The BBC Radio 4 program The Moral Maze discussed abortion yesterday. Unfortunately the head of Abortion Rights UK, Kerry Abel, had to weaken and muddle her own argument by doing the usual. Starting at about 11 minutes:

Anne McElvoy: “You believe very strongly in bodily autonomy, because it’s a woman’s body, am I correct?”

Kerry Abel: “Women n pregnant people, yup.”

AM: “That there is bodily autonomy and – so far it is women who have babies isn’t it?”

KA: “It depends if they refer to themselves as a woman [inaudible]”

AM: “That is a different show, but let’s” – she asks about fetal viability and the moral issue, whether there is one.

KA: “The campaign that I head up, we take the position that it has to be the woman or pregnant person’s point – that they are they are the you know the person with control over that so we would say they need to make that decision.”

They they they they – maybe that’s why she stumbled so badly, all that they-ing. It should all have been she, and then the fact that it’s women would have been underlined, but nooooooooooo, it had to be they, as if this legislative rape were happening to men too.

I didn’t listen to any more of it so can’t tell you how it went.