I was going to do this short piece last week, but I just didn't find the time.  In fact if I was a proper part of  the glorious blogsphere I  would have spent most of yesterday voicing an opinion on BrandRossSachsGate or finding something to complain about bendy buses with a thirst for the fires of eternal damnation. But they're both unbelievably tedious so I'll just save that for conversations IRL.

Basically I'm calling Michael White a bell-end for his weirdly fanboyish coverage of Harriet Harman's nobbling of the proposed amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill last week, that would have made a huge difference to the 2,000 women a year in Northern Ireland who are unable to obtain an abortion in their home country.

Here's the article, and although I find it slightly weird that anyone with an interest in reform of abortion law should be labelled a 'zealot', it's definitely the Harman thing that grabbed me.

Near the top of the article:
'Vocally pro-choice MPs were furious that Harriet Harman - of all people - should be the leader of the Commons to engineer the sidestepping vote.'

Well, they would be I suppose. It certainly annoyed me and I'm definitely not an elected representative of anyone. But what you need to do Michael is leap to her defence! But how?

Skip to the end...

'Politics always divide between what the Greens call "fundies" and "realos", MPs who despise compromise and those who don't. On feminist issues Harman is one of nature's fundamentalists, brave enough to march into any minefield under enemy fire.'

What are you, her press secretary? Haven't you kind of shown, at the beginning of your 347 word article, that she did precisely the opposite? It's either that or Michael White doesn't think that abortion is a feminist issue. Bell-end.

Lord Steel today demanded that women stop treating their bodies as though they were their own and stick rigorously to his ideas of when abortion was appropriate. "When I campaigned for the legalisation of abortion, I was able to consider women as victims of an unjust law," said the peer, "but now women are treating it as though they've got a right to it or something. I'm still in favour of abortion of course, but I'd much prefer it if they didn't bring it upon themselves by wearing short skirts and making their own decisions."

That's your satires that is.

ETA:
Following a conversation with Comrade Patrol earlier in the week I don't think it does any harm to clarify the position I'm taking on Steel. Obviously I'm not comparing him to the Catholics or Mel 'clinically sane' Phillips - he's not actually barking as such. But this quote from the linked story makes the point:

'"Everybody can agree that there are too many abortions," he says in an interview in today's Guardian, calling for better sex education and access to contraceptive advice and a debate over sexual morality to help bring the numbers down.'

My point is, as Comrade Patrol has himself pointed out, that the idea of 'too many abortions' is a nonsense. It's a comment you can only make if you don't really believe that women have the right to make that choice for themselves - you could argue that abortions have a moral dimension in that there is a debate to be had over the wishes of the father, but few would coherently argue that the final choice rests with anyone but the mother. And no one but someone who considers their invisible friend so important that other people need to suffer for the sake of their fantasy would argue that there is a third party to consider in all this.