8, 33.6, 34.4, 35.4, 85.10, and 103.2, sexual orientation and relgious belief are excluded from the Section 26 harassment prohibition. For each of these situations, could you explain why it might be both necessary and desirable for a relevant organisation to carry out harassing behaviour against LGB people or people of a particular religion?

Section 85.10 also allows harassment on the grounds of gender identity. Again, please could you outline a situation where this is desirable?

Section 85.10 applies to the admission and treatment of primary and secondary pupils. Section 91, which covers the treatment of students in Further and Higher Education, does not contain a similar exception. Could you explain why it is not necessary for tertiary education providers to be allowed to harass LGBT applicants, given that this is apparently necessary for primary and secondary education providers?

Section 95 states that the chapter on General Qualifications Bodies does not apply to marriage or civil partnership. In what case would a qualifications body wish to do make use of this (for example by withdrawing qualifications from people when they were married) and why is it required?

With regard to the above questions, if the Government Equalities Office cannot provide an example of a situation in which a particular exception would be desirable, could you tell me if there are any current plans by the government to remove that exception.

Thank you

Yours faithfully

[me]

Why is this still legal? The Equality-on-a-good-day Act

Why is this even legal? According to the BBC:

Residents of Firhall, built in the early Noughties on the outskirts of Nairn in the Highlands, must abide by certain rules. The deeds for their properties prohibit the keeping of ducks, rabbits, pigeons and bees. Households are allowed to have one dog - but controversially no resident children. To own a house in Firhall you must be over 45 years old. Grandchildren and the children of friends can visit and stay, but there are even limits on how often this happens.

It's not the only thing that's surprisingly legal, either. So much for the grand claims that the Equality Act would protect those most vulnerable to discrimination.

Looking at the Equality Act 2010, this appears to be entirely legal:

4 [...] The following characteristics are protected characteristics [...] age [...]

Part 4: Premises [...] 32.1 [...] This Part does not apply to the following protected characteristics [...] age

Looking at section 17, the terms would be unenforcable for the first 26 weeks of a child's life if their mother was already there, but that's all. (Of course, it would be relatively rare for a mother over the age of 45 to be living there, but not impossible). Otherwise, they seem to be within the exceptions the law provides.

Another unpleasant exception in this section, that I found in my "how is this possibly legal" search - you are allowed to harass people occupying or applying to occupy (as tenants) on the grounds of their sexual orientation or religion.

There's a similar but slightly broader exception in the Education section (which only applies to schools, not to FE colleges and Universities¹), the same exception in the Provision of Services section, and in the membership of associations section.

So Labour and the Lib Dems get an LGB-friendly reputation for supporting this legislation (the Lib Dems, to be fair to them, did attempt to amend some of these bits out), which mostly seems to consist of "You must supply these services to LGB² people, but you can '[create] an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for [them]' as much as you like in the process."

Additionally, neither "marriage and civil partnership" nor "pregnancy and maternity" are characteristics to which the harassment section applies at all.

There were some good bits in the Equality Act that hadn't been there before, such as the pay audits and the recognition of the existence of intersectional discrimination, and it's not as if by having these exceptions it was removing protections that previously existed, but it still hardly deserves the name. It's not as if this was a drafting error and an unnoticed loophole was left in until it was too late to take it out (though that, in its casual disregard, would be bad enough) - because of the way the Act is worded, someone had to specifically insert these exceptions.

Additionally, you can use these terms to push a lot of other things through. The Act doesn't say how wide an age group has to be, so you can legally say "Sorry, I don't rent to people who were born on 3rd April 1972 between 2am and 2:30am", and provided you then apply that rule consistently to later default tenants, you have a perfectly legal reason³ not to rent to any non-default person you like.

Other things that are entirely legal under the Act and really shouldn't be (or at least, if there is a real need for an exception, it should be the exception that is legal, not the rule):

• Pregnancy and maternity, and marriage/civil partnership, are excluded from the intersectional discrimination laws. So discrimination against all married people is disallowed, and discrimination against all women is disallowed, but discrimination only against married women is apparently fine (barring explicit exceptions elsewhere in legislation, of course)
• Refusing to provide a service to married and civilly-partnered people. (You can't, at least, just pick one and sneak in some homophobia) Similarly for single people.
• Same things for premises
• Same things for education (yes, your university can refuse to provide an education for single and/or unofficially partnered people, and I have no idea why, and likewise a qualifications board can legally withdraw qualifications from people when they get married/civilly-partnered, though what possible reason⁴ they'd have to want to I don't know)
• Additionally, the exception for harassment in schools applies to gender identity as well as the sadly usual pair of sexual orientation and religion
• The exceptions for what can't be required as a "reasonable adjustment" for disabled people are extensive.

The only area that doesn't seem to have masses of exceptions is employment. I may have missed some other exceptions, since there are a lot and the phrasing used for them varies.

¹ Yes, seriously. Apparently homophobia in admissions is essential, and banning it would have terrible consequences for the rights of bigots at the primary and secondary stage, but at the tertiary level the rights of bigots are unimportant. This makes even less sense than usual.

² It's not at all clear to me whether any of the Act applies at all to asexual people. It can be read either way. The explanatory note suggests that it doesn't apply to them, but I think a good lawyer could probably convince a judge that it did.

³ Disclaimer: not legal advice. If you try this argument you deserve everything you get.

⁴ "We've been homophobic for centuries and we're not going to stop now" is not a good reason, nor one that governments should be supporting people in, but you can at least understand which group of bigots lobbied to have that exception included. Some of these it's not at all clear why anyone would ask for them.

Just trying to be helpful, right?

A member of Sainsbury's staff attempted to prevent a woman from buying Cheddar because she appeared pregnant.

The unnamed member of staff was correct that:

• Ms Lehain, as it happens, was pregnant
• The Cheddar in question was unpasteurised

The member of staff was not correct in that:

• Unpasteurised cheese does not present a health risk at Ms Lehain's stage of pregnancy
• It's none of their business what she eats anyway.

Sainsbury's, of course, tried to wriggle their way out of it...

Sainsbury's said it did not have a policy of refusing sale of goods on the grounds that they might be unsuitable for pregnant women.

But it said it did ask staff to make customers aware of any safety concerns.

Let's do a quick thought experiment to see if this is true:

• Would you expect Sainsbury's (or any other store) to warn shoppers buying bacon that regular consumption of it has been linked to a small rise in the chance of cancer?
• Would you expect Sainsbury's (or any other store) to warn shoppers - verbally and forcefully, not merely with labels on the packaging - that the cigarettes or alcohol that they are purchasing have serious health effects?
• Would you expect Sainsbury's (or any other store) to warn shoppers buying kitchen knives that they are sharp, and refuse to sell them to people who (in the flawed assessment of their staff, of course) are insufficiently dextrous?

Quite clearly it's actually because pregnant women are public property. This is hardly the first time that a pregnant (or mistaken for such) woman has been refused service on similar grounds.

(As an aside, I find it interesting that the term "nanny state" can now be applied to entirely private-sector bodies, but of course it's the attitude rather than the actor that's the problem here)