Tag: devizes

Featured image by Gail Foster

A hard piece to draft today, reflecting a week after Devizes MP Danny Kruger tried to rewind women’s rights a hundred years by riskily casting his antiquated, and frankly, narrow-minded views on the subject of abortion, because I’m adamant not to make this an opinion piece, for my opinion matters not, being I’ve a penis.

Not that it’s particularly spectacular(!) but I do, and I, like all other men, need to accept it’s undoubtedly a choice to be made by women, and women only. If I need to explain my reasoning for that, you failed primary school level anatomy.

And if I ever reverberate chauvinist banter, jokes of parallel parking, for instance, I’d expect ladies to retort this cracker, because it’s bloody hilarious and true: “what’s the useless piece of flesh on the end of a penis called? …. a man!” In a manner satirical it’s a cold served dish of fair play, and being present at both births of my children it’s also exactly how I felt; a completely useless spare part, a spectator to some kind of circus noir.

I believe the late, great Robin Williams spoke best on the reality of being a man assuming he’s ‘sharing the childbirth experience,’ when he said “unless you’re passing a bowling ball, I don’t think so. Unless you’re trying to circumcise yourself with a chainsaw, I don’t think so. Unless you’re opening an umbrella up your ass, I don’t think so!”

Despite a mounting campaign in his constituency involving protests in both Devizes and Marlborough last weekend, petitions and Facebook groups set about calling for his resignation, he only met us halfway and abandoned his post as PPS to some department or other, which I didn’t even know about until now, dunno if you did, but it seems neither does Danny K, who used the wrong Twitter handle and dumbfounded a random bloke in the Arab world, who’s wondering why there’s such a sudden female interest in his Twitter feed.

And anyway, isn’t it just following public contentious, giving into opinion, and what’s much, much more, a convenient distraction from his outburst?

Hysteria is likely his POV, being his mum, TV celeb Dame Pru Leith’s dismay, hounded on social media although actually expressing her disagreement with him was well publicised. It was a kind of warped Some Mother’s Do Ave ‘Em rant, condemning Eton for brainwashing away any parental influence; I’m buying it.

One can only crack a giggle at the thought of Danny K face-palming like a teenager in the back of the car; “mum! Soooo embarrassing!”

Still, a tad of hysterical I shrug, at why mum needed a keyboard warrior onslaught, not really her fault after all, but there’s good reason to anger. Much less he must feel that way or he would’ve apologised and taken it back, rather than what he did do, affirm his original stance on the issue. Horary to the anonymous person who messaged an open letter from women concerned about Danny Kruger’s comments (some of whom went to the Devizes and Marlborough events on Saturday) which has now collected around over a hundred signatures.

For prosperity, the letter is as follows: “To whom it may concern,

A politically diverse gathering of deeply concerned constituents who are supposedly represented by Danny Kruger MP came together on Saturday in Devizes and Marlborough. Local women self-organised using social media and word of mouth, there has been a flood of concern, support for one another and a wish to demonstrate very clearly how we feel.

We believe people were moved to come together to challenge the statements of a man who is in a role that is meant to represent our views and that Mr Kruger’s ‘intervention in an urgent question’ – as he himself described it – on the catastrophic reversal of Roe V Wade in the US – is a cause for our concern.

He stated clearly in the House of Commons that he disagreed with his peers – who were expressing dismay at this reversal – he then continued that he believes women do not ‘have an absolute right to bodily autonomy’. We can see this has had an incredible impact in our community, and that many people felt they simply could not let this pass.

We believe he has used his platform as an MP inappropriately to extol a niche and regressive ideology, about a private matter between a woman and her healthcare providers, which is not how he should be representing his constituents and shows them little respect. In our view it should concern anyone who cares about their own or others basic human rights.

Many of us have seen his qualifying statement and have indicated we do not believe that he was speaking about maintaining a status quo in the UK, he voted last week against an amendment to allow the Government to extend abortion access in Northern Ireland, and expressed opposition to buffer zones around UK providers to protect women attending from the unwanted abuse of protesters. Given this it is difficult to accept that his statement addresses the concerns outlined above, nor does it adequately address his comments on Roe vs Wade.”

