The international abortion wars

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas 2017.

On the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act, a panel of pro-choice campaigners from around the world discussed what is at stake in the battle for abortion rights. In many countries, the trend towards extending abortion rights seems to have been reversed. What does it mean to argue for a woman’s right to choose today? Is it right to think of abortion as ‘just like any other medical procedure’, or do wider moral issues arise? Is opposition to abortion rights the same the world over? Is such opposition essentially religious or based on a more universal moral intuition?

SPEAKERS

ANN FUREDI
chief executive, British Pregnancy Advisory Service; author, “The Moral Case for Abortion”

KINGA JELINSKA
executive director, Women Help Women

JON O’BRIEN
president, Catholics for Choice

AILBHE SMYTH
chair, Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, Ireland

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