Opposition to abortion, new British health minister worries women’s rights associations – 09/07/2022

British Prime Minister Liz Truss has promised a government not made up of old white men, but the formation of her team has already elicited a backlash. Abortion rights groups are concerned about the appointment of Therese Coffey as Minister of Health.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss has promised a government not made up of old white men, but the formation of her team has already elicited a backlash. Abortion rights groups are concerned about the appointment of Therese Coffey as Minister of Health.

Kofi, who will also serve as deputy prime minister, takes a regular stand against abortion rights, including her vote in Parliament. The new health commissioner proposed strengthening pre-abortion psychiatric assessments, in 2010, refusing to decriminalize Northern Ireland, then access to home abortion during the pandemic.

Women’s rights NGOs and many lawmakers fear that Truss’ government will limit access to abortion, which is already difficult in certain areas.

For associations, Covey, a devout Catholic, puts her convictions ahead of clinical recommendations and women’s interests.

And before her appointment as a minister in the new British government, she confirmed that she would not retreat from the laws in force. But this guarantee is not enough for associations that fear that Covey will not allocate the necessary resources to the already saturated interruption centers. Moreover, it is feared that it will not help promote access to abortion, which is very limited, for women in Northern Ireland.

These associations also consider that the UK has an obligation to defend this right, Especially after the abolition of the jurisprudence that guaranteed the right to choose in the United States.

Covey, a close friend of Truss, has the difficult task of restoring Britain’s public health services, weakened by 10 years of austerity and the pandemic, and is one of the new government’s priorities, according to the prime minister.

Elite cultural diversity

For the Home Office, Truss made another conservative option, Suila Braverman. The 42-year-old former lawyer, the daughter of Indian parents, must deal with thorny files such as those of immigrants arriving illegally on British shores. The previous government wanted to send them to Rwanda, a plan it strongly supported.

Braverman is admired by the Right for its attack on the so-called “awakened” ideology, which denounces the oppression of minorities, which has become an enemy of conservatives around the world.

Although the selected members show a certain cultural diversity, the Truss government is no exception: a large portion comes from the elite and came from large private schools.

Kwasi Kwarting, the new finance minister from Ghana, was a student at the prestigious Eton College for Boys before coming to Cambridge. Braverman also studied at the same university.

“It has to do with the social origin in which we have to make progress … we need more politicians who come from a grassroots social background,” says Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester. “But ethnicity is important,” he adds.

“We hear people from minorities saying: ‘They don’t represent us’.” So it’s important to have people around the table who share experiences of discrimination and racism,” he says.