Why, oh, why, oh Danny-boy, in these times of turbulence at Westminster did you choose to offend the entire female population and a great deal of men with a sense of basic morals, in your constituency? Especially being the current trend in the topic stems from the Roe V Wade case in the USA, and isn’t even on the agenda here. Was it a guff, is he so confidence in his safe seat? Let’s rewind here a moment.

When baby-faced Danny K was parachuted in and stormed the 2019 general election, with a majority of 47%, his maiden speech called for “a return to Christian values,” remember?

Danny is a devote Evangelical, the religious group renowned for extreme views against abortion. Seems this wasn’t politically motivated at all, he was just using his political position to preach to us, to indoctrinate his religious beliefs. It’s one stage above door-to-door Jehovah’s Witnesses intent on shoving their faith down your throat when you’re trying to sort the kid’s dinner out. And what do most of us do in this frustrating predicament? We shove the door in their face; take a hint, Danny, before I burn the Abalphabetti Spaghetti to the bottom of the pan!

I sincerely hope we find ourselves loosely united now, after years of bickering, which is strange. Two factions, then, one wanting Bojo and his cabinet gone to form a better Conservative party, and, another more sensible faction who are sick to death of the whole bloody lot of them.

I give reference to the blatant oddity that when a vote of no confidence was due, for partying through a pandemic regardless of the law they themselves set, potentially spreading a killer virus further, MPs like Danny K decided to back the prime minister, but the thought of being touched up in Westminster proved too much to bear. Weird that Gove has gone but Pincher is still an MP; standards in office, the country’s interests at heart? Ha, there was me thinking post-partygate we were supposed to be “getting on with the important issues affecting the country……”

Oh fuck, I accidentally made this an opinion piece, didn’t I?! I just can’t stop myself sometimes, it’s true, the only thing I have in common with Danny Kruger is not knowing when to keep my big mouth shut!

All I know is this, yeah, I was a spare part in that maternity unit, but when the time came, and I held my daughter in my arms I was overcome with the most immense emotion of love, love for them both, incalculable to anything I’ve ever experienced before. I cannot see how any man could see it anything less, but alas, some do. I think you have to experience it to know, it’s lifechanging, but only in the correct circumstances. I have to accept circumstances for others is not the fairy-tale, and often problematic.

We don’t need to dig deeper into said problems, as we’re opening all manner of Pandora’s boxes, we just need to acknowledge, guys, there’s no way in the world any woman would take abortion on a whim, I don’t believe it’s possible for women to not take the decision seriously. But still, regardless Danny hit back rather than apologised, stating, “What I said in the Commons was that ‘in the case of abortion’ a woman’s ‘absolute right to bodily autonomy… is qualified by the fact that another body is involved.’ This is the basis of the law as it stands, which recognises that somewhere along the journey towards birth the foetus or baby acquires rights of its own.”

“The fact is that all autonomy – all liberty – is qualified. We are not absolutely free because we are not absolutely alone. ‘Absolute autonomy’ in the matter of abortion would mean no restrictions at all on the termination of healthy, viable babies up to nine months’ gestation. It is this radical position that I oppose. Studies of public opinion also show a clear majority in support of restrictions, including term limits.”

Not to mock this without good reason, because I’m above that, but consider he was driven to comment from the widespread criticism of the overturning of Roe vs Wade, which triggered the immediate suspension of abortion at any term in many states, not just the restrictions he now says here he’s against, and the holes in his statement begin to reveal themselves.

Did anyone claim a thirty-seven-week abortion was accepted practice? Either I must’ve slept through this bit, or it’s simply untrue. It was the SCOTUS ruling they protested against, bringing about the immediate and complete dissolution of many safe and legal abortion options, for any reason, including rape, incest, underage pregnancy, health of the foetus or mother, or just simple accident.

It’s a clever piece of wordplay, from an educated and articulate chap, trying to convince you against your right of decision. Keep up the struggle to defend it. Because it was a matter left to medical experts in the States, now criminalised, undoubtedly resulting in needless deaths as folk would take abortion into their own hands, as it was in the dark ages; a period of history this confirms our government wish us to return to.