There are a couple of points I would like to address in this piece. The contention that ‘men are in favour of abortion’ is not a legitimate one from the data he cites. In fact, in almost all of the questions concerning abortion, in the Angus Reid poll at least, the only question where more women than men are in favour of restrictions is the one about time limits. Additionally, responding that one is not in favour of reducing the time limit is not the same thing as saying one is in favour of abortion. A more reasonable conclusion looking at the responses to the other questions is that a significant number of men who are not in favour of abortion under any circumstances answered that they are not in favour of reducing time limits, presumable as, in their view, this puts an outright ban out of reach. But it is the logic of the argument that unless men fear the responsibility of child-rearing, they will be siring bastards left, right and centre with gay abandon, leaving the poor women with the trauma of abortion that is most skewed. It’s somewhat misandrist at the very least, and poses the rather implausible contention that a man who would otherwise engage in unprotected sex with a woman careless of whether or not she becomes pregnant would be stopped in his tracks by the anticipation that the pregnancy cannot be terminated. In reality, men who have caused unwanted pregnancies throughout history have always done so, confident in the knowledge that the child is deemed by society to be the mother’s problem. Pre-pill, it was the knowledge that the social stigma was almost entirely hers. Post-pill, the knowledge that the decision to terminate or otherwise is also hers. I suspect that men who father unwanted pregnancies are simply taking the risk of the pregnancy itself, and do not consider the option to terminate or otherwise until the pregnancy happens.

Turning away from the practicality, in moral terms, what is being proposed by the argument that more men favour late-term abortion than women is to make the women who would choose a later abortion responsible for the sexual behaviour of men. And not just the man who fathered her child, but, if time limits were to be restricted on the grounds that easy access to abortion facilitates “male sexual aggression”, then all men as represented by a hypothetical sexually aggressive man only restrained by fear of causing a pregnancy. This alarmingly conflates legislation’s ability to “send a moral message” to society in general and those men (and women) whose behaviour in causing the pregnancy in the first place is so reprehensible that the only fitting punishment is an unwanted child, and legislation to promote the rights of individual women. The logical result of this is we end up having to explain to a rape victim 15 weeks into a consequent pregnancy that she should not be allowed her post 12 week termination because to do so would support male sexual aggression. That is making this woman responsible for not just the sexual behaviour of her rapist, but for the sexual behaviour of all men. This is not just the worst type of misogyny and victim-blaming, but profoundly logically and morally incoherent.

Surely if you believe in a woman’s right to choose, you are making a statement about a woman’s sovereignty over her own body. That right to choose extends to all aspects of the reproductive journey. It seems absurd to promote a woman’s right to choose not to have sex with a man (and lets leave aside the alarmingly regular occurrence of that choice making absolutely no difference to whether or not sex takes place) by taking away a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body. A society that says that a woman does not enjoy ownership over her own body to terminate an unwanted pregnancy implicitly begs the question as to who does enjoy that ownership. It becomes something that others can assert, and that is a culture that supports rape. Making inroads into a woman’s right to choose means diminishing all her choices, and that includes the choice not to have sex at all.

Jones is not averse to drawing presumptuous conclusions or making drastic imaginative leaps from the limited polling data available to him. He makes the assumption that 47% of women who want a reduction have come to this opinion on the basis of their empathy for women faced with the decision. On what basis does he presume to identify the reasoning of these women? He knows only how they responded to the question, not why. “on average, men are more responsive to abstract arguments that tend to favour the principle of choice and personal autonomy, while women (again, on average) may be more swayed by emotive images of unborn children with fingernails and smiles.” Not that there’s anything wrong with any woman coming to her own conclusion that abortion is wrong or that the time limit ought to be reduced on that basis, but his assumption that this is the motivation of women in supporting time limits is patronising and generalising.

Jones, despite making his own fair share of “lazy assumptions” is quick to criticise feminists for doing so. He states, as fact, that the divide on abortion is moral rather than political. This is profoundly odd, and not very useful other than to his rather convoluted attempt to swap the badges of ‘progressive and reactionary’. It is a basic tenet of first and second wave feminism – that the personal is political. There is no such thing as a moral debate that is not also a political debate, nor is there such a thing as a political debate that is not also a moral one.

