Democracy also about a woman’s right to choose

ONE hundred years ago privileged women got the vote.

But contrary to contemporary media versions, the most important thing about that moment was that any working class men left after the killing fields of the First World War were finally allowed to vote.

Voting isn’t the only human right. But the test of feminists is whether they stick up for all women all over the world and not just women we meet at parties.

Women in Northern Ireland have been let down by privileged women and men for too long, The “democratic right” here is the right of women to make difficult ethical decisions about their bodies for themselves.

No woman should be criminalised for this. No woman should be forced to leave her family for an abortion after rape or incest and to be criminalised on return. This is a feminist test.