Abortion Rights - AXON RULING CRUCIAL FOR SEXUAL HEALTH AND A BLOW FOR ANTI-CHOICE LOBBY

AXON RULING CRUCIAL FOR SEXUAL HEALTH AND A BLOW FOR ANTI-CHOICE LOBBY

PRESS RELEASE

23 January 2005

Abortion Rights is relieved that the High Court has today rejected Sue Axon’s attempt to overturn government guidelines ensuring confidentiality for young people seeking sexual health information and services.

Anne Quesney, Director of Abortion Rights said:

‘The attempt by Axon to introduce a requirement for parental notification and consent is one of a series of attacks on women's reproductive rights promoted by the anti-choice lobby that are being exported from the US. In the US, many individual states have introduced legislation requiring parental notification and consent for abortion, resulting in young women travelling hundreds of miles to cross state boundaries or taking drastic action to end their unwanted pregnancies including self harm and back street abortion.

If we are to reduce the levels of sexually transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancy in Britain, we need to give young people the confidence to access information and services, not follow President George Bush’s aggressive anti-choice, anti-contraception agenda that endangers women’s health and equality the world over.’

For further information and interviews with Abortion Rights or women who have had an abortion please contact Abortion Rights on 020 7278 5539 or email choice@abortionrights.org.uk or see our website www.abortionrights.org.uk

Notes to editor:

1. Abortion Rights is the national pro-choice campaign, working to defend and extend abortion rights and provide a pro-choice voice to the media.

2. Abortion Rights is campaigning to:

· Oppose any restrictions to women’s current rights and access to abortion

· Liberalise the current UK abortion law and make abortion available on request in the first three months and with one doctor’s signature thereafter.

· Improve access to, and experience of, abortion – ensure that all women in the UK have equal access to safe, legal and free abortion.

3. Abortion in the UK

· One in three women has an abortion in her lifetime

· 76 per cent of the British population support a woman’s right to choose.

· Abortion laws in the UK are more restrictive than in almost every other European country, where abortion on request is legal in the first three months of pregnancy

· Abortion has been legal in Britain since 1967, but only by permission of two doctors and in restricted circumstances

· Ten per cent of GPs consider themselves to be conscientious objectors and frequently refuse to grant women an abortion, despite General Medical Council guidelines.

· A quarter of women having abortions in England and Wales have to pay for them - there are no public funds available specifically to help poorer women in these circumstances

4. Marie Stopes International recently produced a study showing the vast majority of under 16s do confide in parents when considering abortion. http://www.mariestopes.org.uk/uk/whats-new.htm