The most cogent argument he makes in the piece is the conclusion: “One thing that does seem clear to me is that the pro-choice position depends less on a feminist argument than on a libertarian one. It says that a woman is, first and foremost, her own person, belonging neither to her family nor to her community or religion nor to her biological destiny but to herself. It asserts the primacy of the individual over the community and offers a scientifically reductionist view of the foetus as being essentially a biological fact and not yet a human being with rights. Research consistently shows that men are more responsive than women to libertarian arguments; women's instincts tend more to the communitarian. So perhaps we should expect men to "get" the pro-choice case more readily than women, despite the assumption that pro-life is anti-women. In this matter at least feminism goes with the grain of male nature and against the female.

“But hang on a minute. Isn't libertarianism supposed to be right-wing? Aren't pro-choice feminists predominantly of the left? Is it not true that the most vocal campaigns for abortion restriction are rooted on the political right, especially on the religious right? It is. I merely point out the paradox. I do not purport to account for it.”
Jones is evidently pleased with his rhetorical triumph in arguing that white is black, that feminists are right-wing liberatarians and that the soi-disant “pro-life” movement are the caring communitarians. But copy his conclusion, and do a find-and-replace. Swap “communitarian” for “authoritarian”, and “libertarian” for “liberal”, and we abruptly cut short his rhetorical look through the looking glass. Pro-choice are once again ‘left’ and pro-life ‘ right’. He is simply using terms so loosely as to strip them of all real meaning. That is why he cannot account for the ‘paradox’ he thinks he has found. It is not there.
The other point to address is one that Jones seems to think of as the dangerous assertion that a woman is first and foremost, her own person, belonging neither to her family nor to her community or religion nor to her biological destiny but to herself. He pejoratively labels this argument ‘libertarian’ but is it not also feminist, and beyond the very basis of liberalism, democracy or any number of basic underpinnings of modern British society? I think almost everyone, whatever their position on abortion and time limits, would view any assertion to the contrary as monstrous. It is the basic political presumption behind the American and French Revolutions, and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To deny women this degree of self-determination is to advocate the slavery of women, for if a woman does not “is first and foremost belong … neither to her family nor to her community or religion nor to her biological destiny but to herself”, then to whom does she belong? Jones seems to think that is to her “her family [or] to her community or religion [or] to her biological destiny” none of which alternatives are anything but abhorrent. Girls, today, in this country and around the world do in practical terms belong to their “families and communities and religions” and are forced into marriage and into the arms of an unwanted biological destiny. I am glad that I live in a society that Jones condemns as Libertarian that does not condone or endorse such things.
There is an honest, reasonable and legitimate way to be pro-life, and it’s the one everyone on both sides of the abortion debate shares. It’s the one that says to women whose pregnancies have developed past 24 weeks “I believe that you, as a woman, unfortunately, for a brief period as set out by law, should rightly in as limited a sense as possible, lose some sovereignty and self-determination over your own body. This is in accordance with basic principles of human rights – that no rights are absolute and are limited and constrained by the rights of others. The child growing inside you has attained a stage of development where its humanity and thus assumption of human rights are incontrovertible. It has acquired the right to life, notwithstanding its biological dependence upon you. “ That is the law at present. 24 weeks is, of course, an arbitrary time at which the switch from absolute to limited sovereignty takes place, and the debate will always be there, as medical science tells us more about foetal development, the point at which a collection of cells becomes a human being will change conceptually. Added to this, since the Pelagian Controversy, almost all Christians have sided with St. Augustine that the soul is created at the moment of conception. For believers, therefore, an embryo must have full human rights. But Augustine’s position on the creation of the soul led to one other conclusion that has profoundly affected our thinking in the West, and that is original sin. The conflict between the Christian’s fundamental belief in the dignity of human life from the moment of conception whilst that conception is simultaneously an act of evil is something that those of us who do not share their beliefs cannot understand. I would argue that the way in which the Doctrine of Original Sin explicitly or implicitly continuously returns the issue of life in the womb to whether or not the sex that began the pregnancy was morally acceptable automatically makes those who base their opposition to abortion on Christian religious conviction misogynist, but it does not mean that all who oppose abortion, particularly in the late term are misogynists.

Firstly, there's a massive difference between honestly wanting the time limit lowered and dishonestly using that as a way of winning a battle in a campaign to outlaw abortion completely. Perhaps women favour the former, but how many favour the latter? Because seldom, if ever, does an MP raise abortion as an issue without having a religious agenda that involves banning it completely. The fact that this agenda is cloaked in a smokescreen of chat about 'viability' and medical science shouldn't deceive us.

I wouldn't be surprised if more women than men also supported statements like 'women who sleep around are sluts and should change their ways' - when you know that you would be demonized for doing something, it can create the psychological impetus to distance yourself from it completely, whereas men may use language like 'slut' and 'whore' (thus creating a keen awareness in women that they may be judged) but not necessarily strongly believe that women who have multiple sexual partners are inferior.

So it is by no means clear that because more women believe something than men do, that their beliefs are actually in line with what is best for women.

The Truth is that every woman speaks for herself and no one can speak for her and she cannot speak for anyone else.

There is not one single woman herd, everyone is different. No one speaks for anyone but themselves, and I am a bit sick that a certain faction of society whether right/left feminist or religious is suddenly given the media position that they speak for me, which they do not.

Let's speak for the position or argument. I believe people need to take responsibility in sex and whether or not to get pregnant. if mistakes or accidents too happen then people need to make their mind up soon and not dither it out for weeks. Not good for anyone. and I have seen feminist women who are so bitter and power struck that they purposely do not use contraception. Know how much their partner would like a baby. string him along for months that the baby is going to be born and then purposely and spitefully invite him to attend the abortion advice clinic where they arrange and discuss an abortion in front of him knowing he cannot say anything. There is a lot of tricks out there and not everyone who is pro-women is not necessarily a raving nutter.

Also, I attended the Anti Pope demo when he came down. I went to a Protest the Pope do at the securlairist hall. Amazingly, although there was a special contibgent from the children who had been abused the whole comedy was about disposing of children and how children ate not needed and pretending to lead them away to be hurt. Then in the march I was walking aling with pro feminsist who had one anti child and pro-child abuse joke after another.

I and others found it very upsetting. We do not all think the same, and no woman or person speaks for me, except me.

The trouble with this article is that is implies the two positions (pro-choice and anti-choice/pro-life) are equal or similar-but-opposite. This isn't the case. Position 1 (pro-life) wants to force people to do something with their body that they don't want to do (the physical and psychological effects will last for years, and the health risks are very real). The other position says "if you don't want to do it then don't, but don't tell me what to do with my own body". Foetuses are not 'tortured', that's emotive nonsense. At least, no more than a baby is tortured by vaginal birth!

I'd also suggest that the fact that men seem to find pro-choice easier to understand than some women might be because men (even today) tend to be pushed towards science. They (scientific minds, male and female) tend to see a blastocyst instead of 'baby'. They might want that to become a baby, but it isn't necessarily right away there in their minds that a tiny collection of cells is a 'baby'.

I think the other side of this debate is whether the Catholic hierarchy speaks for all Catholics when it comes to abortion, either. Note the existence of the US-based Catholics for Free Choice organisation.

@newsbarf

"Two incredibly lazy but widespread assumptions combine in the notion of a "Tory war on women". Firstly that the divide on abortion is primarily political (and left-right) rather than moral, and that the pro-choice position is progressive and the pro-life one reactionary."

It is disingenuous to oppose political and moral categories. There are a number of academic studies showing that politics and ethics are intimately linked. Try looking at Jonathan Haidt's research on the morality of social conservatives and liberals (he has a TED talk if you don't like reading).